UMB Puts Knowledge into Action
What happens inside a university does not stay there.
It leaves with a newly trained nurse caring for a patient, a lawyer representing a client, a pharmacist helping someone manage a complex illness, a social worker working with a family, or a dentist providing care in a community that needs it.
It also leaves through research. A question investigated in a laboratory can lead to a clinical trial, a new treatment, a technology, a company, or a change in how care is delivered. Research in law, social work, public health, and other fields can inform policy and change professional practice.
For more than two centuries, the University of Maryland, Baltimore has educated professionals, conducted research, provided care, and served communities in Maryland and beyond.
At a time when higher education is facing heightened scrutiny and reductions in federal research funding, UMB continues to focus on its core mission: educating the next generation of professionals, advancing research and discovery, caring for patients and clients, and serving communities across Maryland and beyond.
Questions about the value and priorities of higher education have become increasingly prominent in the national conversation. Critics have raised concerns about whether universities are focused sufficiently on academic rigor, student success, responsible research, and preparing graduates for productive careers.
At UMB, those priorities are central to the University’s work. Faculty members are deeply engaged in teaching, research, clinical care, and client advocacy. Students are preparing for careers in health care, law, social work, research, and other fields that serve the public good. And the vast majority of UMB students complete their degrees and move into careers that put their education to work.
Across its seven schools and throughout its research, clinical, and community programs, UMB’s impact can be measured not only by what happens on campus, but by what its graduates, faculty, staff, and partners contribute to Maryland and communities around the world.
“We have a state desperate for care providers and advocates, and UMB is delivering that workforce,” said UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS in remarks in September during UMB’s convocation ceremony. “I see highly successful research scientists and scholars having an impact; discoveries changing the practice of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing; opinions influencing high-court decisions; and new approaches to meeting the needs of communities in Baltimore and beyond.”
The stories of three patients highlight the life-changing research and patient care provided by UMB.
Becca Valle was diagnosed five years ago with glioblastoma, a malignant brain cancer that kills most patients within 12 to 18 months of diagnosis. She enrolled in the clinical trial of Graeme Woodworth, MD, the Howard M. Eisenberg, MD Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), who developed an innovative approach to make chemotherapy more effective using a technique called focused ultrasound. Of the 34 trial participants, 40 percent have lived three years or more, including Valle, who is now 42 and doing well.
“Think how valuable those five years have been to her,” Jarrell said.
Two patients with sickle cell disease, a painful condition that leads to vital organ failure and death, recently entered the sickle cell gene therapy program at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. Jessica Ceja and Ese Sifo are the first two adult patients with sickle cell anemia to undergo gene therapy in Maryland to cure them of the debilitating disease. The program is run by Jean Yared, MD, and Jennie Law, MD, who is a UMSOM graduate.
“Research like this took decades to develop, with success and failure, requiring university and medical center partnerships,” Jarrell said. “It is expensive, slow work. But do you mean to tell me that this research isn’t worth that big investment? That it has been a waste of federal dollars? I bet these patients would say very differently. This is the best it gets.”
Faculty at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Social Work also have helped the Unger group, 237 individuals who were incarcerated for violent crimes before 1981. It later was determined that they had been wrongfully convicted, and many were released from prison after 30 years.
Seeing a need for social and legal services, law professor emeritus Michael Millemann, JD, and Rebecca Bowman-Rivas, MSW, Law & Social Work Service Program manager at Maryland Carey Law, developed a program to help them return to society.
“In Maryland, 40 percent of individuals released from prison return to prison within three years,” Jarrell said. “But with this program, the return rate was 3 percent. Individuals who faced a life sentence, literally, were now returning home.”
UMB has taken steps to further tell its story, such as its “Breakthroughs Can’t Wait” campaign; connecting with legislative teams in Annapolis and Washington, D.C., when new federal policies are announced; partnering with Maryland’s attorney general; and committing $33 million to support the University’s research enterprise.
“We all see what’s possible,” Jarrell said. “We all see what’s at stake. That’s our story.”
He said UMB’s purpose is to improve lives.
“We’ve been here for over 200 years, and we’re going to be here for another 200 years,” Jarrell said. “Our measure of success is not going to change. It will always be our impact on people’s lives.”