Yale Medicine-Faculty News

Vanderbilt professor is named physiology chair

Steven C. Hebert, M.D., one of the world’s leading authorities on the kidney’s regulation of potassium and other salts, has joined the School of Medicine as professor and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology.

Hebert arrived at Yale on July 1 from Vanderbilt University Medical School, where he had been the Ann and Roscoe R. Robinson Professor of Medicine and professor of cell biology, pharmacology, molecular physiology and biophysics. His appointment complements current strengths at Yale in several important areas of renal physiology as well as a long tradition of innovation in the field dating to the work of John Punnett Peters, M.D., here in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

A long-time collaborator of his Yale departmental colleagues Gerhard H. Giebisch, M.D., and Walter F. Boron, M.D., Ph.D., whom he is succeeding as chair, Hebert received his medical degree in 1970 from the University of Florida and trained as a resident and fellow at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He taught in Alabama, Virginia and Texas before joining the Harvard Medical School faculty in 1984 as an assistant professor of medicine (physiology). Hebert was a tenured professor at Harvard and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Renal Division, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital when he moved to Vanderbilt in 1997. His research has focused in part on the mechanisms and regulation of potassium, sodium and chloride transport by cells. He and colleagues cloned two of the major genes involved in potassium transport by the kidney, a potassium channel known as ROMK and the Na-K-2Cl transporter. A mutation in either gene results in improper salt handling by the kidney and is a factor in end-stage renal disease and related disorders.

Hebert’s other major research focus is on the roles of extracellular calcium as a “first messenger” regulating cell function. Working with Harvard colleague Edward M. Brown, M.D., he identified and cloned a G-protein-coupled receptor that senses extracellular calcium ions and provides the mechanism for extracellular calcium-mediated regulation of the function of parathyroid gland and of epithelial cells in the kidney and colon.

Hebert received the Carl W. Gottschalk Award from the American Physiological Society in 1995 and the Homer W. Smith Award from the American Society of Nephrology and New York Heart Association in 1997. He is also a founder and board member of two biotechnology companies, AquaBio Products Sciences and Luna Pearls, both of Portland, Maine. His wife, Patricia R. Hebert, Ph.D., is an associate research scientist in the Department of Internal Medicine.

The physiology department has 17 primary faculty members, 17 more with secondary appointments, 43 postdoctoral fellows and 24 graduate students. Hebert said he will be recruiting five new faculty members during the next five years, “bringing in people who have a focus in new and emerging areas of science such as the structure and function of proteins, the field of proteomics, and both physical and functional genomics.”

Hebert said he has always had “one foot in clinical programs and the other in the basic sciences” and has the ability to interface between the two. “Particularly important in the post-genomic era is the translation of information obtained in basic sciences to clinical medicine,” he said. “I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to do this, to increase the size of the faculty and shape the department over the next few years.”

Six professors named to endowed professorships

University President Richard C. Levin, Ph.D., has named six members of the medical school faculty to endowed professorships. The appointments were recommended by Dean David A. Kessler, M.D., and Carolyn W. Slayman, Ph.D., deputy dean for academic and scientific affairs, who reviewed nominations frrom department charis. The candidates were nominated for their excellence in scholarship and teaching.

Donald Cohen named Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry

Donald J. Cohen, M.D., who specializes in neuropsychiatric disorders of children, including autism, Tourette’s syndrome and attention disorders, recently achieved one of Yale’s highest distinctions when he was named Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry.

A child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty in 1972 and has directed the Yale Child Study Center since 1983.

Cohen’s clinical and research interests also focus on the interaction between biological and experimental factors in the emergence and treatment of psychiatric disorders, the early roots of personality development, the impact of psychosocial disadvantage on children, national policy for children and adolescents and the impact of acute and persistent stress on children’s development.

He is co-author or co-editor of a dozen books, including Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, The Many Meanings of Play in Child Psychoanalysis, Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Autism and Tourette’s Syndrome and Associated Disorders. He has written more than 300 articles on neuropsychiatric childhood disorders.

