|
||||||||
|
BULLETINMedical Dean Announces Two New Endowed ChairsTwo new endowed chairs were announced in June by HMS dean Joseph Martin. The George H.A. Clowes, Jr. professorship is to be held by a faculty member in the Department of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The new chair is made possible by a gift from the Clowes Fund. George H.A. Clowes Jr., a 1937 graduate of Harvard College and a 1941 graduate of HMS, was a senior member of the Harvard faculty at New England Deaconess Hospital, where he served as chief of the surgical metabolic division in the Cancer Research Institute. At the time of his death in 1988, he held the title of professor emeritus. The Nicholas T. Zervas professorship in neurosurgery is to be held by a faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and was established by a gift from MGH. The new professorship honors Zervas, the Higgins distinguished professor of neurosurgery at MGH, who from 1977 to 2000 was chief of neurosurgery at the hospital. He is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in both the basic and clinical aspects of neurosurgery. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, and has served as president of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery and chairman of the American Board of Neurological Surgery. The first incumbent of the Zervas professorship is Paul Chapman, who most recently was an HMS professor of surgery (neurosurgery). He is chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and neurosurgical director of the proton radiosurgery program at MGH. In addition, Chapman, who is fluent in the ancient and modern languages of Egypt, spends three weeks each year performing surgery for free in Alexandria.
Hopi Students Take On Summer School at HMS It is a 90-mile bus ride over dirt roads each way for some students motivated to attend Hopi Junior/Senior High School in northern Arizona. But last month 11 juniors and seniors traveled much farther for a three-week program at HMS designed to expose them to postgraduate college life and show them they can compete with others vying for admission to prestigious universities. For the second year in a row, top students from the reservation school visited the Quad for case-based learning, lectures, lab visits, and bioengineering research projects, all hosted by HMS neurobiology research professors David Potter and Ed Furshpan. Well grounded in basic biology and math, one team of students studied and diagnosed the case of "Tina," a woman whose flu eventually led to a life-threatening case of bacterial pneumonia. The other team designed a conceptually sophisticated weight-bearing prosthetic knee using little more than pre-calculus math skills and ingenuity. Above, senior Cheryl Talashie, 17, presents her final individual project on the last day. This summer for the first time, the program also is hosting visiting students and teachers from the Fort Peck reservation in northeast Montana. (Photo by Jeff Cleary)
HMS Faculty Named to American Academy Of Arts and SciencesThree HMS professors have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bruce Spiegelman, professor of cell biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Mark Fishman, professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Elliott Kieff, the Harriet Ryan Albee professor of medicine at the Channing Laboratory, will be inducted into the academy in October.
MASCO's 30th Turns Talk to Public Transit
The Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization--MASCO--marked its 30th anniversary on May 15 with a half day of events presenting its scope of services to the Longwood medical and academic area and discussing key planning issues that face the community. Boston mayor Thomas Menino (right) led off an afternoon symposium stressing the importance of the Longwood commercial area, which brought in $2.9 billion in the previous year. "Medical breakthroughs and miracles happen right here in Longwood," Menino said. A panel discussion followed the mayor's talk, moderated by the Boston Globe's Anthony Flint and featuring urban planner David Dixon, historian and author Sam Bass Warner, and MIT lecturer Frederick Salvucci. Though the three saw development in Longwood from different perspectives, a consensus that emerged was the pivotal need to improve public transportation. Dixon pointed out, for example, that since 1970 traffic in the Boston area has increased 15 times faster than the population. A further complication is that more than half of MASCO's 17 members have construction projects that are either recently completed, under way, or publicly proposed and are estimated to draw more than 2,500 additional permanent workers to the area in the next several years. In the Q&A that followed, the proposed Urban Ring transportation project, based on both bus and rail systems, which began in 2001 and is expected to last until 2016, was advocated as part of the solution to Longwood congestion. MASCO is a charitable corporation founded in 1972 by its member institutions to plan and develop the Longwood medical and academic area for members as well as the general public. MASCO's institutions, which include HMS, stretch from Wheelock College to Wentworth Institute of Technology to the Center for Blood Research to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. (Photo by Bob Sheehan)
Awards Recognize Mentors and MenteesHosted by the Office for Diversity and Community Partnership, the seventh annual Excellence in Mentoring Awards Ceremony, on June 12, saw the presentation of the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award to Elio Raviola, the Bullard professor of neurobiology, and the A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award to five other HMS faculty members. In the keynote address, Howard Hiatt, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, raised the point that the flip side of being a mentor often is simultaneously becoming the mentee. This role-swapping tendency was also mentioned by the award winners. Marie McCormick, for example, an HMS professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital and the Sumner and Esther Feldberg professor of maternal and child health at HSPH, described mentoring as mutual learning and mutual teaching. "They teach you as much as you teach them," she said. The other award winners were Gary Fleisher, professor of pediatrics at Children's; J. Philip Kistler, professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital; Isaac Kohane, associate professor of pediatrics at Children's; and Ellen Seely, associate professor of medicine at BWH.
