Immunology
Body Builds Defense
Against Pneumococcus
Without Antibodies
At the Podium
Race Complicates Views on Genes And Medicine
Neurosurgery
Aggressive Surgery for Low-grade Brain Tumor May Lengthen Life
Medical Education
Website Opened to Support Cross-cultural Care
Entire Fruit Fly Genome Plumbed for Pathway Participants
Molecular Teams Decide Nerve Cell Fates
Blue Light Puts Red Gums in the Pink
Grant to Improve Managed Care Treatment of Drug Abuse
New Faculty Appointments to Full Professor
Plasmid Repository Supports Research in Genomics
Longwood Symphony Gives Benefit for Homeless Patients
Innovator Award Goes to HSPH Cancer Researcher
Honors and Advances
News Brief: AMA Foundation 2005 Leadership Awards
Name of Countway’s Rare Books Department Is History
Nine Students from LMA Selected as Schweitzer Fellows
HST Student Research Reaches for the Stars
Grant to Improve Managed Care Treatment of Drug Abuse
The Brandeis/Harvard Center on Managed Care and Drug Abuse Treatment has received $6.3 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop mechanisms for improving drug abuse treatment services for managed care patients. The Brandeis/Harvard center, a collaboration between Brandeis University’s Center for Behavioral Health and the HMS Department of Health Care Policy, will use the money to fund three research projects aimed at improving these patients’ access to high-quality substance abuse treatment. The projects will investigate how organizational management, financing, and payment within managed care can be improved to benefit substance abusers seeking treatment. “We’re focusing on how to improve the system to better serve this group of patients,” explained Richard Frank, the co–principal investigator and the Margaret T. Morris professor of health care policy at HMS.
Young Scientists Compete for Regional Honors
Photo by Steve Gilbert
John Zeqi Luo displays his first-prize plaque, flanked by Changiz Geula (left), HMS associate professor of medicine (neuroscience) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Lynne Reid, the S. Burt Wolbach distinguished professor of pathology at HMS and Children’s Hospital Boston. Luo won the award at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) on April 1 and 2 for his presentation, titled “American Ginseng Improving Pancreatic Beta Cell Function May Result from the Alteration of Metabolism, Cell Proliferation, Differentiation, and Apoptosis Gene Expression: Microarray Approach.” Luo received a $1,500 scholarship and will be among five students representing southern New England at the National Symposium in San Diego. The Boston symposium was sponsored by the HMS Minority Faculty Development Program and gave participants the opportunity to tour laboratories of leading researchers and gain exposure to various clinical settings at the Harvard teaching hospitals.
New Faculty Appointments to Full Professor
The following faculty members were appointed in March.
Charles Nelson
Professor of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital Boston
Nelson’s research interests are concerned with developmental
cognitive neuroscience, an interdisciplinary field involving developmental
neuroscience and developmental psychology. His specific interests
are the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development,
particularly as it influences memory and the ability to recognize
faces. Nelson studies both typically developing children and children
at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, employing behavioral,
electrophysiological, and metabolic tools in his research.
Andrew Luster
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Luster’s research focuses on the control of leukocyte trafficking
during inflammatory and immune responses by chemokines and chemoattractant
receptors. He has been studying the biology and pathobiology of
this superfamily of chemotactic cytokines for over 20 years, beginning
with his discovery of one of the very first chemokines as an MD–PhD
student. Luster studies how chemokines and chemoattractant receptors
orchestrate the precise movement of leukocytes necessary to generate
and deliver a protective immune response, how this system of chemoattractants
controls the trafficking of leukocytes in disease, and how this
information can be translated into new therapies for inflammatory
diseases. Luster is chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy,
and Immunology and director of the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory
Diseases at MGH. He is also a member of the immunology graduate
program at HMS.