Mary Tinetti, noted for work on health issues of the elderly, assumes Crofoot Chair

Mary E. Tinetti, M.D., the new Gladys Phillips Crofoot Professor of Medicine, has devoted her career to the health of the elderly and has a special interest in interventions that can help prevent older people from falling.

Tinetti is chief of geriatrics at the School of Medicine and director of the Program on Aging and the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. Her studies show that, for many older people, injuries from falls often result in a loss of both mobility and independence and can be the beginning of a series of health problems that eventually lead to death.

Tinetti has earned national prominence for her work on fall-reduction strategies and her studies showing that physical exercise that improves balance and builds lower-body strength, such as dancing and tai chi, has a major impact on reducing falls.

In recent research with Yale colleagues, Tinetti found that the problem of dizziness in elderly people is more often a result of multiple problems—described as a “geriatric syndrome”—than a symptom of a particular illness.

Tinetti has written or co-authored nearly a hundred articles on health issues affecting the elderly, including alcohol consumption, home vs. hospital care for chronic illness, the care of persons with dementia, and older drivers at risk.

Stephen Strittmatter is appointed to new Coates Chair in Neurology

Stephen M. Strittmatter, M.D., Ph.D., who has been named to the Vincent Coates Chair in Neurology, is a specialist in the development and regeneration of the nervous system.

Earlier this year, he earned international attention for leading a research effort that resulted in the discovery of a protein that prevents the regeneration of axons following a traumatic injury to the central nervous system. The discovery of this protein, called Nogo, may lead to treatments to stimulate regrowth of axons in order to reverse brain and spinal cord injuries. Strittmatter is now engaged in work to define the nature of Nogo receptors and to develop methods to block those receptors.

A member of the Yale faculty since 1993, Strittmatter holds joint appointments in neurology and neurobiology. Since coming to Yale, he has been the principal investigator of a number of research projects focusing on axonal regeneration. He has received major grant awards for these projects from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, the Donaghue Foundation and the John Merck Fund.

The Coates Chair in Neurology was endowed with a gift from alumnus Vincent J. Coates ’46 of Sunnyvale, Calif. He is chair and chief executive officer of Nanometrics, a company that designs and manufactures microscopes to monitor the fabrication of integrated circuits on wafters, flat display panels and magnetic recording heads. In addition to his abiding interest in engineering, which he studied as an undergraduate, Coates has a strong personal interest in the study of the chemistry of the brain.

Pharmacology expert John Krystal is designated Kent Professor

John H. Krystal, M.D., the newly appointed Albert E. Kent Professor of Psychiatry, is an expert on the psychopharmacology and neurobiology of schizophrenia, traumatic stress and alcoholism and substance abuse.

His most recent research focuses on the neurobiology of schizophrenia and alcoholism, and he has developed several new investigative paradigms to probe possible neurobiologic abnormalities in schizophrenia. He also established clinical research programs using magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy in order to study the brains of healthy individuals vs. those with psychiatric illnesses.

Krystal is deputy chair for research in the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and is deputy director for clinical research in the Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. He is author or co-author of more than 100 articles on a wide range of subjects, including post-traumatic stress disorder, the body’s responses to certain antipsychotic drugs, effects of sleep deprivation on depressed individuals and chronic alcohol use. He has also written numerous book chapters and reviews.

Asthma specialist Jack Elias named a Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine

Jack A. Elias, M.D., newly named as Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine, is a noted specialist in asthma and lung diseases and lung injury.

One focus of his research is the pathogenesis of asthma, and he has been widely #147ed in the national media on possible causes of the increase in childhood asthma in the past 15 years.

Elias has been a professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the School of Medicine since 1990. He was the principal investigator of nearly 20 research projects funded by major grants. In 1997 he became director of the Yale-based Specialized Center of Research for Asthma, one of seven in the nation selected by the National Institutes of Health for a five-year study into the causes of the disease.

Elias writes and lectures widely on chest diseases, and he has been an invited speaker at many medical symposia, conferences and grand rounds. He is co-editor of the two-volume textbook Fishman’s Pulmonary Diseases and Disorders and has written several chapters in medical textbooks and other publications.