Students Win Boston Schweitzer FellowshipsEleven students from HMS, HSDM, and HSPH have been named 2002-2003 Albert Schweitzer Fellows out of the 28 named recently by the Boston Schweitzer Fellows Program. During the fellowship, students design and carry out health-related community service projects to assist individuals or communities that lack adequate health services. The fellows and the organizations they will be working with are HMS student Anh Bui, Vietnamese Cable TV; HMS student Rachelle Pierre, Haitian Health Careers Initiative; HMS students Joyce Hairston and Dayle Whiteman, Hennigan School; HMS student Joan Hu, Germaine Lawrence School for Girls; HSPH student Christine Ricardo, Hennigan School; HSDM student Rishita Saraiya, Boys and Girls Club of Boston; HSDM student Doreen Toskos, Bridge Over Troubled Waters; HSPH student Ami Zota, Alternatives for Community and Environment; HMS student Rochelle Witt, Suffolk County Jail; and HMS student Michael Westerhaus, PACT-DOT.
Honors and AdvancesAnthony del Campo has been named vice president for research and technology ventures at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Del Campo will oversee intellectual property management, technology licensing activities, and other interactions with industry. Previously he was senior director of corporate development at Genome Therapeutics Corp. in Waltham. The American Psychiatric Association and the Association of Women Psychiatrists have named Carol Nadelson, HMS clinical professor of psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital, as the recipient of the Alexandra Symonds Award. The award recognizes outstanding contributions and leadership in promoting women's health and the advancement of women. JoAnn Manson, HMS professor of medicine and head of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has been named codirector of the hospital's Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology. In addition, HSPH has honored Manson with its Alumni Award of Merit. The award was given in recognition of Manson's achievements in women's health and preventive medicine. The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has awarded a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship to Jianwu Bai, an HMS research fellow in the lab of HMS professor of genetics Norbert Perrimon. The fellowships are awarded to outstanding young scientists conducting research relevant to the study of cancer. David Altshuler, HMS assistant professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital, received three awards in April. He was one of four given the Charles E. Culpeper Scholarship in Medical Science by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The three-year, $100,000-per-year award goes to physicians of high potential achievement who are committed to careers in academic medicine. Altshuler also received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scholar in Translational Research Award. Seven awards were presented nationwide, providing each investigator with $150,000 a year for five years to support translational research. Finally, he was honored with the Stephen Krane Award by the Department of Medicine at the hospital for being named the best young investigator. Marilyn Moy, an HMS instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, was chosen as BWH's recipient of the 2001 GlaxoSmithKline Development Partners' Junior Faculty Award. The award supports the continued development of junior faculty members at GlaxoSmithKline Development Partner institutions who are committed to clinical research. Misia Landau, senior science writer at Focus, has been awarded a Will Solimene Award of Excellence in Medical Communication by the New England chapter of the American Medical Writers Association. Landau was honored for her article "Mosaic Blood Vessels Could Provide Portal for Metastasis," which appeared in the Jan. 26, 2001 Focus. Jean Frazier, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry and director of McLean Hospital's child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient program, has received the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's Exemplary Psychiatrist Award. The award is given annually for substantial contributions in clinical care, public education, and advocacy. Frazier was also recently named as an associate member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Susanne Churchill, HMS associate dean for research, has been elected to the board of directors for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a NASA-funded consortium of 12 research institutions seeking solutions to health concerns facing astronauts on long missions. The 2002 European Institute of Oncology Breast Cancer Award was presented to Richard Gelber at a ceremony in Milan, Italy. Gelber, an HMS professor of pediatrics (biostatistics) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor in the Department of Biostatistics at HSPH, was honored for his contributions as a biostatistician to the advances in treatment for breast cancer patients. Mark Peppercorn, HMS professor of medicine and codirector of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has received the 2002 Janssen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Gastroenterology from the American Gastroenterology Association. Neurologist Anne Young received the Marion Spencer Fay Award from the National Board for Women in Medicine during an April ceremony in Philadelphia. Young, head of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Julieanne Dorn professor of neurology, was recognized for her studies in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, including