Pulmonology
Anatomy of an Asthma Attack
Complexity
Precursor Cells Follow Different Paths to Same
Cell Fate
Genetics
Gene Network Predicts Stroke Risk in Sickle Cell Anemia
Education
Harvard Approves MD–PhD Program in Social Sciences
No Link Seen Between Dietary Patterns and Pancreatic Cancer Risk
New Heart Attack Therapy May Be Coming
Proceedings of the HMS
Faculty Council
New Appointments to Full Professor
Stem Cell Research at BID Gains $6 Million Gift
Honors and Advances
News Brief: Soros New American Fellowship
In Memoriam
Survey Seeks to Improve
Student Life on Longwood
Proceedings of the HMS Faculty Council
At the March 2 Faculty Council meeting, Jules Dienstag, associate dean for academic programs and medical education, updated members on the recent activities surrounding the Medical Education Reform Initiative. He and Joseph Martin, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, have had meetings with the preclinical chairs, the executive committees of all the clinical departments, the basic biological science course directors, and the clinical clerkship directors.
Dienstag described five new design groups being formed that will focus on various aspects of the proposed curricular changes. The groups include Introduction to the Profession, chaired by Kate Treadway and Philip Leder; Fundamentals of Medicine, chaired by Barbara McNeil and Peter Howley; Principal Clinical Experience, chaired by Edward Benz and Stephen Calderwood; Advanced Clinical and Science Experiences, chaired by Robert Dluhy and Joan Miller; and In-Depth Educational Experiences, chaired by David Golan and Terry Maratos-Flier.
Dienstag
identified the ideas that were discussed at the two basic biological science
course directors’ retreats in February:
• running complementary courses in parallel;
• using common longitudinal tutorials;
• not overburdening the students with separate exams; and
• recognizing that students become more sophisticated as they progress.
This group will have one more meeting, which will be followed by a retreat of all the preclinical course directors.
Martin indicated that the current Principal Clinical Experience pilot under way at Cambridge Health Alliance is going well. He noted that both Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are planning pilots for this spring and summer. Martin stressed the importance of having the Dental School at the table in all these discussions. Both Martin and Dienstag underscored that the initiative is a work in progress.
Charles Hatem introduced Beth Lown, assistant professor of medicine
at Mt. Auburn Hospital, who gave a presentation emphasizing the importance
of integrating
communication and behavioral-science competencies into courses and
clerkships
across the HMS curriculum. She concluded that
• interpersonal and communication skills should be defined, taught,
and assessed in a developmentally appropriate fashion across all
years of
undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing medical education training;
• a curriculum to reinforce these skills, particularly during the
undergraduate clinical years, is critical for their retention and
continued evolution;
• the defined developmental competencies should be integrated within
the emerging and existing curriculum across courses, clerkships,
and postgraduate
and continuing medical education as appropriate to site and context;
• levels of expected competency should be defined, taught, and evaluated
with regard to defined standards at specified intervals sufficient
to allow for remediation prior to advancement or graduation;
• teaching and assessment of communication skills, as well as behavioral
science topics, should be centrally coordinated, tracked, and adequately
integrated horizontally within academic years and longitudinally
across the four years of undergraduate training and beyond; and
• faculty development and sustained support for committed faculty
to observe and give feedback on learners’ interactions with patients, peers, and
other members of the health care team is critical to ensure the success of
these efforts.
Stem Cell Research at BID Gains $6 Million Gift
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was given $6 million for stem cell research by Roberta and Stephen Weiner at an event in Palm Beach on March 13. The gift will support a program focusing on stem cell research and minimally invasive surgical techniques to deliver cell therapy. “This area of research has a high likelihood of opening therapeutic avenues that were never before imagined for multiple disorders,” said Jeffrey Flier, chief academic officer and the George C. Reisman professor of medicine at HMS and BID. “Such a fantastic gift will jump-start our efforts in an enormously exciting area.” In honor of the Weiners’ gift, the BID Department of Surgery will be renamed after them.
New Appointments to Full Professor
The following faculty member was appointed in January.
