Summer 2018 Catalyst Newsletter

CATALYST A CAMPAIGN NEWSLETTER FROM UMB

The campaign, formally launched in October 2017, aims to boost funding for student scholarships, faculty excellence, research, clinical initiatives, school-centered priorities, and community engagement endeavors. The fundraising effort is built around Big Ideas, including conquering chronic pain, eliminating addiction, managing critical diseases, embracing entrepreneurship, and strengthening communities.

UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, notes that the Catalyst

(AS OF MAY 31, 2018)

CAMPAIGN MILESTONE

$314M

$400M

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has surpassed $400 million in gifts and commitments to its Catalyst campaign as it rises toward a goal of $750 million.

The longstanding anchor institution in Baltimore is seeking an unprecedented level of philanthropic support to fuel the continued progress of its numerous highly regarded academic, research, clinical, and community engagement programs. With growth in federal and state dollars expected to be relatively static for the foreseeable future, it is deemed essential that the University secure meaningful gift support, partnership, and collaboration from alumni and friends to further enhance UMB’s programs.

$396.8M RAISED TO DATE

Catalyst Campaign Tops $400 Million Milestone

2020 GOAL $750M

SUMMER 2018

(OCT. 14, 2017)

BIG GIFTS SINCE THE PUBLIC LAUNCH

campaign is “a most ambitious undertaking — but one that’s absolutely vital to ensuring that this University continues its leadership and success in shaping the future of health, well-being, and justice. I earnestly invite our alumni and friends — in fact, anyone interested in improving the human condition — to join us on this impactful journey.”

The Catalyst campaign is co-chaired by UMB Foundation, Inc. Board of Trustees members Ellen H. Yankellow, PharmD ’96, BSP ’73, and Brian J. Gibbons, JD ’87.

Recently secured principal gift commitments have added significantly to the campaign’s momentum.

For information on how you can participate, visit catalyst.umaryland.edu.

catalyst.umaryland.edu catalystcampaign@umaryland.edu

University of Maryland School of Nursing Receives $10M Gift to Fund Conway Scholars A gift of $10 million from Bill and Joanne Conway, through their Bedford Falls Foundation, will enable the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) to provide scholarships to nearly 350 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees and aid in addressing the state’s nursing workforce needs. Maryland is one of four states in the nation anticipated to experience a shortage of 10,000 or more registered nurses by 2025.

This transformational gift, the largest in UMSON’s history, will be disbursed over a five-year period. The Conways have pledged more than $15 million to UMSON during the past three years. Their most recent gift is one of the largest outright scholarship gifts to any school of nursing in the country.

“What the Conways understand better than most is not only that Maryland needs nurses, but that Maryland needs nurses now,” said University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) President Jay A. Perman, MD. “Maryland is among just a handful of states facing the country’s worst shortages in nursing. The Conways’ extraordinarily generous gift will begin remediating these shortages. And ultimately, what that means is that the care we provide to Marylanders will improve: Patient outcomes will improve, complex care will be delivered with fewer errors, we’ll shorten inpatient hospital stays. And so this gift is really an investment in the health and safety of all of Maryland’s citizens.”

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The Conways’ latest gift will fund 341 scholarships, bringing the total number of students benefiting from Conway Scholarships to more than 470. Two previous gifts, in April 2015 and January 2017, to date have funded 106 scholarships for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral nursing students at UMSON’s locations in Baltimore and at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville.

“Bill and Joanne Conway’s unwavering commitment to support nursing students is transformative for the University of Maryland School of Nursing,” said UMSON Dean Jane M. Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN. “Combined with two previous gifts, this exceptional third gift will mean that more than 470 undergraduate and graduate students will benefit from full scholarships to defray their educational expenses. The Conway Scholars, some of whom have already graduated, are forever grateful for the unprecedented level of financial support and are deeply committed to fulfilling Mr. Conway’s vision that the scholars always demonstrate caring and competence in the nursing care that they provide to the individuals, families, and communities they serve.”

In addition, the latest gift funds Conway Scholarships for Registered Nurse-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RNto-BSN) students from the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus and from the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center. These students will complete prerequisites for baccalaureate nursing education at their local community college, the costs for Continued on page 3 catalyst.umaryland.edu

Continued from page 2 which also will be covered, and will then matriculate to UMSON as Conway Scholars upon successful completion of the prerequisites.

