The HMS Faculty Council

At the Faculty Council meeting on June 1, Margaret Dale, dean for faculty and research integrity, described the revised federal regulations on research misconduct, which took effect on June 16. Though the revisions are not major, she stressed the importance of ensuring that University policy is in alignment with the updated regulations.

Dale referred to the Principles and Procedures for Dealing with Allegations of Faculty Misconduct, which defines research misconduct as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research or in reporting research results,” and further defines fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.

Charles Hatem, professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, called for a motion to accept the document as presented. A motion was made, seconded, and unanimously approved.

David Urion, director of the Office of Enrichment Programs and the Division of Service Learning, provided an overview of the office’s current activities. Examples of current projects include student involvement with the Family Van, Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, Sociedad Latina, and an asthma swim program in Chinatown. Current initiatives include intensive language instruction, faculty development initiatives, and a seminar course for first- and second-year students.

Future plans include efforts to develop a set of effective relationships with community organizations, especially on Mission Hill; solidify international exchanges that will offer unique medical opportunities for HMS while providing selected partner medical schools with access to HMS training; develop coherent, continuing language instruction together with service work in Spanish and Kreyòl across the four-year curriculum; and integrate humanities into the curriculum reform process.

Jules Dienstag, dean for medical education, provided a brief review of the Medical Education Reform Initiative. He reminded members of the progression of the reform effort, citing the 2001 visit by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the 2002 Blue Sky Committees, the 2003 Task Force for the New Curriculum, and the creation in 2004 of the 12 working groups, and he briefly reviewed the structure and challenges of the current curriculum.

Dienstag outlined the proposed framework and timeline for the new curriculum:

August 2006: Introduction to the Profession
September 2006: Fundamentals of Medicine
Winter 2006–2007: Declare concentration
April 2008: Transition to principal clinical experience
Spring 2008: Principal clinical experience
Spring 2009: Advanced clerkships
2009–2010: In-depth Educational Experiences

Kate Treadway, professor of medicine and co-chair of the design group on Introduction to the Profession, reviewed plans for the new course. She explained that the course would be conducted for two weeks prior to the start of medical school classes. The primary goal is to teach students to think differently and to help them develop their own intellectual framework.

The course will emphasize the breadth of the profession and career paths, the importance of teamwork, development of professional compassion, professional behavior, communication skills, life-long learning, self-directed learning, self-reflection, and sensitivity to diversity of all types. The curriculum will include an overview of what is coming, rigorous mastery of biological sciences and the social sciences, introduction to hospital processes, and use of information resources.

David Golan, professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and co-chair of the design group on In-depth Educational Experiences, reviewed plans for the course. He explained that In-depth Educational Experiences would be an integral part of the new curriculum and a requirement for graduation with the MD degree. He identified the three areas of concentration and their related goals:

• Basic Biomedical Research: to learn to identify important problems in biology and medicine that merit further investigation; to make individual contributions by engaging in biomedical investigation; and to understand how basic research, patient-oriented research, and studies in medicine and society connect.

• Patient-oriented Research: to undertake practical training in translational research, human pharmacology, biostatistics, and clinical epidemiology; to contribute to medical knowledge by engaging in patient-oriented investigation; to understand connections among basic biomedical research, patient-oriented research, and studies in medicine and society.

• Medicine in Society: to learn to identify critical social and ethical problems in medicine; to make a contribution to medicine by engaging in an in-depth social sciences or humanities project; to understand the connections among basic biomedical research, patient-oriented research, and studies in medicine and society.

Golan explained that the concentration elements are intended to span the entire curriculum and would culminate in the submission of a written scholarly document. He underscored the importance of mentoring and longitudinal advising throughout the four years.

In-depth Educational Experiences would be led by a board of advisers who would interact longitudinally with the students, direct the critical reading courses, advise students, monitor student progress, evaluate theses, and facilitate communication across the three areas of concentration.

