February Faculty Features

Faculty Features is a column that recognizes the accomplishments, honors and efforts of VCU faculty and staff. Please send information regarding an individual's activities and accomplishments to vcunews@vcu.edu.

Douglas Arthur, M.D., Department of Radiation Oncology
Arthur joined thirty cancer experts from around the world at the National Cancer Institute recently in Bethesda, Md. to discuss various issues surrounding accelerated partial breast irradiation. This is an innovative treatment that reduces radiation treatment time from six weeks to just days. Arthur was invited to the meeting to discuss how physicians in the Breast Health Center and his research team in the department of radiation oncology at the Massey Cancer Center have been investigating this treatment approach.

Theodore Chung, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Radiation Oncology, and Deborah Lebman, Ph.D., Department of Medicine
Chung and Lebman received a $30,000 Massey Cancer Center Pilot Project Grant for their cooperative research project on the "Interactions between TGF-beta and Ionizing Radiation in Esophageal Cancer. Through this study, which began recently, Chung, Lebman and their research teams hope to identify targets within growth factor pathways, particularly those associated with transforming growth factor-beta that can be manipulated to increase the effectiveness of radiotherapy in esophageal cancer. Chung was also recently awarded an A.D. Williams grant, which allows him to independently develop related work.

Herbert Hirsch, Ph.D., Department of Political Science and Public Administration
Hirsch's new book entitled, "Anti-Genocide: Building an American Movement to Prevent Genocide," was published in January by Praeger Publishers. His latest book begins where his previous one, "Genocide and the Politics of Memory," stopped. Hirsch's first book was an analysis of what causes genocide, while the new one examines how to prevent it. The new book is a critical examination of the foreign policy of the Clinton and Bush presidencies as they applied to the prevention of genocide, and focuses on how to build an American movement to prevent genocide by putting pressure on the United States political institutions and leadership.