Yale Medicine-Faculty News

Institute elects two from faculty

Expert in the neuroscience of dyslexia, scholar in health policy join ranks of national advisory body.

Two faculty members at the School of Medicine have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. The IOM recognizes major contributions to health and medicine, and its members advise the nation on health policy.

Bennett A. Shaywitz, M.D., chief of pediatric neurology, professor of pediatrics and neurology and a member of the Child Study Center, and his wife, Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D., have been recognized by the IOM for their transforming studies of dyslexia, which have placed the disorder on the cutting edge of neuroscience. (Sally Shaywitz was elected to the IOM in 1998.) The Shaywitzes are the founders and co-directors of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development-Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention, which is widely regarded as the premier center of its kind nationally. Bennett Shaywitz joined the Yale faculty in 1972 and is the author of more than 300 scientific papers. In the late 1980s he brought the new technology of functional magnetic resonance imaging to bear on the study of children with dyslexia and currently leads a research group that is using this technology to investigate the neural basis of reading and dyslexia.

Bradford H. Gray, Ph.D. ’73, a lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale and director of the Division of Health and Science Policy at the New York Academy of Medicine, is an authority on health care policy and the ethics of human research. Gray joined the New York Academy in 1996 after eight years at Yale, where he was director of both the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Program on Non-Profit Organizations, an internationally recognized research center. He also has the unusual distinction of being an elected fellow of both The Hastings Center, the internationally recognized bioethics research institute, and the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy. He is the editor of Milbank Quarterly, a leading health policy journal.

Three faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Among the 211 new members inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, six were from Yale and three from the School of Medicine. The academy’s newly elected members were formally inducted into the academy during a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., on October 31. Honored for their “unique contributions to the nation and the world,” they are:

Pietro De Camilli, M.D., professor of cell biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. De Camilli focuses his research on the biogenesis and exo-endocytosis of synaptic vesicles, the specialized secretory organelles that store and secrete neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft. Current research includes the role of phosphoinositides and other lipids in coat recruitment, the function of actin in the endocytic reaction, and properties of a variety of accessory proteins that assist the clathrin coat in assembly, invagination and fission. De Camilli also studies stiff-man syndrome, a human disease of the nervous system due to autoimmunity directed against synaptic proteins.

Ira S. Mellman, Ph.D. ’78, chair and professor of cell biology. Mellman explores fundamental questions of membrane traffic as they relate to two specific problems. The first is the question of cell polarity and asymmetry, and he aims to solve the molecular mechanisms responsible for the sorting, intracellular targeting and transport of membrane components to their appropriate membrane domains. The second is the question of antigen processing by cells of the immune system. This work involves understanding how the endocytic and biosynthetic pathways are modified and regulated to facilitate the generation of immunogenic peptides that can be loaded onto MHC class II molecules.

Joseph Schlessinger, Ph.D., chair and professor of pharmacology. Schlessinger has made pivotal contributions toward understanding hormone and growth factor receptor function, the associated signal transduction mechanisms and their relevance to human disease. He established the mechanism by which growth factor receptors are activated and discovered how signaling proteins containing sh2 and other protein modules relay information from the cell surface to the nucleus to control cell growth and differentiation. Schlessinger serves on the advisory boards of several journals, including Cell, EMBO Journal, Molecular Cell and The Journal of Cell Biology.

Four faculty members in public health honored with endowed chairs

Four faculty members with appointments at the School of Public Health were recently named to endowed chairs.

Dean Michael H. Merson, M.D., was named the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health; Michael B. Bracken, M.P.H. ’70, Ph.D. ’74, and Brian P. Leaderer, M.P.H. ’71, Ph.D. ’75, were each appointed Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Public Health; and Hongyu Zhao, Ph.D., was named the Ira V. Hiscock Associate Professor of Public Health and Genetics.

Merson is a noted authority on AIDS and director of Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, which was established in 1997 to support HIV prevention research in vulnerable and underserved populations in the United States and abroad. He focuses his own work on international aspects of HIV prevention and related policies. Prior to his involvement in AIDS research, Merson undertook studies of the epidemiology of diarrheal diseases, including cholera, in developing countries.