Keith Joiner, expert on infectious disease, also appointed a Von Zedtwitz Professor

Keith A. Joiner, M.D., newly appointed as Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine, is an expert on infectious diseases whose research has focused on malaria, which kills some two million people each year, and toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection commonly seen in people with AIDS.

A member of the Yale faculty since 1989, he is chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases and director of the School of Medicine’s Investigative Medicine Program. He holds joint appointments in the departments of epidemiology and public health and of cell biology.

Joiner has co-authored nearly 200 articles in scientific research publications and lectures widely in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia on topics ranging from septic shock to tropical diseases to bacteria-host cell interactions. He holds two patents, one as the co-inventor of a method for treating gram-positive septicemia, and the other for a quantitative assay for human terminal complement cascade.

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Yale physicians have taken on leadership roles in the American Diabetes Association, the nation’s leading voluntary health organization supporting diabetes research, education and advocacy. In July Robert S. Sherwin, M.D., the C.N.H. Long Professor of Medicine, assumed the presidency of the National Board of Directors. William V. Tamborlane Jr., M.D., professor of pediatrics, and alumnus Donald Ross Coustan, M.D. ’68, HS ’73, Chace/Joukowsy Professor and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brown University School of Medicine, were elected to the board at its 60th annual meeting and scientific sessions, held in San Antonio.

Three senior faculty members who came to Yale School of Medicine in the 1960s attained emeritus status this year: Truett Allison, Ph.D. ’62, professor of neurology and psychology, Ernest I. Kohorn, M.CHIR., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.O.G., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Peter Lengyel, Ph.D., professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and senior research scientist.

Allison, an expert on visual neurophysiology and cognitive neuroscience, has conducted research in the localization of function in the human brain, the neurophysiology of the human and monkey somato-sensory system, the evolution of sleep, the location and functional characteristics of the human cortex within the mesial wall, and visual object recognition. Allison joined the faculty in 1963 and has held concurrent appointments at the VA Connecticut HealthCare System in West Haven since 1965. He became a full professor in 1980.

Kohorn, a pioneer in the use of obstetric ultrasound and in gynecologic oncology, first came to Yale as an instructor in 1965. After a year in England, where he developed the first ultrasound unit for obstetrics and gynecology in London, he returned to New Haven to set up the first obstetric ultrasound unit in New England. In 1970 Kohorn established what is now the Yale Center for Trophoblastic disease and was also one of the first gynecologists to use chemotherapy in the management of ovarian cancer. He has been president of the New England Association of Gynecologic Oncologists, the American Urogynecologic Society and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons.

Lengyel has studied the control of protein synthesis with a focus on the genetics and biochemistry of the action of interferons, the secreted proteins of vertebrates that have antiviral, cell growth regulatory and immunomodulatory activities. Lengyel joined the faculty in 1965 as an associate professor and was appointed full professor in 1969. He also served as director of graduate studies of molecular biophysics and acting director of the division of biological sciences.

Mark R. Cullen, M.D. ’76, HS ’80, professor of medicine in occupational medicine and of public health, was selected by the Semiconductor Industry Association in October to be a member of an independent Science Advisory Committee. Members provide an independent perspective on possible cancer risks within the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry. Cullen is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Vincent T. DeVita Jr., M.D., HS ’66, professor of medicine and of epidemiology and public health and director of the Yale Cancer Center, has received the first Saul Rosenberg Research Award from the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America. The $50,000 prize recognizes DeVita’s 40 years of seminal contributions to the treatment of patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and will support additional research into diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The award honors Saul Rosenberg, emeritus professor of medicine and radiation oncology at Stanford University Medical Center.

The American College of Cardiology presented an award for humanitarian accomplishments to Nelson R. Mandela of South Africa at ceremonies held in Puerto Rico in May. John A. Elefteriades, M.D. ’76, HS ’83, professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery, was one of two American surgeons invited to speak at the event. Elefteriades’ addresses were “Yale Perspectives on the Thoracic Aorta” and “Conventional Cardiac Procedures as an Alternative to Transplantation in Patients with Left Ventricular Failure.”

