Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine Archives

U of U Giving U of U HealthSpencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine Pulse of the Community

January 3, 2024

Dr. Sarah Franklin in her lab at the University of Utah on Wed. March 8, 2023. Photos by Kim Raff for Love, U

One person dies every 34 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease—and adults living in rural areas have a 19 percent higher risk of developing heart failure. Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the US since 1950 but thinking about two people dying nearly every minute because of it makes a statistic most Americans have heard at some point in their life feel quite startling. While these CDC statistics don’t appear to be going away any time soon, there is hope in science—particularly in the lab of Dr. Sarah Franklin.

Dr. Franklin runs one of 12 labs housed in the Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute (CVRTI) working toward making breakthroughs in the fight against heart disease. As a principal investigator, Dr. Franklin manages a team of researchers collaborating to study on a molecular level what happens when the heart transitions from a healthy heart to early and late stages of disease. “We do that so we can understand the process better, and then hopefully develop better therapies from that knowledge,” she says.

The research team in Dr. Franklin’s lab is focused on studying epigenetics, a field that tries to understand what genes are involved in the heart and how the heart functions, and then examines how those genes are modified in a normal heart or during the disease process. Her team studies SMYD 1, a gene that is part of the SMYD family of proteins and has been identified to only be expressed in the heart’s muscle or skeletal muscle.

Their work has included studying genetically modified mice to determine whether increasing the amount of the SMYD 1 gene can protect the heart from a heart attack. Preliminary findings yield optimistic results. “We can show that this is a protective effect in these mice. The next step from that discovery would be to understand what’s happening in the tissue, and then, how can we translate that to potential therapies in humans?” Dr. Franklin says. “To be able to reduce the severity of a heart attack by 70–90 percent is a huge thing. If we can now do that in humans, it would be significant.”

Her work in the lab has the potential to transform human health—a theme that carries over into additional roles on campus at the University of Utah as assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine, adjunct professor of biochemistry, and assistant director of the Rural & Underserved Utah Training Experience (RUUTE) program in the School of Medicine.

Dr. Franklin is committed to changing the lives of those connected to the medical community—whether by being in it or accessing it as a patient—for the entire state. It’s a goal inspired by her roots.

“I grew up in rural Utah on a cattle and sheep ranch near Price,” she says.

Assistant directing the RUUTE program allows Dr. Franklin to stay connected to her hometown community as well as the many other rural communities throughout the state. “It’s something that’s really close to my heart, because I grew up in a wonderful community that I loved, but also there were a limited number of opportunities, whether that was education-wise, in being exposed to certain sciences, or even health careers,” Dr. Franklin says.

The RUUTE program aims to give students the opportunity to experience high-quality research that helps them be more competitive as they apply to graduate programs or medical schools while also exposing them to various health science fields they can go into as career options—and it serves the important purpose of providing more advanced health care to rural communities. According to a 2020 census report, 15 percent of all Utahns live in rural areas. However, only 7.9 percent of physicians practice in rural locations. Dr. Franklin and her colleagues are working tirelessly to change that.

As the main medical school for the Intermountain West, the University of Utah has hired hub leaders who work in communities like Price to connect rural providers to the university so they can continue to get additional education. And through RUUTE, students in the School of Medicine can gain firsthand experience serving in these communities.

“They are giving medical students the opportunity to lean what it’s like to be in a rural community and some of the unique aspects of providing healthcare,” Dr. Franklin says. “They’re also allowing these students to see if they want to go back to these communities to be a provider to provide quality healthcare for individuals that may not have the same opportunities and access to physicians as you have in the greater Salt Lake area.”

The program also includes several educational initiatives that engages with K–12 students in all corners of the state to help them see themselves in health sciences.

“I love our outreach programs to these rural communities because I was one of these kids,” Dr. Franklin says. “I was one of those individuals who didn’t always have all the educational opportunities that are sometimes given, or at least available, to students that live in the larger area of Salt Lake.”

As her work in and out of the lab continues to evolve, Dr. Franklin is excited for what’s to come. At the CVRTI, the Eccles Foundation has made a generous donation to expand a new wing onto the institute, which will allow for hiring additional research faculty.

“Philanthropy can be incredibly impactful when it comes to research. When individuals are able to donate money to support research endeavors, they are allowing new projects to be started that have significant impacts on human health,” Dr. Franklin says. “It’s exciting to be in an area where we really get to take a step to the edge of knowledge and then push that envelope to discover new things that we didn’t know before as humans.”

And as new ground is broken in the research labs, Dr. Franklin is looking forward to the ways in which outreach efforts made by the RUUTE program will ensure that the benefits are felt throughout the state. “It’s wonderful that the University of Utah has continued to expand these initiatives to make the University for Utah,” she says.

U of U Giving CausesStatewide Service Partnerships with SUU, UTU take flight on second Utah Across Utah Tour

September 25, 2023

For a minute, the crackling sounded like the Zoom call was crashing.

Turns out, it was just a University of Utah physical therapy graduate student’s potato chip bag rustling in a classroom on Utah Tech University’s campus in Southern Utah. The fiber optics for the virtual lectures are that good.