Chao-Ting Wu
Professor of Pediatrics (Genetics)
Children’s Hospital Boston
The field of homology effects is defined by phenomena in which
homologous genes and chromosomes directly or indirectly influence
each other’s behavior, structure, and function. Wu’s
group studies homology effects that involve the pairing of homologous
genes. Their current efforts explore the molecular basis of transvection
and the mechanisms that allow homologous elements to find each
other and pair.
The following faculty members were appointed in February.
Thomas
Spitzer
Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Spitzer is director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Massachusetts
General Hospital and is the Walter Bauer Firm chief in the Department
of Medicine. His clinical research interests include the development
of novel nonmyeloablative HLA and matched and mismatched stem cell
transplant strategies for hematologic malignancies and the induction
of specific tolerance for organ transplantation. In his role as
Bauer Firm chief, he is active in teaching and mentoring the MGH
house staff and developing curricula.
David White
Professor of Sleep Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
White’s research is focused on defining the pathophysiology
of breathing disorders during sleep, particularly obstructive sleep
apnea. His work addresses upper airway anatomy, the control of
breathing and ventilatory stability while awake or sleeping, the
ways in which muscles of the pharyngeal airway are regulated while
awake or sleeping, and sleep effects on lung volume. He has also
studied how gender and aging influence these variables and explain
the epidemiology of the disorder. White is the director of the
Sleep Disorders Program and a clinical sleep physician at BWH.
Michael
J. Barry
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Barry is a clinical investigator who conducts outcomes and effectiveness
research, particularly in prostate diseases. Recently he has been
working on translating research insights into decision support
materials for patients. He is part of the leadership team for several
large clinical trials comparing different management strategies
for benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer. A practicing
internist, he is chief of the General Medicine Unit at MGH. He
is also the current president of the national Society of General
Internal Medicine.
Charalabos Pothoulakis
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Pothoulakis’s research interests involve the role of neuropeptides
and hormones in the development of diarrhea and intestinal inflammation.
His research focuses on the molecular mechanism by which substance
P, neurotensin, CRH, and leptin stimulate cells in the intestine
and identify the specific signaling pathways that are activated
in response to these peptides at the colonocyte level. Pothoulakis’s
research group also studies the pathways by which communication
between the central nervous system and the endocrine and immune
systems control colonic function. He is the director of the Gastrointestinal
Neuropeptide Center in the Gastroenterology Division at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center.
Honors and Advances
Ruhul Abid, HMS instructor in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess, has been awarded the National Scientist Development Award from the American Heart Association. He was given the four-year, $260,000 prize for his investigation of the mechanisms of pathophysiological change in the endothelium under oxidative stress in health and disease.
Irene Chen, an MD–PhD candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program and the Biophysics Program in HST, received a 2005 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student award. The award is sponsored by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and is given to 15 students internationally. In addition to receiving the award, Chen will participate in a scientific symposium from May 6 to 7 at the research center.
David Hubel, the John Franklin Enders professor emeritus of neurobiology, has been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Hubel was awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in medicine for his groundbreaking research on the visual cortex. His discoveries have advanced the understanding of brain development following birth and emphasized the importance of treating strabismus—a condition in which the eyes are crossed—at an early age.
Stefan Tullius, HMS
instructor in surgery at Brigham and Women’s,
has been appointed the new chief of the Renal Transplant Division
in BWH’s Surgery Department. Tullius was formerly the surgical
director of Kidney/
Pancreas Transplantation at the Charite-Virchow Hospital in Berlin.
Frederick Alt, the Charles A. Janeway professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, has been named scientific director of the CBR Institute for Biomedical Research. In his new position, Alt will oversee research and training and lead investigators in establishing institutional research goals. He succeeds Fred Rosen, HMS professor emeritus of pediatrics, who held the position for 18 years. In addition, Alt has been selected by the medical and scientific committee of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to receive the de Villiers International Achievement Award. The award is the society’s highest honor for a person conducting research in leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma.
