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John M. Tew, Jr., MD, a neurosurgeon with the Mayfield Clinic and Clinical Director of the University of Cincinnati (UC) Neuroscience Institute, has been named a Great Living Cincinnatian by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.

In becoming a Great Living Cincinnatian, Dr. Tew follows in the footsteps of Frank H. Mayfield, MD, the founder of the Mayfield Clinic who earned the honor in 1980.

Like Dr. Mayfield, Dr. Tew earned international renown as a gifted and pioneering neurosurgeon, a compassionate doctor beloved by his patients, and a leader dedicated to excellence, continuous improvement, and the health and well-being of his community. Both Dr. Mayfield and Dr. Tew led the University of Cincinnati Department of Neurosurgery; both served as president of the Ohio State Neurosurgical Society; and both were at the forefront of technological innovations in their field.

Dr. Tew served as Professor and Chairman of UC's Department of Neurosurgery for 20 years before co-founding and taking the helm of the UC Neuroscience Institute in 1998. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

He continues to maintain an active medical practice and, in the role of Professor of Neurosurgery, continues to play a vital role in the training of tomorrow's neurosurgeons.

Dr. Tew grew up on a farm in North Carolina, where he was a 4H club leader and, at age 14, was crowned Cotton King. He learned his first surgical skills from his grandfather on the family farm. Encouraged by his mother, who was unable to attend college, and his father, who was unable to finish high school, Dr. Tew dreamed of a world beyond the farm and enrolled in Campbell Junior College, seven miles from home. He was unprepared for pre-med courses, but an organic chemistry professor saw promise and gave him a job sweeping floors and assisting in a laboratory.

Dr. Tew transferred to Wake Forest University for his final two years. After graduation he entered Wake Forest's medical school, where he was named "best anatomist" in his freshman class. It was the first academic prize of his life and an acknowledgement of his dexterity with tissue and his ability to confront the insides of the human body.

He performed his neurosurgical residency at the Harvard University-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital. In a life-changing development, he won the prestigious Van Wagenen Fellowship, which allowed him to train under Gazi Yasargil, MD, the founder of micro-neurosurgery, at the University of Zurich and Zurich Kantonspittal. There Dr. Tew learned to use the new operating microscope, which was making the treatment of deadly brain aneurysms predictably successful for the first time. Recruited by Dr. Mayfield, Dr. Tew joined the Mayfield Clinic and UC in 1969.

Dr. Tew further developed the science of microsurgery to treat disorders of the nervous system; he introduced non-invasive radiofrequency for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and was the first to apply lasers in neurosurgery; he led the team that brought radiosurgery to North America for the treatment of brain tumors and vascular malformations; and he was part of the team that brought endovascular techniques to the treatment of vascular formations. Revered in his field, he has been elected President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and President of the Academy of Neurological Surgeons.

Early in his career Dr. Tew dreamed of creating a renowned Neuroscience Institute for Cincinnati. Today, the 11-year-old UC Neuroscience Institute features 10 collaborative centers and programs, has achieved a rarefied benchmark with national recognition in 13 neuroscience specialties, ranks among the top neuroscience centers in North America, and treats thousands of patients from around the region each year.

Dr. Tew is a member of the board of directors of the Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Museum Center, University of Cincinnati Foundation, University Hospital Foundation, University Hospital, Wake Forest School of Medicine, and Mayfield Clinic. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the UC Brain Tumor Center and Campbell University, a member of the Clever Crazes for Kids Advisory Board, and a member of the Literary Club of Cincinnati and the Commonwealth and Commercial Clubs of Cincinnati. He is a former member of the Xavier University Board of Trustees. He is a member of Bellarmine Parish at Xavier University and a Knight of the Order of Malta.

Dr. Tew has been a member of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati's Tocqueville Society since 2004 and was a member of the cabinet for the 2009 campaign. Concerned about the social, financial and neurological implications of the increasing prevalence of obesity, poor fitness, and chronic disease, he has become a passionate advocate for healthy living (view his lecture "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life").
He received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal, an honor by Pope John Paul and presented by Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk, in 1989. He has received the Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cincinnati Business Courier, the Boy Scouts of America Eagle Court of Honor from the Dan Beard Council, the Daniel Drake Medal from the University of Cincinnati, the Distinguished Service Citation from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Leadership Medallion from Xavier University, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from Wake Forest College of Medicine. He was an Honored Guest of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and he has earned honorary doctorates from the College of Mount Saint Joseph and Campbell University.