“We are incredibly honored and appreciative of the Conways’ demonstration of generosity, which will be invaluable in advancing the expertise and careers of dozens of nurses who are privileged to care for our patients at UMMC Midtown and UM Prince George’s Hospital Center,” said Lisa Rowen, DNSc, RN, CENP, FAAN, chief nurse executive, University of Maryland Medical System; chief nursing officer, University of Maryland Medical Center; and UMSON associate professor. “This gift gives our nurses an incredible opportunity to pursue additional training and knowledge that directly benefits our patients while also furthering their nursing careers.”

The Conway Scholarship covers in-state tuition and fees.

Postbaccalaureate recipients also must commit to serving as a clinical preceptor, teaching as a clinical instructor, or securing

a full-time faculty position within three years of graduation.

Additional information on the Conway Scholarship and its requirements may be found at www.nursing.umaryland.edu/ conway.

The Conways decided several years ago that their philanthropy should help people who have demonstrated financial need to receive the education necessary to obtain jobs. Bill Conway is co-founder and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group, in Washington, D.C. The Conways are trustees of the couple’s Bedford Falls Foundation, which has bestowed significant nursing scholarships previously in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools in the United States and is in the top 10 nationally for all of its ranked master’s and DNP specialties. Enrolling nearly 1,900 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the school develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.

Opioid Crisis Sparks Action from SOP Researcher

By Randolph Fillmore

Excerpted from Capsule Winter 2018; the full article can be viewed at www.pharmacy.umaryland.edu/go/capsule-winter-2018.

Blazing across the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) website is one big question: “How did this happen?” The question begs answers for how and why so many Americans — young, old, rich, and poor — are trapped in an opioid drug dependency cycle that too often turns deadly.

The crisis has been growing for some time, and now even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls the crisis an epidemic. According to the CDC, more than 33,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2015; 12.5 million misused prescription drugs, 135,000 used heroin for the first time, and 2 million were diagnosed with prescription opioid use disorder.

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More recently, CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimates that more than 100 Americans die each day from opioid overdose. The CDC also reports that in 2016 prescribers wrote 66.5 opioid and 25.2 sedative prescriptions for every 100 Americans. By 2013, estimates for the economic costs of the opioid crisis already had reached $78.8 billion.

Continued on page 4

CATALYST SUMMER 2018 | 3

Continued from page 4 “No one should be surprised about where we are today,” says Andrew Coop, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) and associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. “It didn’t come out of the blue.”

Coop points to several contributing stops along the path to today’s national opioid crisis. First, a 1980 letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed that addiction was rare with long-term opioid therapy and encouraged liberal use of the painkillers. Second, in the late 1990s, a broad and successful national effort to consider pain a “fifth vital sign” emerged.

Goal: Treating Pain Without Creating Dependency For Coop, having an effective pain reliever that does not lead to dependency would be a pharmaceutical “holy grail.”

Andrew Coop

“We need a drug for which there is no reinforcement, one that does not have an abuse liability,” says Coop.

“To accomplish this, new biological understandings are being utilized toward reducing undesired effects.”

Coop and his colleagues have made considerable headway in accomplishing that task with the development and patenting of a drug called UMB 425. While treating pain as effectively as opioids, UMB 425, a synthetic derivative of a naturally occurring opioid used to make oxycodone and other drugs, does not create user dependency.

“Creating an effective painkiller with no abuse liability is a two-step process,” explains Coop, who does not use the term “addiction” when he talks about beating the opioid epidemic, preferring to refer to the mechanisms of addiction, which he identifies as “reinforcement” and “dependence.”

“The first step is developing a drug without dependence,” he explains. “We have accomplished that, demonstrating it

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in animal models. Step 2 — eliminating reinforcement, the rewarding effects — stops the abuse liability.”

Coop and his colleagues are working on opiates that would target more than one kind of receptor. The approach, called polypharmacology, is based on the idea that targeting different kinds of receptors could modulate one another’s effects, providing pain relief without dependence.

To create UMB 425, Coop and his colleagues altered how opiate drugs interacted with opioid receptors in the brain.

While there are several opioid receptors, clinically approved opiates generally target the same one, called mu. Inside mu receptors, the drugs activate two pathways — one that triggers immediate painkilling effects and another that prompts the body to adapt to the drug. It’s the second pathway that leads to dependence.

Unlike other pain relief drugs that act on only one biological target, UMB 425 acts on two opioid receptors. Opioid receptors are G protein-coupled receptors located in the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, and gastrointestinal tract. To date, three opioid receptor subtypes have been identified: mu ( ), delta ( ), and kappa ( ).

UMB 425 blocks delta, which prevents the receptor from adjusting to high levels of mu activation, leading to tolerance and dependence. It’s not clear why, he says, but activating both receptors at the same time reduces the negative side effects.