Following his medical training Merson spent three years working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and then became the chief medical epidemiologist at the Cholera Research Laboratory in Bangladesh. From 1978 until 1995 he worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, and from 1990 to 1995 he headed the worldwide effort to control the AIDS pandemic as the director, then executive director, of the WHO’s Global Programme on AIDS.

At Yale Merson also directs the AIDS International Training and Research Program, based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the AIDS International Clinical, Operational, and Health Services Research Program based in Pretoria, South Africa. Both programs are supported by the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center. He has been a consultant to the World Bank and to its AIDS prevention projects in such countries as India, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Madagascar. He has chaired several national panels and committees focused on the prevention of HIV and other diseases.

Bracken is head of the Chronic Disease Epidemiology Division in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. He specializes in the epidemiology of diseases of pregnant women and newborns and has been instrumental in developing therapies for acute spinal cord injuries. He combines these interests in his research and as director of the Yale Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and the National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study. The former, which he has led since 1979, conducts research on obstetric, perinatal and neonatal disease. The latter, which Bracken has overseen since 1977, conducts randomized trials of therapies for preventing paralysis after spinal cord injury.

Bracken and his colleagues identified the first successful therapy for acute spinal trauma in 1990. His articles in this area have examined the effectiveness and timing of the drugs methylprednisolone and naloxone in treating spinal trauma and the effectiveness of surgery in combination with drug therapies in treating spinal cord injuries.

Leaderer is a noted authority on air quality whose research focuses on assessing exposures to air contaminants and the health impact of such exposures. His work includes developing a theoretical framework for assessing exposure in epidemiological studies, determining the type and quality of health-related contaminants emitted from sources, assessing environmental concentrations of contaminants and developing monitoring and modeling techniques.

Leaderer is head of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and is the principal investigator of studies examining the role of indoor and outdoor air contaminant exposures in respiratory symptoms in infants and their nonsmoking mothers, risk factors for the development of asthma in infants and young children, and the relationship of indoor allergens and air contaminants to the severity of asthma in young children.

Zhao studies the development of mathematical, statistical and computational methods to address scientific questions raised in molecular biology and genetics. He is working with colleagues on the development of tools for identifying genes underlying complex diseases, studying genetic variations in populations around the world and investigating genetic mechanisms related to mental retardation. He is also developing statistical methods to estimate gene expression levels from microarray data, to identify genes with correlated expression patterns and to understand a variety of biological pathways.

Zhao is the principal investigator of three research studies currently under way in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and is involved in several other studies. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the March of Dimes Foundation.

19 faculty members receive awards for research on brain disorders

Five Yale researchers have received Independent Investigator grants totaling almost $500,000 from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD).

The goal of NARSAD’s Independent Investigator Program is to provide support for scientists at the critical juncture between initiating independent research and achieving sustained funding. The Yale researchers will each receive a two-year grant of about $100,000 to continue research on a variety of brain disorders. They are Meenakshi Alreja, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and neurobiology; Nashatt Boutros, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry; Larry Davidson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry; Paul Lombroso, M.D., associate professor in the Child Study Center; and Bita Moghaddam, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and neurobiology.

In addition, NARSAD has awarded 14 Young Investigator grants totaling $840,000 to scientists at Yale. NARSAD is the largest nongovernmental organization funding research in brain disorders worldwide.