U of U Giving U of U HealthSpencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine The Movement of Medicine

August 1, 2023

Dr. Sara Lamb at Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake City on May 26, 2022. Photo by Kim Raff for Love, U campaign

Dr. Sara Lamb at Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake City on May 26, 2022. Photo by Kim Raff for Love, U campaign

As the practice of medicine evolves, Sara Lamb leads Utah’s effort to reimagine how we train the next generation of health care providers.

Sara Lamb wants to see a world where health care is accessible for all. It’s a lofty goal, but she is not alone in aiming to achieve it. Equitable health care requires communities to work together—each individual playing a part for the greater good. For Lamb, that comes in the form of training and educating medical students through cutting-edge programs that prepare physicians of the future to not only provide exceptional care but serve as advocates for those facing barriers to health care along the way.

As vice dean of education in the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, Lamb collaborates with colleagues to build a program that attracts top prospective medical students from around the world. But attracting exceptional candidates starts with offering exceptional training.

“We have compassionate faculty who care about our students, who care about giving them the most exceptional learning experience of their life,” Lamb says.

Providing stellar education and training requires staying ahead of the health care landscape’s evolutionary curve. To do this, Lamb and her colleagues are committed to thinking outside of the box. In 2021, her team launched MedEdMorphosis, an ambitious movement to transform the medical student education program to extend beyond the surface of curricular changes into the community.

“MedEdMorphosis embarks on looking at: ‘what are we doing to prepare young people who are in that K through 16 timeframe to want to become physicians? How do we entice people from all areas of our state and from all walks of life to think: medicine can be a future for me,’” Lamb explains.

photo by Kim Raff

The movement will help overcome common challenges in medical education, seek ways to leverage positive changes, and innovate to maximize benefits for students and patients. While MedEdMorphosis influenced big changes in the curriculum—the new curriculum, Mission-Driven MD, launched in August of 2023—it also inspires an approach that helps students learn from and engage with people from all walks of life.

“We hope to embed our students in our communities—to make them part of community clinics and give them essential roles in the care of our patients from the very first day they start medical school,” Lamb says. “Giving students ownership over clinic operations so they really understand how health care is delivered is a critical component to helping people understand the barriers to good care—as well as how to change the system so that we can advocate with our students for better systems.”

Lamb is looking forward to what the future brings for the School of Medicine—and how the upcoming Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine building will help facilitate preparing the U’s medical students for making their mark in the field. The new building will offer simulation learning, a world-class anatomy lab, and spaces designed for students to work as a team. They will learn how to practice emergency medicine in simulated settings that represent the mountainous, desert, and rural landscapes that comprise Utah, and they will elevate bringing theory to practice by training together in ways that build comradery.

With MedEdMorphosis, change is coming. Lamb can’t wait to introduce the world to the physicians it will have inspired.

“Our students can be essential contributors to the care of patients. These are smart people, they are motivated and passionate,” she says. “We have an awesome medical school right now, and we intend to be even more exceptional, more innovative, and on the leading edge for a number of things.”

photo by David Titensor

U of U Giving U of U HealthSpencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine A Model for the Future

July 20, 2023

The University of Utah is teaming with renowned designer Mehrdad Yazdani to imagine a new home for the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. The result will change the way we see health care throughout Utah and beyond.

As long as Mehrdad Yazdani can remember, he’s had a sketchbook.

Even as a child growing up in Iran, he would carry it around and draw the things he loved. In elementary school, it was soccer: sketches of his favorite teams, drawings of a goalie blocking a shot. Later he moved on to his favorite cartoon characters. But by high school his tastes had become more sophisticated as he favored impressionist painters over cartoons and learned to mix oil paints to copy artists like Cézanne and Van Gogh. It was in high school that he made a big decision: He would become an artist.

When Yazdani’s sister applied to architecture school at the University of Tehran she began to study for the entry exam. Little brother Mehrdad tagged along and took some painting classes, and soon he saw a new avenue for his love of art: the creation of physical spaces. “Just seeing and hearing what they were talking about, and what architects do, and seeing pictures of well-known architectural buildings and monuments across the world,” Yazdani says, “I realized that architecture could be something that allows me to merge my passion and interest in the creative process with the ability to impact people’s lives on a broader scale. The places they live, the places they work, the places they worship.”

Yazdani took his shot at the architecture program his sister was preparing for—taking the allday exam that would test him in literature, English, math, drawing, and architectural history. He was in—and in with accolades: 3,000 students took the exam that year; the school chose 80, and Yazdani was number four. He entered the program in 1978, but his time at the University of Tehran was limited. One year later, the Iranian Revolution began, and
Yazdani began to think that schooling in the country would change—or at least be put on hold for a time, so he looked to the States to continue his education. He earned a spot at the University of Texas-Austin—the No. 10 architectural program in the US. From there, he went on to earn another degree at Harvard’s School of Design and eventually created Yazdani Studio for design and architecture, a partnership with Cannon Design in Los Angeles.

U of U Giving U of U Health Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine Breaks Ground