Dear Medical College of Georgia Friends,
Dr. Ashok Sharma named associate director of Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine
It always makes me so proud to see MCG’s “homegrown” talent succeed. There are many great examples of that across our medical school. One of those is certainly Dr. Ashok Sharma, who first came to us two decades ago to complete his PhD in genomics and bioinformatics at the Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine (CBGM). After graduating in 2011, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship and quickly joined our faculty in 2012. He’s been on an upward trajectory ever since – most recently serving as director of the Bioinformatics Core for CBGM and as program director of biomedical sciences in his former PhD program.
He’s also been critical to a better understanding of science. As we all know, over the last decade, high-throughput technology has certainly revolutionized research – generating huge data sets in short order. But a challenge has been figuring out how to decipher what’s meaningful among those data. With a background in computer science and genomics, Dr. Sharma is masterful at that.
In this new role, he will help drive more innovations, research collaborations
His research has focused on vision – particularly what insights big molecular information gathered from tiny ocular fluids (like our tears and aqueous and vitreous humors) can provide about diseases like glaucoma, macular degeneration, dry eye disease and diabetic retinopathy. He is a prolific scientist who has served on five different National Institutes of Health Study Sections and is principal investigator on a $2 million R01 grant from the National Eye Institute to study sex-specific differences in the microRNAs and proteins in our tears and how that contributes to the severity of dry eye disease.
But true to his altruistic spirit, he is also deeply invested in others’ success and a long-term goal of his lab is creating user-friendly software tools to help other scientists analyze big data in meaningful ways. That’s just one reason why I believe that he was a natural pick to serve as CBGM’s new associate director. In this role, he’ll help drive innovations in genomic medicine, enhance the development of precision health care and help secure more collaborative research opportunities. What a full-circle moment for Dr. Sharma and for CBGM. Congratulations.
MCG experiment that traveled to space showing positive results
The type of groundbreaking research that Dr. Sharma and the entire faculty in the Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine are doing is crucial to our mission here at MCG. It not only helps us recruit and retain the best students, residents, physicians and physician-scientists; it also helps shine a national spotlight on the remarkable things that are happening here. Here’s another example. Remember back in August when I told you about a research idea – generated by a team of MCG physicians – that was traveling to space? Long story short, Dr. Matt Lyon, director of the Center for Digital Health, and his colleagues believe that astronauts with weaker optic nerve sheaths – likely from concussions or mild TBI’s – are more susceptible to the vision changes associated with space travel because of the way cerebrospinal fluid shifts and presses against the optic nerve and retina in the absence of gravity. They used 3D ultrasounds to screen astronauts participating in September’s Polaris Dawn mission and predict which ones would experience those issues. The early data has come back and it appears that their original hypothesis was correct – which is an important step toward establishing a way to assess astronauts and their risk of space-associated vision changes. An added bonus? They’re also designing better ultrasound equipment to be more conducive to low-gravity screenings.
Campus Match for MCG Class of 2028 will see nearly a third of the class living and learning at regional campuses
I told you last week about the great Match Day results for our Class of 2025. This week we learned about a different, but just as successful match – the Campus Match for our freshman medical students at our main campus in Augusta. I believe that one of the best parts about the education we provide at MCG is our ability to offer our students the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of medicine, from complex care hospitals to small-town solo practices – and to do that in every corner of our state.
When these students start their clinical rotations in January, nearly a third of them from our main campus – 60 in total – will live and learn at one of our regional campuses statewide. That includes our campuses in Albany, Rome and Dalton as well as at our newest campuses in Thomasville at Archbold Medical Center and in Atlanta at Wellstar Kennestone. This bicentennial class also includes our first cohort of 41 students from our four-year campus in Savannah, who will do most of their clinical rotations at or near that campus, and 60 more students from our Partnership Campus in Athens. So…if my calculations are correct… around 160 (or more than half) of the students in our freshman class will receive the bulk of their clinical education from our educational partners (at a partnership hospital or alongside a solo private practitioner, for instance) who have generously stepped up, and a lot of times volunteered, to teach the next generation. Truly exciting and inspiring.
Make plans now to join our Community Clinical Faculty at our annual Statewide Faculty Development Conference, May 29-31 in Jekyll Island
No doubt what makes our regional campus network tick is the hundreds of those volunteer faculty – we simply could not make this work without them. I always welcome a chance to thank them for what they do, and I wanted to make sure you knew about one of those upcoming opportunities. Our 2025 Statewide Faculty Development Conference is planned for May 29-31 on Jekyll Island. This great annual gathering is an opportunity for us to connect with our community faculty, educational affiliates, and academic leadership across the state. There’s a great three days planned with content aimed at recognizing current transitions in medical education and inspiring innovation in curricular implementation. I hope you will make plans to join us there if you can.
My best to you always,
David C. Hess, MD
Dean, Medical College of Georgia
Upcoming Events
April 18 – MCG Faculty Senate Meeting, noon, Natalie and Lansing B. Lee Jr. Auditorium
April 25-27 – Alumni Weekend, https://www.augusta.edu/alumniweekend/
May 8 – MCG Hooding Ceremony, 2pm, James Brown Arena
May 29-31 – MCG Faculty Development Conference, Jekyll Island