Preclinical tests have shown UMB 425 to be as potent as morphine, yet the drug maintains its effects even after the laboratory animals receiving it received repeated doses.

Coop explains that the work has moved forward thanks to a TEDCO Maryland Innovation Initiative grant. TEDCO, created by the Maryland General Assembly in 1998, helps facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technology from Maryland’s research universities and federal labs into the marketplace and assists in the creation and growth of technology-based businesses in all regions of the state.

Coop says that a spinoff company eventually will get the patented formula to market.

catalyst.umaryland.edu

Major Bequest to Endow UMB Presidency A recent planned bequest from an anonymous donor will endow the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) presidency for years to come.

The generous gift — which will not be available to UMB until the donor’s estate is executed — is currently valued at $15 million. This endowment will give the University’s president the discretion and ability to fund UMB programs and initiatives. Included will be endeavors in cancer treatment, research, education, and technology; scholarships and activities that improve the student experience; and programs in health care, education, research, and community service thatGIFTS benefit SINCE the people and PUBLIC communities of Maryland’s BIG THE LAUNCH Eastern Shore.

Regarding the planned bequest, UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, said, “This extraordinary gesture by a generous friend to UMB will enlarge our capacity to transform lives here in Maryland and well beyond. It will enable the University president to apply resources where they’ll have the greatest impact, and I’m deeply grateful for such a meaningful vote of confidence in UMB.” UMB’s endowed presidency, to be named for the donor when the estate is executed, will be one of very few such endowments in U.S. higher education.

SIGNIFICANT GIFTS SINCE THE PUBLIC LAUNCH (OCTOBER 2017)

OCT. 2017

$25,000 from the AdalmanGoodwin Charitable Foundation, Inc. to support the CURE Scholars robotics program

NOV. 2017

$3.5 million from the Erin Levitas Foundation to the Carey School of Law to establish the Erin Levitas Initiative for Sexual Assault Prevention

catalyst.umaryland.edu

$15 million from an anonymous donor to endow the presidency to support cancer-related programs and student scholarships, among other things

DEC. 2017

$700,000 from the Center for Adoption Support and Education to the School of Social Work for sponsored research in the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative

$750,000 from Ellen Yankellow, PharmD ’96, BSP ’73, and $250,000 from Jill Molofsky, RPh, CCHP, for the School of Pharmacy’s Center for Women in Pharmapreneurism and the Community Engagement Center

JAN. 2018

$50,000 from Nobel Biocare USA, Inc., to fund the Implant Periodontal Prosthodontics Postgraduate program at the School of Dentistry

FEB. 2018

$100,000 from the Gibbons Family Foundation, Inc. to support programming at the Community Engagement Center

APRIL 2018

$10 million from the Bedford Falls Foundation to the School of Nursing for student scholarships

MAY 2018

$20 million from Robert E. Fischell, ScD, to establish the Robert E. Fischell Center for Biomedical Innovation at the School of Medicine

CATALYST SUMMER 2018 | 5

UMB's Home for Entrepreneurship: The BioPark and the Grid West of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard lies Baltimore’s largest biotechnology cluster, the University of Maryland BioPark. Originally conceived in 2003, the BioPark has grown to serve as a launching point for companies that have graduated from area incubators or spun out of local universities, such as its neighbor and leader in biohealth and technology sciences, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Today, the space is shared by therapeutics companies, research labs building diagnostics services and new medical devices, bioservice contractors, workforce development programs, and University research institutes, providing more than 1,000 jobs in a range of positions.

The BioPark recently celebrated a new initiative with the opening of the Graduate Research Innovation District (Grid).

Located in West Baltimore’s historic Lion Brothers Building, it is a modern and welcoming innovation space for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and entrepreneurs — from both inside and outside of UMB and the University System of Maryland.

It is a convenient location where creative people can come together to develop their health and social impact ideas, collaborate with like-minded innovators, and seek advice from on-site experts, including professors from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law’s Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic and the Maryland Small Business Development Center.

Designed to support new ventures through education, earlystage funding, and programming, the Grid catalyzes the interprofessional spirit of entrepreneurship that expresses UMB’s mission. The space houses educational endeavors

6 | UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE

including workshops, office hours, special programming, and degree programs such as the Master’s in Health and Social Innovation. It offers students a place where they can focus on topics such as biomedical entrepreneurship, user experience, and health science.

A bright future of innovation is on the horizon for UMB students, and philanthropic support will improve access to unique educational opportunities and innovative programming that will give them a head start as leaders and entrepreneurs in the health and life sciences community.

