Proceedings of the HMS Faculty Council

At the Nov. 14 HMS Faculty Council meeting, HSDM dean Bruce Donoff gave a presentation titled “Phase III in the Development of a University Dental School.” In the presentation, he cited a report from the Institute of Medicine that identifies the need for dentistry to become more closely integrated with medicine, for dental educators to teach models of clinical practice, and for more focused efforts toward resource development. Donoff described Harvard’s role in setting an example for the future by focusing on the dental curriculum that overlaps with medicine, dentistry in academic medical centers, hospital-based education, public service, and problem-based learning. The Dental School is considering implementing integrated graduate programs in clinical studies and a DMD–PhD program and increasing clinical–translational research.

Donoff identified some further challenges. He said HSDM must help meet the national need for developing the next generation of dental educators, health policy activists, and scientists. The School also must consider the effect of debt on career choice. There is a need to identify a diverse group of students with goals consistent with those of the School and make it possible for them to participate in the available educational opportunities. HSDM’s advanced graduate programs must be able to attract the most talented candidates and support these individuals in an effort to foster development of dental leaders for the U.S.

Sarah Bennett-Astesano, assistant director of the Office of Work–Life Resources, and Barbara Wolf, manager of the Office of Work and Family, gave an overview of Harvard’s child care system, discussing where it is today, how it has evolved, and how the University will approach child care in the future.

Bennett-Astesano described the duties of the Office of Work–Life Resources, which include tracking work–life policies, providing direct service to employees and students, and providing consultation to the larger community. She identified availability and affordability as the two biggest obstacles to finding child care.
She indicated that there are six on-campus child care centers in Cambridge and Allston with 380 slots and a long waiting list. The number of slots has not kept pace with the growth of faculty, students, and staff, and there is a need for an updated, proactive approach to child care. She said that finding affordable, high-quality child care has become an institutional obstacle for Harvard. It was noted that schools and departments report losing faculty candidates due to lack of appropriate child care, that there is a positive correlation between departures and lack of appropriate care, and that child care at Harvard has been rated “important” but “ineffective.”

New child care developments that are being considered include finding new space and forming new partnerships in both Cambridge and Longwood, opening a center in the first science building in Allston, and creating scholarship funding.

Council members agreed that this issue needs attention. Members suggested approaching the University for additional funding, while acknowledging competing interests. HMS dean Jeffrey Flier agreed to bring this to the attention of the president. Because the lack of sufficient child care has a serious negative impact on faculty recruitment, the idea of focusing fund-raising efforts around this issue was suggested.

Appointments to New and Named Professorships

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

John Assad
Professor of Neurobiology
Harvard Medical School
The goal of Assad’s research is to understand how the brain integrates external sensory information to control behavior. His lab has focused on sensory and perceptual transformations and plasticity in parietal cortex, using awake, behaving macaques. The researchers have also examined neuronal mechanisms for initiation of movement in the cortico-basal ganglia circuits, which are related to movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

John Ayanian
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Professor of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
Ayanian’s research focuses on disparities in access to care and health outcomes related to race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic factors, and insurance coverage. He also studies the impact of physician and organizational characteristics on the quality of care for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Ayanian is currently leading randomized interventions to improve cancer screening and surveillance in healthcare systems. At HSPH he directs the Research with Large Databases course for fellows in the Clinical Effectiveness Program. He is a practicing general internist and director of the General Medicine Fellowship at BWH.

Charles Coté
Professor of Anesthesia
Massachusetts General Hospital
As both a pediatrician and anesthesiologist, Coté has conducted research focusing on pediatric sedation guidelines and sedation safety and on pediatric clinical trials of new and off-patent medications. His publications on adverse sedation events in children have been used as the basis of establishing pediatric sedation guidelines in the United States and other countries. He has also conducted many clinical trials of medications used in the perioperative environment and has been a strong advocate of new legislation at the Food and Drug Administration promoting pediatric drug trials.

Allen Counter
Clinical Professor of Neurology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Counter’s research follows two paths. The first focuses on the neurobiological effects of lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) exposure in Andean children and adults living in enclaves of high Pb and Hg contamination. Specifically, this work involves investigation of lead and mercury intoxication levels, hemoglobin studies, zinc protoporyphyrin studies, neurophysiological anomalies, and neurocognitive impairment in Pb- and Hg-exposed Andean children and adults. The second line of research involves high-field magnetic resonance imaging of the in vivo mammalian inner ear, with a specific focus on cochlear and vestibular kinetics and the molecular aspects of substance uptake. Counter’s laboratory work is conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where he collaborates with Swedish medical scientists, and his fieldwork is conducted in the Ecuadorian Andes in collaboration with Ecuadorian medical scientists.

