I am very happy to announce the launch of the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (JREHD). Beginning in 2014, it will be published quarterly.

JREHD is the first journal dedicated to examining and eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. It is also the official journal of the W. Montague Cobb/NMA Health Institute, whose mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. Published by Springer, the journal aims to report on the scholarly progress of work to understand, address, and ultimately eliminate health disparities based on race and ethnicity. The journal currently considers original articles, solicited “evolutionary” reviews presenting state-of-the-art thinking on problems centered on health disparities, and unsolicited review articles of timely interest.

The academic home office of the journal is here at the UConn Health Center. This is a tribute to the university’s dedication to eliminating health disparities. As Editor-in-Chief, I thank everyone involved for their efforts during the past months in ensuring the journal’s successful launch.

On September 21st, I was excited to stand on the TEDx stage in the University of Connecticut and give a talk on “Regenerative Engineering.” My talk highlighted the tremendous work being carried out here at the Institute for Regenerative Engineering. More specifically, I discussed our latest invention — a bioengineered matrix for the regeneration of torn anterior cruciate ligaments of the knee.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is a global set of conferences under the slogan “ideas worth spreading”. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. I was happy to be included in UConn’s first TEDx conference.

My talk will be added to TEDxUConn site by the end of October, please visit www.tedxuconn.com.