USF recruits top neonatologist

[Drewski]

http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2007/12/10/daily4.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Dr. Lewis Rubin, neonatologist and a co-director for the Cleveland Clinic's Fetal Care Center, has been recruited to fill the Pamela S. and Leslie M. Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatology at the University of South Florida.

Rubin also will serve as professor and chief of neonatology in USF Health's Department of Pediatrics and medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Tampa General Hospital. He starts April 1.

In addition to conducting research meant to advance the care and well being of premature babies, Rubin will work with Dr. Ruben Quintero, director of the USF Health Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine, and regional hospitals to expand the diagnostic and treatment capacity of the USF Fetal Therapy Center, a release from USF said.

The $4 million research endowed chair that Rubin will hold is part of one the largest gifts given in Florida to support research and care for newborns, the release said.

The 2006 gift from Les Muma, the retired co-founder of Fiserve (NASDAQ: FISV), and his wife Pamela, supports an initiative by Tampa General and USF to build research and medical teams, laboratories at USF Health and expand the NICU at TGH. The gift has a total impact of $14 million after eligible state matches.

Rubin plans to bring several members of his Cleveland research team to USF, the release said. The group will work out of USF/All Children's Hospital Children's Research Institute in St. Petersburg and collaborate with faculty at USF and affiliates Tampa General, All Children's and Moffitt Cancer Center.

Rubin has served as chair of the department of neonatology and staff scientist in the department of cell biology at the Cleveland Clinic and a professor of pediatrics and molecular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He also directs neonatology for the Cleveland Clinic Fetal Care Center, teamed with physicians who direct obstetrics and surgery and a fetal care nurse coordinator.

USF Health includes the University of South Florida's colleges of medicine, nursing and public health; the schools of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group.