James Markmann
Professor of Surgery
Massachusetts General Hospital
Markmann is a transplant surgeon whose clinical research focuses on developing isolated pancreatic islet transplantation as a means to treat type 1 diabetes. In the laboratory, he investigates strategies to induce immunological tolerance as a therapy to avoid chronic immunosuppression. Recently, he has investigated factors that control regulatory T cell function and has worked to characterize counter-regulatory pathways that may interfere with the activity of transplantation tolerance promoting regulatory T cells.

The following faculty members were appointed to a full professorship in September, October, and December.

Nancy Berliner
Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Berliner’s research is focused on the regulation of neutrophil-specific gene expression and its disruption in myelodysplasia and acute leukemia. More recently she has also initiated studies of the role of inflammatory cytokines in the pathogenesis of anemia in the elderly. She also has broad clinical interests in both classical hematology and hematologic malignancies. She is currently vice president of the American Society of Hematology and will be president in 2009.

Noah Choi
Professor of Radiation Oncology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Choi conducts translational research in which in vivo molecular imaging is employed for monitoring tumor response to radiation therapy and chemoradiotherapy in lung cancer and cancer of the esophagus. One main goal is to determine the correlation between the levels of residual glucose metabolic rate 10 to 12 days after the completion of standard radiotherapy or chemo-radiotherapy and subsequent tumor control 12 months afterward. The other main goal is to determine the levels of residual glucose metabolic rate after radiotherapy that correspond to the probability of clinical tumor control. The long-term aim is to develop individualized radiation therapy that achieves the best possible tumor control without an increase in toxicities.

Reza Dana
Professor of Ophthalmology
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
As an ophthalmologist and immunologist, Dana has a particular interest in the molecular and cellular mechanisms of inflammation as they pertain to ocular surface and anterior segment pathologies of the eye, including dry eye, allergy, wound healing responses, and transplant rejection. Some of his most recent research includes a study that revealed the reason for the transparency of the human cornea. Dana is also director of the cornea service at MEEI and senior scientist at Schepens Eye Research Institute.

S. Nahum Goldberg
Professor of Radiology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Focusing on the field of interventional oncology, Goldberg developed novel image-guided, minimally invasive therapies for tumor destruction. He has devoted substantial effort to devising, characterizing, and optimizing several radiofrequency and other thermal ablation systems, as well as characterizing and modifying the biologic environment with adjuvants such as liposomal doxorubicin and antiangiogenic therapies to increase coagulation and thereby improve the clinical utility of this paradigm.

Janet Hall
Professor of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Hall’s research in the broad area of women’s health is focused on the neuroendocrine interactions underlying normal human reproduction and the changes that occur with aging and in clinical disorders of ovulation. Her work has had an important impact on the understanding of reproductive aging and menopause, the treatment of infertility, and the management of patients with reproductive endocrine disorders.

Samia Khoury
Professor of Neurology
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Khoury’s laboratory investigates the mechanisms of tolerance in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), with particular interest in the T cell costimulatory pathways, and investigates the interactions between the immune system and endogenous neural stem cells. She developed and directs the Clinical Immunology Laboratory at the BWH Center for Neurologic Diseases, which specializes in biomarker development for multiple sclerosis.  Khoury is also the principal investigator of an NIH Autoimmunity Center of Excellence.

Pier Paolo Pandolfi
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Pandolfi’s research focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms and the genetics underlying the pathogenesis of leukemias, lymphomas, and solid tumors as well as in modeling these cancers in mice. He and colleagues have characterized the function of the fusion oncoproteins and the genes involved in the chromosomal translocations of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), as well as of major tumor suppressors such as PTEN and p53 and novel proto-oncogenes such as POKEMON. The elucidation of the molecular basis underlying APL pathogenesis has led to the development of novel therapeutic strategies, some of which are in clinical trials.

Steven Zeitels
Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery
Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts General Hospital
Zeitels leads a multidisciplinary and inter-institutional research group that is developing new surgical procedures for treating benign and malignant lesions of the larynx as well as novel reconstructive techniques for voice loss. Their collaboration performs chemical, biomechanical, and tissue engineering as well as acoustic and aerodynamic assessments, along with high-speed imaging of vocal function. The research team has developed novel fiber-based laser applications, which have been especially valuable for laryngeal cancer patients and performing vocalists.