He and Susan, his wife of 44 years, have three children and nine grandchildren. Meanwhile, Dr. Tew and his sister continue the family's farming tradition in Linden N.C., where additional acres are being cultivated in beautiful long leaf pine as an active forestry program. In Cincinnati, Dr. Tew enjoys biking, strength training and yoga and spends innumerable hours teaching his grandchildren to enjoy athletics and the arts.

Like all drugs, it has side effects. Patients who take it will need to be monitored. And it has not even been approved yet by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But Maria Melanson, MD, Clinical Director of the Waddell Center for Multiple Sclerosis, is among those who are clearly excited about the first oral drug for patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. An FDA advisory committee recommended approval of the drug, fingolimod, on June 14.

Fingolimod has the potential to improve the lives of many of the Waddell Center’s more than 1,000 patients for two reasons: It will spare patients the discomfort – and in some cases misery – of injections. And, because it is an entirely new drug, it offers hope to patients who do not respond to current medications.

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CINCINNATI—Just like its namesake, the Marvin Mouse has a game plan. And if all goes well, it could lead to victory over a debilitating disease.

The Marvin Mouse is what researchers at the Waddell Center at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute call a "transgenic mouse." It is being used as an animal model in experiments designed to shed light on how killer T cells contribute to multiple sclerosis (MS).

Some of the funding for their research has come from the Marvin Lewis Community Fund—a charitable foundation formed in 2003 by the Cincinnati Bengals head coach and his wife, Peggy—and is used to generate the Marvin Mouse. Having the mouse in place as a reagent helps bolster the research team’s case for grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“It’s important to be able to conduct detailed investigation of human disease mechanisms in animal models,” says Aaron Johnson, PhD, research assistant professor in the neurology department at UC’s College of Medicine and a former honorable mention all-state football player himself. “By gaining insight into what happens in human MS, you have the potential to design therapeutic targets to fight the disease.”

Says Lewis, a member of the UC Neuroscience Institute’s Advisory Board: “I am grateful that our donation is helping UC researchers learn more about multiple sclerosis through the Marvin Mouse. “This builds on the Angelo Papastamos Grant we funded, which was named after my brother-in-law who has MS.”

According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, MS is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system—the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Symptoms range from numbness in the limbs to paralysis or loss of vision. Progress, severity and specific symptoms are unpredictable and vary from one person to another.

In MS, the body’s own defense system attacks myelin, the fatty substance that surrounds and protects healthy neurons (nerve fibers) in the central nervous system. When demyelination occurs, the neurons themselves can be damaged, disrupting nerve impulses traveling to and from the spinal cord and producing the variety of symptoms that can occur.

Johnson’s research focuses on killer T cells, which have drawn increasing scrutiny in the past 10 years (previous MS research predominantly focused on helper T cells). Numerous clinical studies have found killer T cells in close proximity to areas of demyelination where neurons and axons (the long fibers that conduct impulses away from the body of the nerve cell) were being severed.

“It doesn’t mean they did it,” Johnson says of the killer T cells, “but it’s kind of like the criminal at the scene of the crime. You need to develop animal models now to try and determine the mechanism by which this can occur.”

Johnson, with research technician Yi Chen, has done several studies to determine how killer T cells can contribute to disability in mouse models. Already, they have found that removal of killer T cells preserves motor ability and that killer T cells are able to disrupt the blood-brain barrier that keeps toxins in the blood from reaching the brain.

“To really get at how a T cell does this, you use the animal models,” says Johnson. “We need to find out what cell type in the central nervous system this T cell is specifically engaging. And in human MS, you will never get the answer to that question because you simply cannot do a mechanistic study in human beings.”

Using the Marvin Mouse, Johnson’s team has been able to develop a strategy by which it can silence the target of the killer T cells: the MHC class I molecule that they recognize on the surface of certain cell types. If the target is silenced, the killer T cells are effectively neutralized.

“In other words,” says Johnson, “the Marvin Mouse completely disrupts the ability for class I molecules to surface and can help define important interactions in neurological disease.”

The goal, Johnson says, is to continue to gain insight into what happens in human MS and gather information that will be helpful in designing therapeutic targets to protect cells in the central nervous system.