Each of the researchers will receive an award of $60,000. The researchers and their areas of interest are Amit Anand, M.B.B.S., assistant professor of psychiatry, bipolar disorder; Kevin L. Behar, Ph.D., research scientist in psychiatry, depression; Robert Andrew Chambers, M.D., postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, schizophrenia; Kristin K. Haga, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate in psychiatry, post-stroke depression; Fiona M. Inglis, Ph.D., associate research scientist in neurology, schizophrenia; Joan Kaufman, Ph.D. ’90, assistant professor of psychiatry and in the Child Study Center, child/ adolescent and adult-onset depression; Fusun Kilic, Ph.D., associate research scientist in pharmacology, depression; Jaakko A.S. Lappalainen, M.D., Ph.D., instructor in psychiatry, depression; Daniel H. Mathalon, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, schizophrenia; Adrian Preda, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, schizophrenia; Gerard Sanacora, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, depression; Gerald W. Valentine, M.D., resident in psychiatry, depression; Sheila Wang, Ph.D., associate research scientist in psychiatry, post-traumatic stress disorder; and Zoran Zimolo, M.D., Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, bone loss in patients with schizophrenia and depression.

˜˜˜ NOTES

Henry J. Binder, M.D., professor of medicine and of cellular and molecular physiology, will share in a five-year, $1 million research award from the Wellcome Trust and Burroughs Wellcome Fund to study diarrheal diseases in developing countries. Binder, who is also director of the General Clinical Research Center at Yale, will work with collaborators in India and Scotland to develop an improved oral rehydration solution for diarrheal diseases, one of the most common causes of death among the world’s children. He previously collaborated to develop a starch that improves the effectiveness of rehydration solutions by improving fluid absorption. This new study will establish the treatment’s efficacy and determine how well patients follow treatment.

James P. Comer, M.D., the Maurice Falk Professor in the Child Study Center and professor of psychiatry, was presented the Distinguished Service Award in November by Covenant to Care Inc., a nonprofit, interfaith organization that connects social workers and other child welfare professionals with faith communities throughout Connecticut in order to provide programs, goods and services to abused, neglected and impoverished children. Comer was recognized for demonstrating leadership, passion and vision through his work in enhancing the quality of life for Connecticut’s most vulnerable children.

The Epidemiology and Public Health Emerging Infections Program was awarded a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the Association of American Medical Colleges and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the study of the causes of acute diarrheal illness among patients receiving primary outpatient care. Robert Heimer, Ph.D. ’88, associate professor of epidemiology, public health and pharmacology, will serve as principal investigator for the Acute Diarrheal Disease Surveillance study in collaboration with Stephen C. Edberg, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and medicine; Paul L. McCarthy, M.D., professor of pediatrics; and Patrick G. O’Connor, M.D., professor of medicine. Therese R. Rabatsky-Ehr, M.P.H. ’96, research associate, will be the study coordinator.

Arthur L. Horwich, M.D., HS ’78, professor of genetics and pediatrics, received the 2001 Hans Neurath Award from the Protein Society. The award honors his contribution of unusual merit to basic research in the field of protein science. Horwich has examined the mitochondrial “machinery” that recognizes and translocates precursor proteins and, in a genetic screen in yeast, uncovered Hsp60 (the yeast homologue of GroEL) as essential for folding newly imported proteins. This led to his studies in the last 10 years on chaperonin-mediated protein folding. Horwich is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He received a National Research Service Award and previously was named an outstanding young investigator by the Society for Pediatric Research. He has been on the faculty at Yale since 1984.

In August, the Ellison Medical Foundation announced the Senior Scholar Awardees in Global Infectious Diseases for 2001. Three members of the Yale faculty were among the recipients. Keith A. Joiner, M.D., section chief and Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (infectious diseases), epidemiology and cell biology, and Elizabetta Ullu, Ph.D., professor of medicine (infectious diseases) and cell biology, were honored for their research, “Development of New Genetic Tools To Identify Nutrient Uptake Pathways in Malaria Parasites.” HHMI investigator Peter Cresswell, Ph.D., professor of immunobiology, biology and dermatology, was honored for his research entitled “Antiviral Effects of Interferon-Inducible Cytosolic Proteins.”

