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Vincent T. DeVita Jr., M.D., director of the Yale Cancer Center and professor of internal medicine (oncology) and of epidemiology and public health, has been awarded the Commendatore Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. The medal, a high honor bestowed by the Italian government, was presented at a ceremony in March at the Yale Club in New York. Dr. DeVita received the award for his significant contributions to the treatment and cure of cancer in Italy, the United States and throughout the world. Dr. DeVita also was named to serve on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The newly-established program is designed to fill a gap in funding young investigators for clinical research in cancer, heart disease and AIDS. Dr. DeVita is one of two nationally known cancer experts who have been invited to sit on the council. Robert M. Donaldson Jr., M.D., David Paige Smith Emeritus Professor of Medicine, was honored in April when the VA Connecticut Healthcare System West Haven Campus named the new education center in his honor for his contribution to education in the service of patients. John A. Elefteriades, M.D., professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery, was elected a founding director of the Heritage Foundation, which subsumes the former New York, Connecticut and New Jersey Chapters of the American Heart Association. He is the only surgeon on the board. Dr. Elefteriades also delivered an honorary address on the Perspectives of the Thoracic Aorta from the Yale Center for Thoracic Aortic Disease in Tokyo in February at the joint meeting of the Asian Cardiovascular Society and the Japanese Society for Cardiovascular Surgery. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) elected as fellows in the Section of Medical Sciences, Myron Genel, M.D., associate dean for government and community affairs and professor of pediatrics/pediatric endocrinology; Martin E. Gordon, M.D. '46, clinical professor of medicine; and Karl L. Insogna, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine (endocrinology); and in the Section of Biological Sciences, Walter F. Boron, M.D., chair and professor of cellular and molecular physiology. The presentation was made at the AAAS annual meeting in February in Philadelphia. Among the speakers at the Philadelphia meeting were Keith A. Joiner, M.D., professor of internal medicine (infectious disease), cell biology, and epidemiology and public health; Gregory E. McCarthy, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of neurosurgery and neurology; and Richard M. Satava, M.D., professor of surgery (general). Peter M. Glazer, M.D., associate professor of therapeutic radiology, received the Michael Fry Young Investigator award at the annual meeting of the Radiation Research Society in April. This is the most prestigious award made by the society. Sharon K. Inouye, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine, was presented the 1998 Otsuka/American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Outstanding Scientific Achievement for Clinical Investigation Award by the AGS at their annual meeting in May in New York. Dr. Inouye was recognized for her achievements in clinical research addressing health care problems of older adults as a physician investigator who is actively involved in direct patient care. Michael Kashgarian, M.D., professor of pathology and biology, received the James Colangelo Achievement Award by the National Kidney Foundation of Connecticut in May. The award recognizes medical professionals who have substantially improved the quality of life for renal or urologic patients. Dr. Kashgarian is editor-in-chief of Yale Medicine. Daniel M. Koenigsberg, M.D., associate clinical professor in the Child Study Center, was promoted to vice chairman of psychiatry at the Hospital of St. Raphael, where he is also section chief of the hospital's child and adolescent psychiatry division. Robert G. LaCamera, M.D., clinical professor of pediatrics and pediatric nurse practitioner program (primary care), was presented the second annual Children's Health and Wellbeing Award by ConnectiCare Inc. Dr. LaCamera, who retired from private practice last year as a New Haven pediatrician devoted to caring for children with disabilities. He has also been the medical director of the Easter Seal-Goodwill Industries Rehabilitation Center in New Haven since 1956. Richard P. Lifton, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, genetics and molecular biophysics and biochemistry, has been named this year's recipient of the Homer Smith Award of the American Society of Nephrology for his laboratory's research into the molecular genetics of hypertension and kidney disease. The award, the society's highest scientific prize, was announced this month and will be presented at the society's annual meeting in Philadelphia in October. Dr. Lifton received his M.D. degree from Stanford University in 1982 and received his Ph.D. there in 1986. He joined the Yale faculty in 1993 as an assistant professor of medicine and genetics. His laboratory uses genetic approaches to identify inherited causes of hypertension, renal and cardiovascular disease. To date the group has identified the molecular basis of a dozen such diseases, which have provided important insight into disease causation, diagnosis and treatment. Bruce McClennan, M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology, was elected secretary of the American Roentgen Ray Society at the society's 98th annual scientific and education meeting in San Francisco in April. Dr. McClennan began his five-year term April 30. The American Roentgen Ray Society was founded in 1900 and is dedicated to the goal of educating radiologists and to the advancement of medicine through radiology and its allied sciences. The Yale Cancer Center has inaugurated a revolutionary bone marrow transplantation procedure between partially mismatched, related donors. Joseph P. McGuirk, D.O., associate research scientist in internal medicine (oncology), has been named assistant director for Allogeneic Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation at the Yale Cancer Center. Ira Mellman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and immunology and director of the Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, has been awarded the Newton-Abraham Visiting Professorship in Medical, Biological and Chemical Sciences at the University of Oxford for the 1998-1999 academic year. Dr. Mellman plans to travel to England several times to deliver a series of public and scientific lectures at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. Previous recipients of the professorship include James D. Watson, Ph.D. Victor J. Navarro, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, was honored in April by the American Liver Foundation for his contributions to the work of its Connecticut chapter. Kyle D. Pruett, M.D., clinical professor of child psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center and the School of Nursing, has been named president of Zero to Three, a national nonprofit organization of pediatricians and child development specialists who share new knowledge about children's early development with parents, policy makers and other professionals. Dr. Pruett is nationally known for his work with traumatized children and for research on how fathers influence their young children's development. Dr. Pruett says the issues of quality medical and day care will be a primary focus of his work for Zero to Three, which is under the auspices of the National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. Carolyn W. Slayman, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Physiology and deputy dean for academic and scientific affairs, has been appointed to a 15 member panel that will analyze the peer-review system at the National Institutes of Health. The system includes study sections which evaluate and score most grant applications submitted by researchers at colleges and universities. Recommendations from the panel are expected to be made within a year. Howard M. Spiro, M.D., director of the Program for Humanities in Medicine and professor of internal medicine (digestive diseases), was among noted speakers at a March 2 convocation in Vienna marking the 60th anniversary of the dismissal of Jewish faculty members from the Vienna Medical School. In his address, The Silence of Words, Dr. Spiro said, “the things that we avoid and don't talk about are the matters that mean the most to us. The shame that has no vent in words makes other organs weep.” According to Dr. Spiro, current officials of the University of Vienna are attempting to recover information that has either been hidden or destroyed and trying to locate former faculty who were interned and exiled. “There is a new generation that has taken over,” says Dr. Spiro, “and they are not afraid to look into these atrocities.” David C. Ward, Ph.D.,
professor of genetics and molecular biophysics and biochemistry, was one of three
Yale researchers inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in April. Dr. Ward
has developed techniques called fluorescence in situ hybridization, known as FISH,
that are widely used to analyze human chromosomes as well as to detect infectious,
genetic and cancerous diseases. Among his accomplishments is the complete genetic
mapping of chromosome 12, which contains genes implicated in a variety of diseases,
including diabetes and several forms of cancer. Dr. Ward received his Ph.D. degree
from Rockefeller University in 1969 and was a Leukemia Society of America Fellow
1969-1971 at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London. He joined the Yale faculty in
1971. The National Academy of Sciences, a private organization of scientists and
engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science for the general welfare, was established
in 1863. |