Science and Audacity Blend to Benefit Poor Nations

Two Harvard-based teams won grants through the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, a contest sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to encourage and then fund innovative work in global public health care. The initiative dared researchers to develop projects that would improve the quality of life in the world’s poorest nations.

Photo by Richard Chase Christopher Murray

Christopher Murray (left), the Richard Saltonstall professor of population policy at HSPH, will be given an $18.8 million grant for his “Population Health Metrics Consortium Project,” which will attempt to develop new methods and technologies for assessing the health status of populations in the developing world. Murray’s team, which comprises researchers from the United States, Australia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Tanzania, will try to produce new measurement tools that are science-based, standardized, and widely applicable across different resource-poor settings.

David Edwards, the Gordon McKay professor of the practice of biomedical engineering at Harvard, will receive $7.6 million to develop tuberculosis and diphtheria vaccines that can be inhaled through aerosol sprays. In addition to being simpler and safer, the vaccines would be delivered directly to the lungs, making them particularly effective for respiratory diseases. Barry Bloom, the Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson professor of public health and dean of the Faculty of Public Health, will work on Edwards’s team.

The initiative attracted over 1,500 project ideas from around the world. Forty-three projects involving researchers in 33 countries are being awarded a total of $437 million. Other projects involved shortening mosquitoes’ life spans so that they could not live long enough to spread the dengue virus, creating more nutritious and less toxic cassava, and developing an injectable stem cell containing instructions to the immune system on how to block selected diseases.

Distinguished Alum Sees Biostats Bridge Between Science and Public Policy

Photo by Vickie Beaulieu

Christl Donnelly (right), professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London received the Distinguished Alum Award for 2005 from the HSPH Department of Biostatistics. Completing her DSc in Biostatistics in 1992 under Nan Laird and Jim Ware, Donnelly went on to distinguish herself in statistics and infectious diseases epidemiology. Since 1996 she has taken a lead in investigating the epidemiology of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, and she has advised public health policy leaders on the 2003 SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. Her award lecture, delivered on June 1 at HSPH, addressed the opportunities for biostatisticians at the interface between science and public policy. The recipient of this annual award is an individual in government, industry, or academia who has influenced the theory and practice of statistical science through research, methodology and theory, organizational responsibility, and teaching.

Zeitels Named to Chair in Laryngeal Surgery

Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services

In a ceremony on June 16, Steven Zeitels was named to the Eugene B. Casey Professorship of Laryngeal Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and HMS. Supported by a gift from Betty Brown Casey and the Eugene B. Casey Foundation (named for her late husband), the professorship will advance research and practice in laryngeal microsurgery and voice restoration. Among those offering tributes to Zeitels was Robert Hillman, co-director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at MGH, which Zeitels directs. Hillman called his colleague a “very, very high-energy guy.” “It can be very challenging keeping up with Steve Zeitels,” Hillman said, “but the efforts are always worth it.” In expressing his gratitude for the new chair, Zeitels said his goal was to create the voice and laryngeal center of the future. Above, HMS dean Joseph Martin (left) and Casey Foundation trustee D Shinkle (center) present Zeitels with a Revere bowl in honor of his new appointment.

Sheffer Chair Established in Allergic Disease

Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services

In May, HMS celebrated the establishment of the Albert L. Sheffer Professorship of Medicine in the Field of Allergic Disease. The new endowed chair honors Albert Sheffer (right), an HMS clinical professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a recipient of many awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Among those praising Sheffer at the reception were HMS dean Joseph Martin and Brigham and Women’s president Gary Gottlieb (left). No incumbent has yet been named to the professorship, which is supported by funds from BWH and the C.E. and S. Foundation.

New Full Professorships

The following faculty members were appointed to a full professorship in April.

Richard S. Blumberg
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Blumberg’s research focuses on the molecular cross-talk between mucosal bacteria, epithelial cells, and lymphocytes involved in maintaining homeostasis and causing inflammation within mucosal tissues. His laboratory has identified many of the key properties of carcinoembryonic antigen cell adhesion molecule 1, the MHC class I–related Fc receptor for IgG, and CD1 in these contexts.