her role as a member of the team that initially mapped the location of the gene for Huntington's disease. The $20,000 award is given annually to honor and promote women who have made remarkable contributions to health care, medical education, and research. Anthony Monaco, the Peter Medawar professor of transplantation surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has received the Roche Pioneer Award from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. He was honored for his early studies in experimental and clinical immunosuppression and the use of donor bone marrow to induce tolerance to solid organ transplants. The World Health Organization has appointed Christopher Fletcher to chair its working group on the classification of tumors of soft tissue and bone. Fletcher is an HMS professor of pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he is director of surgical pathology. He is also the director of Pathology Services at the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute. Paul Farmer, HMS professor of medical anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine, has been awarded a 2002 Dr. Nathan Davis International Award in Medicine and Public Health. Farmer was honored with the Outstanding International Physician Award for his work to improve the quality of health of poor populations internationally. Specifically, he has spent the last 19 years working in Haiti where he and coworkers have implemented a remarkably effective community-based health network linked to a medical center. Using this network, the team based in Cange was able to implement one of the first AIDS treatment programs in the developing world. He has also founded a TB center, which has become the national referral center for patients with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in Haiti. This experience in Haiti led to MDR-TB treatment efforts in Peru and Russia. Martin Samuels, HMS professor and head of the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has been elected president of the Association of University Professors of Neurology, the academic society of department chairs and program directors in neurology. His two-year term will begin in the fall of 2004. The Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners has presented the State Award for Excellence to Michael Rees, HMS instructor in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was recognized for his leadership role in developing and delivering continuing medical education programs in the area of adult primary care medicine. Sissela Bok, senior visiting fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has been awarded the 2002 St. Botolph Club Foundation Award for Distinction in Literature in the field of nonfiction. The award recognizes artists working in or associated with New England who have demonstrated outstanding talent and an exceptional diversity of accomplishments. HST faculty member Robert Langer was awarded the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize by the National Academy of Engineering in February. Langer, HMS senior lecturer on surgery and the Kenneth J. Germeshausen professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at MIT, was recognized with the $500,000 prize for his development of drug delivery technologies that have been applied to the treatment of neoplastic diseases. Michael Weinblatt, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, received the James H. Fairclough Jr. Memorial Award from the Massachusetts Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation. The annual award recognizes service to the foundation. HSPH student K.A. Kelly McQueen is one of the first two recipients of the Nuclear-Threat Initiative/ American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship in Global Security. She will spend a year in Washington, D.C., helping to plan the federal government's response to threats of bioterrorism. In May, Jane Garfield, director of campus operations, received the 2002 Dean's Award for Support and Advancement of Women Staff. HMS dean Joseph Martin called Garfield "a sterling example not only for [her] staff, but for the entire HMS family."
News BriefsMcLean Hospital's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center has been awarded a five-year, $6.4 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to study the abuse of cocaine. This is the largest research grant ever awarded to the hospital and will be used to examine novel approaches to the treatment of cocaine and polydrug abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at HSPH a five-year, $4.6 million grant to expand studies that examine alcohol-related injuries, injuries among the elderly, violence against women, suicide and interpersonal violence among urban youth, and firearms policies in the U.S. based on hospital and death statistics. The center is directed by David Hemenway, HSPH professor of health policy. Lewis Lipsitz, director of the HMS Division on Aging, has received from the National Institute on Aging a grant for $7.2 million for the division to establish the Harvard Older Americans Independence Center. The aim of the center is to promote gerontological research that will help elderly individuals maintain independence. Among others, studies will examine causes and consequences of delirium after coronary bypass surgery; the relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and the development of frontal lobe dysfunction in African-American elders; and the use of subsensory mechanical noise to improve somatosensation and balance in healthy elderly people and patients with diabetes and stroke. |
