Article Text
PDF
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Carlos N. Pato Photo courtesy of SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Carlos N. Pato, MD, has been named dean of the College of Medicine at State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center. His appointment was effective July 2015. He joined SUNY Downstate from the University of Southern California (USC), where he was the Franz Alexander Professor of Psychiatry and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine. His colleague and wife, Michele Pato, MD, also joined SUNY Downstate. Their collaborative research is focused on genomic psychiatry with an emphasis on population-based genetic studies.
Dr. Pato completed his MD and research training at the University of Cincinnati and residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed a fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health, a part of the National Institutes of Health, where he coordinated the development of the Diagnostic Centers for Psychiatric Linkage Studies program and the National Cell Repository, Schizophrenia Research Branch. He previously served as vice chair of psychiatry and associate dean for clinical affairs at SUNY Buffalo; associate chief of staff for research at the Washington, DC VA Medical Center, and has held several research center directorships.
Dr. Pato is a native of Portugal, and his numerous honors and awards include an honorary PhD (doutoramento) in medical genetics from the Universidade de Coimbra in Coimbra, Portugal. He is a past-president of the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry. In 2010, he was elected as a member of the American College of Psychiatrists and was named a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2003.
Dean of UVA School of Medicine Appointed
David S. Wilkes Photo courtesy of the UVA
David S. Wilkes, MD, has been appointed as dean of the University of Virginia School (UVA) of Medicine. His five-year appointment was effective September 15, 2015. He succeeds Randolph J. Canterbury, MD, who served as interim dean since November 2014.
Dr. Wilkes is a board-certified specialist in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine. He joined the UVA from Indiana University (IU), where he had served since 1992. He was executive associate dean for research affairs at the IU School of Medicine and served as the university’s assistant vice president for research and director of the Strategic Research Initiative for the IU School of Medicine and IU Health. He was also director of the IU School of Medicine’s Physician Scientist Initiative.
Dr. Wilkes earned his MD from Temple University and completed residency at Temple University Hospital. He completed a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He holds six U.S. patents and is co-founder and chief scientific officer of ImmuneWorks Inc. He has served as national director of the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2013 and has been recognized for his work as a mentor with the Alvin S. Bynum Mentoring Award from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Dr. Wilkes is a military veteran, having served three years as a major in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps.
Chair of the Department of Medicine Named at Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Gregory Kane Photo courtesy of Thomas Jefferson University
Gregory Kane, MD, has been appointed as Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. His appointment was effective on July 1. A member of the faculty at Jefferson, Dr. Kane is the Jane and Leonard Korman Professor of Pulmonary Medicine. Prior to becoming Vice Chair for Education and Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency in 1997, he was Director of the Pulmonary/Critical Care Fellowship. From 2008 to 2010, he served as Interim Division Director of Pulmonary/Critical Care.
Dr. Kane earned his MD from Jefferson Medical College, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Lankenau Hospital, and returned to Jefferson for a fellowship in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine. He is board certified in pulmonary disease, internal medicine and critical care medicine and he is an active Pulmonary and Critical Care subspecialist. His research and clinical interests include asthma, sarcoidosis and bronchiectasis. He is a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine, the Council of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine, and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine.
Dr. Kane has been recognized as a leading educator with the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was also awarded the Jefferson Medical College Dean’s Award, which recognizes distinguished teaching in a clinical science. He received the Teaching Award for Humanistic Care from the junior house staff at Jefferson on two occasions; the Teaching Award for Accessibility and Collegiality from the intern house staff at Jefferson; the Gold Humanism Award, and the Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” award from the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education.
Keck School Names Director of Kidney Research Center
Kenneth R. Hallows Photo courtesy of USC Keck School of Medicine
Kenneth R. Hallows, MD, PhD, has been named as the new chief of the Division of Nephrology and director of the University of Southern California’s (USC’s) USC/UKRO Kidney Research Center. He joins the Keck School from the faculty of the University of Pittsburg, where he directed the Cellular Physiology Core of the O’Brien Pittsburg Center for Kidney Research.
Dr. Hallows is an internationally recognized expert in ion transport physiology and in transport-metabolism coupling via the metabolic sensor AMP-activated protein kinase. His clinical interests include electrolyte disorders, acute kidney injury and polycystic kidney disease. He earned a degree in biophysics from Brown University in 1987 and subsequently completed the MD-PhD program at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York. He earned his PhD in biophysics in 1993 and MD in 1995. He completed internship, residency and a fellowship in nephrology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Director of CTSI at Indiana University School of Medicine Named
Anantha Shekhar Photo courtesy of Indiana University
Anantha Shekhar, MD, PhD, has been named as director of the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI). Dr. Shekhar is a leading researcher at the IU School of Medicine and has served as the founding director of the Indiana CTSI since 2008. The Indiana CTSI, a statewide collaboration that includes Purdue University, the University of Notre Dame and a number of life sciences businesses and community organizations, was initially funded with a five-year, $25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2008. The grant was renewed at $30 million for another five years in 2013. In his new role, Dr. Shekhar will continue to direct the operations of the Indiana CTSI.
In addition to his IU School of Medicine and Indiana CTSI roles, Dr. Shekhar serves as associate vice president for university clinical affairs for Indiana University and executive vice president of academic affairs for clinical research at Indiana University Health. He previously served as founding director of the Neuroscience Clinical Research Center at the Department of Psychiatry (1997–2007). His research has centered on neuropsychiatric disorders, with focus on panic and related anxiety disorders. He has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since joining the IU School of Medicine in 1989. During his tenure, he has initiated several Investigational New Drug applications with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has conducted numerous clinical trials of novel therapies to treat anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Dr. Shekhar earned his MD at St. John’s Medical College and completed residency and fellowship at the IU School of Medicine. He is a tenured member of the Advisory Board for Clinical Research of the NIH Clinical Center and has served as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (2014). He is currently a member of the Advisory Council for the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the Board of Governors of the NIH Cures Acceleration Network.