Arthur C. Evans, Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, has been named deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Governor John G. Rowland announced the appointment in June. Evans served as director of managed care for the department for the past two and one-half years.

Durland Fish, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology in microbial diseases, has been named editor of Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, a new peer-review medical journal focusing solely on diseases transmitted to humans by insects or animals. The journal will be published both in print and online.

Gary E. Friedlaender, M.D., HS ’74, the Wayne O. Southwick Professor and chair of orthopaedics and rehabilitation, became chair-elect of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Council of Musculoskeletal Specialty Societies at its 67th annual meeting in Orlando in March. Friedlaender is chair of the Research Committee and Kappa Delta Research Award Committee for the AAOS. He is also a member of the Council on Education, the Council on Research, the Bone and Joint Decade Committee and the Task Force on Patient-Physician Communication.

Charles A. Greer, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery and neurobiology and co-director of the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, was appointed chair of the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review’s Integrative, Functional and Cognitive Neuroscience Study Section 4. His two-year term began in July.

Lise R. Heginbotham, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, was selected as a 2000 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts. She received the award for her research relating to ion channel structure and function and the relay of electrical signals through the membrane of the nervous system.

Jeannette R. Ickovics, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology in chronic disease, and of psychology, received the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest. Her research focuses on women and HIV/AIDS, particularly the acceleration of the disease among women.

Ruth J. Katz, J.D., M.P.H.., associate dean for administration and assistant professor of medicine and public health, has been appointed to the National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health for a four-year term that ends in 2004. As counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in the early 1990s, Katz helped write key legislation ensuring that women would be better represented in federally funded clinical trials. She has been active in building the women’s health program at Yale since arriving at the school in 1997.

Ilona S. Kickbusch, Ph.D., professor of public health and of political science and head of the division of global health, was presented a gold medal for meritorious service to the province of Vienna in May. The medal was awarded for her work at the World Health Organization in building a health promotion infrastructure in the city of Vienna. The work led to initiatives such as an overarching healthy cities program, a shift in health policy priorities and a series of programs to increase health promotion in schools, hospitals and women’s wellness centers.

Lowell S. Levin, M.P.H.. ’60, professor emeritus and lecturer in public health, has been serving as a senior consultant to the World Health Organization’s new training and policy center in Venice, Italy. Levin developed the center’s initial operational plan and will remain an advisor during its implementation.

Becca Levy, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology, was awarded the Brookdale National Fellowship for Leadership in Aging in July. She was one of four researchers in the country selected to receive the award, which is presented for excellence and promise in the field of geriatrics and gerontology.

Marc I. Lorber, M.D., professor of surgery and chief of organ transplantation and immunology, was named president-elect, in May, of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and will assume the presidency in May 2001. He recently completed a three-year term as the treasurer. Lorber was also elected a fellow of the American Surgical Association for his accomplishments, dedication and years of academic service and will be inducted into the association in April.

Bernard Lytton, M.B.B.S., F.R.C.S., the Donald Guthrie Professor Emeritus of Surgery, was elected president of the Clinical Society of Genito-Urinary Surgeons for 2000. His first annual meeting as president was held in November in Chicago. Lytton was also honored in September at “A Tribute to Living Donors” in Old Saybrook, Conn., a celebration of the successes and advances made in organ transplantation. Lytton performed the first kidney transplant at Yale in 1967.

Ruslan M. Medzhitov, Ph.D., assistant professor of immunobiology, has been named an assistant investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), bringing the total number of HHMI investigators at Yale to 17. HHMI, based in Chevy Chase, Md., with an endowment of $15 billion and annual budget of more than $600 million, enters into long-term research collaboration agreements with universities and other academic research organizations, where its investigators hold faculty appointments. Medzhitov’s research focuses on various aspects of innate immunity, including molecular mechanisms of innate immune recognition, control of adaptive immune responses by innate immune recognition, and mechanisms of autoimmunity and allergy. Medzhitov, originally from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, worked in the laboratory of Russell F. Doolittle at the University of California, San Diego, and received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Moscow University before being recruited to Yale by Charles A. Janeway Jr., M.D., in 1994. Medzhitov was among 48 scientists from 31 institutions selected as HHMI investigators in 2000.