Plasmid Repository
Supports Research in Genomics
The DF/HCC DNA Resource Core is offering new benefits to DF/HCC investigators through its plasmid repository and distribution service. The plasmid repository was created in response to a need for plasmid storage and distribution services due to the increase in genome-scale research efforts. The service provides archival storage of glycerol stocks in a state-of-the-art automated freezer; automated tracking, robotic arraying, and other measures designed to ensure clone viability; scientific support for transfer of clones and information from the lab; and storage for more than 80,000 individual samples. Its collection currently includes over 30,000 clones, including sequence-verified cDNAs from humans and other organisms, expression vectors, and more. For further information on the Resource Core’s services, please visit http://dnaseq.med.harvard.edu.
Longwood Symphony Gives Benefit for Homeless Patients
The Longwood Symphony Orchestra, most of whose members are health care workers, will be performing a benefit concert on May 14 at 8 p.m. Proceeds will go toward the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which cares for homeless patients at 68 sites in greater Boston. Tickets for the concert cost $25 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. The concert will be held in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory. For more information, see www.longwoodsymphony.org.
Innovator Award Goes to HSPH
Cancer Researcher
Dimitrios Trichopoulos, the Vincent L. Gregory professor of cancer prevention at HSPH, was awarded an “Innovator Award” by the U.S. Department of Defense. The five-year, $5.8 million grant is given to individuals who have a “history of visionary scholarship, leadership, and creativity,” and will fund Trichopoulos’s research on fetal and early-life factors associated with adult breast cancer. As part of this research, Trichopoulos and colleagues in the United States, Sweden, and Greece will undertake a series of five complementary studies designed to investigate links between early-life exposures, mammary gland stem cells, mammary gland mass, and adult breast cancer.
Honors and Advances
Mark T. Keating, Howard Hughes investigator and HMS professor of cell biology and pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, was selected to receive the 15th annual Bristol–Myers Squibb Freedom to Discover Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cardiovascular Research. Keating was honored for discovering the first arrythmia genes and demonstrating that these genes encode the ion channels that regulate the excitation and contraction of the heart. Keating will be officially presented with the $50,000 award and a silver commemorative medallion at a dinner in his honor on October 19.
The Graduate Student Council presented Stephen Soumerai with a 2005 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award at an event held in the Faculty Club on March 24. The award is given annually to three Harvard professors who demonstrate exceptional care for the lives and work of graduate students. Soumerai, an HMS professor of ambulatory care and prevention and health policy, was honored for his attention to the role stress plays in students’ lives.
News Brief
Roy Hamilton and Jacqueline Onyejekwe have both received American Medical Association Foundation 2005 Leadership Awards. The prizes provide medical students, residents, fellows, and young physicians with training to develop skills as future leaders. Hamilton graduated from HMS in 2001 and is currently working as the educational director for Pipeline, a mentoring program for minority medical students at the University of Pennsylvania. Onyejekwe is a research fellow in social medicine and a Commonwealth Fund fellow in minority health policy at HMS. They were presented with the awards at a ceremony on March 13.
Name of Countway’s Rare Books Department Is History
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Nine Students from LMA Selected as Schweitzer Fellows
Nine HMS and HSPH students have been selected 2005–2006 Boston Schweitzer Fellows. The fellowship, founded in honor of Albert Schweitzer, requires fellows to commit to a year of service with a community agency and devote more than 200 hours to local communities lacking access to adequate health services. Once fellows have completed their year of service, they join a network of more than 1,200 Fellows for Life. The new fellows include Olufemi Adegoke, Deborah Cook, Ana Diaz, and Raymond Tsai from HSPH and Surbhi Grover, Celeste Lopez, Ashley Morris, Zachary Morris, and Stacy Truta from HMS. Their projects include helping female inmates create a health column in their prison newspaper, advocating for immigrant health and health education, and creating a mentoring program for boys living in a battered women’s shelter. For more information on the program, visit www.schweitzerfellowship.org.
HST Student Research Reaches for the Stars
 Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services |