Daniel Tarsy
Professor of Neurology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Tarsy’s research and publications address the clinical, pharmacological, and surgical care and management of patients with Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, tremor, and related disorders. He is the director of the Parkinson’s Disease & Movement Disorders Center at BID and participates in several regional, national, and international neurological specialty societies to promote research and education in the area of movement disorders.

Stephen Cannistra
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Cannistra is a leader in the field of gynecologic cancers, most notably ovarian cancer. His research has provided insight into the mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer, and he has identified pathways involved in the spread of ovarian cancer throughout the abdominal cavity. He has developed several novel treatment approaches for ovarian cancer and has pioneered the use of microarray gene profiling as a prognostic tool in this disease. His ongoing research efforts include the use of gene expression profiling to better understand the biology of ovarian cancer and to permit an individualized approach to patient management.

The following faculty members were appointed to a full professorship in June.

John Rosowski
Professor of Otology and Laryngology
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Rosowski’s research focuses on the correlation between auditory function and external and middle ear structure. He investigates these relationships with regard to the comparative physiology of the ears of different vertebrates as well as to hearing loss resulting from alterations in human ear structure caused by diseases and their treatments.

Stuart Silverman
Professor of Radiology
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Silverman is director of Abdominal Imaging and Intervention, CT Scan, and the Cross-sectional Interventional Service at BWH. His research focuses on interventional radiology and its contribution to the diagnosis and treatment of abdominal disorders. Silverman has concentrated on using advanced CT and MRI techniques to biopsy small cancers and treat them using minimally invasive ablation technologies. His research also focuses on the urinary tract and the diagnosis and treatment of renal tumors.

Jeffrey Settleman
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Settleman is the director of the Center for Molecular Therapeutics at the MGH Cancer Center. His research focuses on the organization and function of cellular signal transduction pathways in normal development and in cancer. His laboratory has a particular interest in pathways mediated by the small GTPases and utilizes genetic, biochemical, and molecular biology methods to address the regulation and biological function of these critical signaling intermediates.

Elazer Edelman
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Edelman is a pioneer in vascular biology and in the development and the assessment of biotechnology. The research center he directs is dedicated to using rigorous physical sciences to clarify fundamental biologic processes and mechanisms of disease. He has contributed to defining the molecular and cellular aspects of vascular healing, the development of devices (such as drug-eluting stents), and revolutionizing cell- and tissue-based therapies. In addition to his work at HMS, he is an active coronary care unit cardiologist and holder of the Cabot chair in Health Sciences and Technology at MIT.

Emmett Schmidt
Professor of Pediatrics
Massachusetts General Hospital
Schmidt researches the mechanisms that link cellular growth to cell division. The genes involved in the connection are also found as important oncogenes in human cancer, including cyclin D1 and MYC. Schmidt’s lab has built animal models of these oncogenes to better understand their relevance to human cancer, especially human breast cancer. Schmidt participates in both clinical medicine and scientific research. He serves as the vice chairman of education for the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, where he directs the Pediatric Residency and serves as a clinical inpatient hospitalist.

Roy Freeman
Professor of Neurology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Freeman is an authority on the physiology and pathophysiology of the autonomic nervous system and unmyelinated nerve fibers. His research has improved our understanding of the neurological complications of diabetes and the diagnosis and treatment of autonomic and peripheral nervous system disorders.

Hospital Honor Roll

U.S. News and World Report listed Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital on the honor roll in its annual roundup of America’s best hospitals. The magazine ranked 176 medical centers, of which 16 were given honor roll status for demonstrating excellence in at least six specialties. MGH was listed in third place overall and was ranked as having the best psychiatry practice and the second best practices in hormonal disorders and kidney disease in the nation. BWH was ranked in 12th place and was listed as having the third best gynecological practice and the fifth best practices in kidney disease and rheumatology.

top