Becca Levy, assistant professor of epidemiology (chronic disease), received the Adult Development and Aging Division 20 Springer Early Career Achievement Award. The annual award in recognition of outstanding early-career achievements is designed to honor a psychologist whose work made a significant contribution to understanding critical issues in adult development and aging. Levy received the award at the August meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Richard P. Lifton, M.D., Ph.D., chair of genetics, professor of genetics, medicine and molecular biophysics and biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Pasko Rakic, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Section of Neurobiology and the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience, received the medical research awards of The Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation at its 14th annual medical and scientific awards dinner in Los Angeles. Lifton was recognized for his pioneering application of molecular genetic approaches to the study of hypertension. Rakic was recognized for his critical discoveries on the interaction of nerve and glial cells as they develop in the brain. Each received a $35,000 prize.

Perry L. Miller, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and director of Medical Informatics, was awarded a $1.3 million grant as part of the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative to support planning for Centers of Excellence in Biomedical Computing. This “pre-center” grant provides funds over three years to prepare Yale to host such a center, which could ultimately be funded at $5 million or more per year. Co-directors of this grant include Michael Snyder, professor and chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and Martin Schultz, the Arthur K. Watson Professor of Computer Science. The NIH has identified a critical shortage of scientists trained in the interdisciplinary areas of biomedical computing. The new centers will help train new scientists in these areas.

Alvin Novick, M.D., professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of epidemiology and public health, received the community service award from AIDS Project New Haven (APNH) in September for his pioneering commitments to people living with HIV/AIDS, research and public policy. Novick was a founding member of APNH and was honored on the 20th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic.

Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, was one of five recipients of the For Women in Science Program award from L’Oreal Beauty Company and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2001. Steitz was recognized for advances that could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of auto-immune diseases such as lupus. She discovered small particles, called snRNPs, that are necessary for converting raw genetic material into active proteins.

Stephen M. Strittmatter, M.D., Ph.D., the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology and professor of neurobiology, received the Memory and Brain Disorders Award of $300,000 from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, to support his research for three years. Strittmatter’s research on “Nogo Regulation of Axonal Regeneration and Plasticity” focuses on the extent to which axons, the wires in the brain, can rearrange themselves and recover after injuries to the nervous system. The research could lead to treatments for disabilities caused by spinal cord injuries, strokes and multiple sclerosis.

Morris Traube, M.D., professor of medicine (digestive diseases) and director of the GI Procedure Center, recently graduated with the highest grade point average in the history of Quinnipiac University School of Law, and has been appointed an adjunct professor there. Traube completed his law degree in three years while continuing his clinical practice and administrative responsibilities at Yale. Over the years, Traube, who holds an M.S. in Talmudic studies and rabbinic ordination, has lectured on Jewish medical ethics. During a sabbatical 10 years ago he considered studying the relationship between Jewish law and general law, in the context of clinical medicine.

Robert I. White Jr., M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology and director of the Vascular Malformation Clinical and Research Group, recently visited hospitals in Canada, Denmark, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Australia. In 1988, White founded the nation’s first clinic for patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, a rare inherited disorder in which the blood vessels fail to form properly. The Yale center is following 600 patients with pulmonary arteriovenous malformations and an additional 1,000 with various combinations of epistaxis, gastrointestinal bleeding and vascular malformations in the liver and brain. Since its founding, the center has trained 12 specialists from around the world and helped establish similar clinics on four continents.

Tian Xu, M.D. ’90, associate professor of genetics and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was the first recipient of a $100,000 Rothberg Award for Courage in Research presented by the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance. Xu was recognized in part for publishing findings that provide promise that further study of the insulin signaling pathway may lead to the development of treatments for tuberous sclerosis complex lesions. The award is made possible through a research fund established by Jonathan Rothberg, Ph.D. ’91, founder and CEO of CuraGen in New Haven, and his wife, Bonnie Gould Rothberg, M.D. ’94.

Edward F. Zigler, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Psychology and a faculty member in the Child Study Center, received the Connecticut Higher Education Lifetime Achievement Community Service Award. Zigler has worked locally in Connecticut, helping to draft legislation to create a pilot paid family leave law and for preschool education, but he has had an international impact. He was one of the creators of the Head Start program and currently directs the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. The award honored his outstanding leadership and contributions to the field.

Send faculty news items to: Claire Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, P.O. Box 7612, New Haven, CT 06519-0612.