Supporting the Grid is truly supporting the next generation of makers, doers, creators, and problem solvers in Baltimore.

The Grid is a place where students who have a passion for taking an idea, developing it, and bringing it to market can engage with each other, engage with experts in the field, and either work with budding startups or launch their own company. We’re trying to make an environment where our incredibly enthusiastic and bright young people see a future.

— UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, speaking on the podcast Bio Talk with Rich Bendis

catalyst.umaryland.edu

An ‘Astronomical’ Gift: Blausteins Donate 1609 Kepler Book to HS/HSL Mordecai Blaustein, MD, is a longtime faculty member in the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology, chair of the department for 24 years, and former director of the school’s Maryland Center for Heart, Hypertension, and Kidney Disease. Dr. Blaustein and his wife, Ellen, have made the gift of a rare original book, Astronomia Nova, by Johannes Kepler. The Blausteins have provided generous and continuing financial support to the School of Medicine and the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL), donating several collectible and historic books to the HS/HSL during his tenure at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Published in 1609, Astronomia Nova contains the results of Kepler’s 10-year investigation of the motion of Mars. It is considered one of the most significant books in the history of astronomy, detailing the sun as the center of our universe, and includes the first mention of the planets’ elliptical paths.

Astronomia Nova has been appraised at a value in excess

of $200,000. When sold, the book’s proceeds will be used to establish a faculty scholar position in the School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology.

Until that time, the book will be housed in HS/HSL’s Historical and Special Collections Department.

The University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc. (UMBF) expresses sincere gratitude to the Blausteins for their generous gift and the staff at HS/HSL for their expertise, knowledge, and skill in preserving this rare edition.

To learn more about the HS/HSL and its extensive array of information expertise and resources, or to support its vital work and service in advancing the UMB missions of teaching and learning, discovery, and service, visit hshsl.umaryland.edu and click on “Donate.”

DAVID HILLMAN IN MEMORIAM The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) recently lost long-standing Board of Trustees member David H. Hillman after a 15-month battle with cancer. Chairman and CEO of Southern Management Corporation (SMC), David served on the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc. (UMBF) Board of Trustees for more than 18 years. He and his wife, Suzanne, demonstrated a genuine dedication to furthering UMB’s mission to improve the human condition and serve the public good. Their commitment was expressed through their service as well as significant charitable contributions.

With a $5 million gift in 2009, David and Suzanne provided major funding for the student center at UMB, the SMC Campus Center, which bears the name of David’s corporation.

This transformational gift remains the largest donation from a trustee in the history of the UMBF Board.

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When their gift for the campus center was announced, Hillman said, “We’ve chosen education as our legacy.

Education changes the world for the best, and, when localized, education gives back to the community again and again.”

The Hillmans’ enthusiasm for UMB’s physical growth, along with the University’s rise in national rankings and research funding, inspired them to make an earlier gift to the President’s Scholarship Fund. Through their generosity, 10 students each academic year receive funding to help defray the expenses they incur through their education at UMB. David’s commitment to Baltimore extended beyond UMB. A leader in the redevelopment of Baltimore’s Westside, SMC’s success has been fueled by the values of education and community investment. The largest privately owned residential property management company in the Mid-Atlantic, SMC builds and manages properties in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. SMC’s employees are encouraged to participate in the corporation’s many community outreach efforts, and in doing so, they ensure David’s legacy will endure.

CATALYST SUMMER 2018 | 7

WAYS TO GIVE

ONLINE AND RECURRING GIFTS Visit www.umaryland.edu/ giving/CatalystNews

GIFTS BY CHECK Make payable to UMBF and send to University of Maryland, Baltimore Office of Philanthropy 620 W. Lexington St., 2nd Floor Baltimore, MD 21201 Please include the area you’d like to support in the memo line.

IRA CHARITABLE DISTRIBUTIONS

GIFTS OF APPRECIATED SECURITIES

Direct transfer from an IRA to UMBF (age 70½ or older).

Contact your fund administrator and the Office of Planned Giving (plannedgiving@umaryland.edu or 1-877-706-4406).

Stock gifts may be transferred to the UMB Foundation.

Call 410-706-4385 in advance to alert the UMB Office of Philanthropy of plans to make such a transfer.

Gifts for the University of Maryland, Baltimore and its schools are administered by the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc. (UMBF), a 501(c)(3) organization, and are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. A portion of any contribution to the University of Maryland schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, and social work may be used to enhance advancement efforts.

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