Charles W. Needham, M.D., clinical instructor in neurosurgery, discussed pacemaker systems in May at the McGill Neurosurgical Reunion. These systems, located at the center of the brain, are currently being investigated to account for the mechanisms of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, tinnitus, chronic pain and Parkinson’s disease. The meeting, a celebration of 100 years of neurosurgery, was held at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Sara C. Rockwell, Ph.D., professor of therapeutic radiology and pharmacology, and in the Cancer Center, was appointed editor-in-chief of the journal Radiation Research at the May meeting in Albuquerque of the Radiation Research Society Council. Rockwell has served as a member of the Board of Editors of the interdisciplinary journal.

Gastroenterologist James C. Rosser Jr., M.D., associate professor of surgery, was featured in a documentary entitled “Cybersurgery” that premiered in July on the Discovery Health Channel. The documentary, which explored cutting-edge technology in medicine, followed Rosser as he taught a procedure through telemedicine to a surgical team in the Dominican Republic, from his office at Yale.

Mark J. Schlesinger, Ph.D., associate professor of public health, received the Association for Health Services Research’s 2000 Article of the Year Award in June at the organization’s annual meeting in Los Angeles. Schlesinger’s paper, “No Exit? The Effect of Health Status on Dissatisfaction and Disenrollment from Health Plans,” was co-authored with Benjamin G. Druss, M.D., M.P.H.. ’95, assistant professor of psychiatry and public health, and Tracey R. Thomas, research associate in epidemiology and public health.

Marvin L. Sears, M.D., adjunct professor of ophthalmology and visual science, and founder and former chair of the department, was recognized by the American Glaucoma Society with the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the scientific understanding and clinical treatment of glaucoma. The society’s tribute included a video from former President Bush congratulating Sears. This spring, Yale University conferred on Sears the Meritorious Service Award for Science and Engineering. At a symposium last spring, Yale Alumni in Ophthalmology and the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science honored Sears with a symposium. In addition, benefactor Herbert Lotman endowed a lectureship in Sears’ name.

Howard M. Spiro, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine and founder of the Program for Humanities in Medicine at Yale, received the 2000 Julius Friedenwald Medal in May from the American Gastroenterological Association. The medal, the society’s highest formal recognition to an individual, honors a lifetime contribution to the field of gastroenterology.

Marietta Vazquez, M.D., postdoctoral fellow in pediatrics, has received support for a four-year fellowship under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Minority Medical Faculty Development Program. Vazquez is currently conducting research to assess the protective efficacy of two recently approved vaccines for Lyme disease and chicken pox.

Eiji Yanagisawa, M.D., HS ’59, clinical professor of surgery, received the Chevalier Jackson Award in May from the American Bronchoesophagological Association at its annual meeting in Orlando. Yanagisawa spoke on “Videography and Digital Imaging of the Larynx” in June at the 11th World Congress of Bronchoesophagology in Yokohama, Japan.

Endowed chair to honor cardiothoracic pioneer

Pioneering cardiovascular surgeon William W.L. Glenn, M.D., is being honored with a professorship in his name at the School of Medicine. During almost 40 years on the faculty Glenn and his colleagues were among the first to develop innovative techniques in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. In 1948 he used a mechanical pump as a substitute for the heart’s function. Six years later he devised a shunt to bypass a malformed right heart. Under Glenn’s leadership, in 1959, the first use of the radio frequency cardiac pacemaker in the Western Hemisphere took place at Yale. Glenn also invented the phrenic pacemaker, a diaphragmatic pacemaker that allowed patients afflicted with Ondine’s Curse to breathe regularly. The list of firsts continued through 1985, when Glenn retired. He has received his share of honors during his career—including the Francis Gilman Blake Award for excellence in the teaching of medical sciences and a lecture in his honor established by the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery of the American Heart Association. In June the medical school announced the establishment of the endowed chair, the William W.L. Glenn, M.D., Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.