Selwyn Rogers, HMS assistant professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has been selected to head the newly created Division of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care within the BWH Department of Surgery. Rogers was formerly the surgical director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit in BWH’s Tower 7CD.
William Crowley, HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, was presented with the Fred Conrad Koch Medal and a $25,000 honorarium. The medal is the Endo-crine Society’s highest award for exceptional contributions to the field.
News Brief
Vivian Taqueti and Meenakashi Gupta were among the thirty recipients of the 2005 Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship. The Soros fellowships are awarded each year to selected immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate degrees. The fellowship provides a stipend of up to $20,000 and pays half of two years of tuition. Taqueti, who was born in Vila Velha, Brazil, is an MD candidate in the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. A recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Training Fellowship, she is studying ways to model cardiac inflammation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Gupta is an MD candidate at HMS. She plans to become a physician-scientist, concentrating in neurological disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
In Memoriam
Stanley Korsmeyer, the Sidney Farber professor of pathology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, died on March 31 of non–smoking-related lung cancer at the age of 54.
Stanley Korsmeyer (Photo courtesy of Dana–Farber Cancer Institute) |
In the 1980s, Korsmeyer demonstrated that a particular form of blood cancer arose because a genetic flaw allowed the cells to survive the body’s normal process for getting rid of them—“programmed” cell death, or apoptosis. The abnormal gene that blocked apoptosis, Bcl-2, thus be-came the first of a new class of cancer-causing “oncogenes,” and Korsmeyer was credited with spearheading the study of apoptosis in cancer causation.
At DFCI, Korsmeyer helped shape the institute’s new strategic plan for attacking cancer that emphasizes collaboration among researchers, while employing the most advanced tools for discovering new cancer drug candidates. At the time of his death, he and his colleagues had begun applying what they had learned over the years, manipulating apoptosis molecules to force cancer cells to self-destruct.
“Stan Korsmeyer’s scientific prowess placed him among the top cancer researchers in the country, while his commitment to the broader mission of the School made him a pillar of the Harvard medical community,” said HMS dean Joseph Martin.
Korsmeyer is survived by his family, including his wife, Susan Korsmeyer; sons, Jason Louis and Evan John Korsmeyer; parents, Willard and Carnell Korsmeyer; sisters, Lynn Hollahan, Janet Korsmeyer, and Karen Randolla; and grandfather, Carl Jolly.
Robert Sceery (Photo courtesy of Massachusetts General Hospital) |
Sceery was a graduate of Harvard College and served as a naval officer during World War II. He was in the first landing ship tank to reach Utah Beach in Normandy on D-Day and also participated in the invasion of southern France and the assault on Okinawa. Following his graduation from Yale Medical School, he completed his residency in pediatrics at MGH, where he served as chief resident. In 1953, he began a medical practice in Cohasset, Mass., and cared for several generations of children in the town. He was the local school doctor for more than 40 years and was named Cohasset’s Citizen of the Year in 1995. He continued to attend weekly pediatric grand rounds at MGH, as his health permitted, up to his death.
Sceery is survived by his wife of 55 years, Phoebe; their children, Beth and her husband, Mark Rockoff; Lucy and her husband, Simon Clode; Katie and her husband, Mark Trumper; Michael and his wife, Helene; Amy and her husband, Neil Crane; Mara and her husband, Greg Morris; 17 grandchildren; and his brother Richard.
Arthur Kravitz, HMS
assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, died of prostate cancer on Feb. 16. He was 76.
Arthur Kravitz
(Photo by Jeffrey
Thiebauth)
Kravitz was a graduate of both Harvard University and HMS. He joined the HMS faculty as a teaching fellow in psychiatry in 1955 and served on the staffs at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, where he was the head of residency training from 1972 to 1974. He was a senior physician in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for many years. Kravitz was well respected as a leader in the Boston psychiatric and psychoanalytic community. He influenced a generation of physicians as a teacher and supervisor and was known for generosity with his time. To his peers, he was a model of professionalism and humanity.
Kravitz is survived by his wife, Barbara; his sons, Carl and Neal; his brother Sheldon; and four grandchildren.