Chair of the Department of Microbiology Named at the Perelman School of Medicine
Frederic D. Bushman Photo courtesy of Penn Medicine
Frederic D. Bushman, PhD, has been named chair of the department of Microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He has served at Penn for over a decade, where he is a professor of Microbiology and of Pediatrics and co-director of the Penn/Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Microbiome Program.
Dr. Bushman is a leader in the fields of microbiology and gene therapy, and he is widely recognized for his pioneering research demonstrating how HIV reproduces by inserting its genetic material into the DNA of a host cell. His work has led to important advances in anti-retroviral therapy and gene transfer technology.
Dr. Bushman earned his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University in 1988 and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard and at the National Institutes of Health. He joined the Penn faculty as professor of Microbiology in 2003, prior to which he served at The Salk Institute in San Diego. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2014, he was recognized as one of 12 pioneers in the field of cell and gene therapy, receiving a Pioneer Award from the journal Human Gene Therapy.
Chair of Radiology Named at Baylor College of Medicine
Eric Rohren Photo courtesy of Baylor College of Medicine
Eric Rohren, MD, PhD, has been named chair of radiology at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). He joins BCM from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he is a professor in the Departments of Nuclear Medicine and Diagnostic Radiology in the Division of Diagnostic Imaging and serves as chief of the Section of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). He has served on the MD Anderson faculty since 2007, prior to which he held appointments as a faculty physician at the Mayo Clinic and as medical director of several molecular imaging centers in Florida. His appointment at Baylor is effective October 1.
Dr. Rohren earned his MD from Mayo Medical School in Rochester, MN and his doctorate in Immunology from Mayo Graduate School. He completed residency in diagnostic radiology and fellowship training in nuclear medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is board certified by the American Board of Radiology and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine.
Dr. Rohren has held leadership positions in the American College of Radiology, the Radiologic Society of North America, the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. His research has focused on cancer imaging, novel radiotracers in oncology and neurology and targeted radioisotope therapies. He has worked extensively on PET/CT reporting and has worked with the PET Utilization Task Force to develop guidelines for report structure and content.
Chair of New Department at HWCOM Named
Pedro “Joe“ Greer, Jr. Photo courtesy of FIU
Pedro “Joe“ Greer, Jr., MD, has been named chair of the newly created Department of Medicine, Family Medicine, and Community Health at Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM). As part of the College of Medicine’s restructuring, the Department of Humanities, Health, and Society – of which Dr. Greer is the founding chair, has been merged with the Department of Medicine – for which Dr. Greer was serving as interim chair. The newly created department is the second integrated clinical department at the HWCOM. Previously, the departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery were combined to form the Department of Neuroscience. In his new role, Dr. Greer will continue to serve as Associate Dean for Community Engagement.
Dr. Greer earned his MD at La Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic. He completed residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where he also served as Chief Medical Resident and completed fellowships in Hepatology and Gastroenterology. He is widely recognized for his advocacy on behalf of the homeless and underprivileged, for which he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society and a fellow in the American College of Physicians and the American College of Gastroenterology.
Associate Dean for Maternal and Child Health Named at Stanford
Yasser El-Sayed Photo courtesy of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Yasser El-Sayed, MD, has been appointed as an associate dean for maternal and child health at the Stanford School of Medicine. He joins three other associate deans for maternal and child health who represent faculty affairs, research and global affairs. Dr. El-Sayeed has served at Stanford since 1990 and is the Charles B. and Ann L. Johnson Professor and director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics at the School of Medicine. He is also co-director of the Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services and obstetrician-in-chief at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. He will retain these roles with his new position.
Dr. El-Sayeed earned his MD at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1990 and completed internship, residency and fellowship training at Stanford University Medical Center. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Henry I. Darner Award of the American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society in 2007. He received Stanford University School of Medicine’s Arthur L. Bloomfield Award in Recognition of Excellence in Teaching of Clinical Medicine in 2010 as well as the School’s Alwin C. Rambar-James B.D. Mark Award for Excellence in Patient Care in 2007. He is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Maternal and Fetal Medicine by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Director of the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center at UAB Named
Steven M. Rowe Photo courtesy of the UAB
Steven M. Rowe, MD, MSPH, has been named as director of the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine. Dr. Rowe serves at UAB as professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine. He is also director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Therapeutics Development Network Center for CFTR Detection and of an International Mucus Clearance Consortium.
Dr. Rowe is a recognized leader in the design and conduct of clinical trials targeting the basic Cystic Fibrosis defect. He earned his MD from Vanderbilt University in 1998 and MSPH at UAB. He also completed a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency as well as a Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Pediatric Pulmonary fellowship at UAB prior to joining the faculty as an instructor in 2005. He was appointed a professor of Medicine in 2014 and has secondary faculty appointments in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology and the Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics.
Director of New Institute of Biomedical Informatics Appointed at UK
GQ Zhang Photo courtesy of the UK
GQ Zhang, PhD, has been appointed as director of the newly established Institute of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Kentucky (UK). He will also serve as chief of the new biomedical informatics division in the UK College of Medicine and co-director of the biomedical informatics core of the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science. His appointment was effective on August 1.
Prior to joining the UK, Dr. Zhang served as division chief of medical informatics and professor of computer science at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). He was accompanied in his move by an expert team of researchers who are working on two national center grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Zhang’s research interests include Biomedical and Clinical Informatics, Data Science and Cloud Computing, User Interfaces and Usability, and Theoretical Computer Science. He earned a BS in Applied Mathematics from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China, where he also completed a MSc in Information Science at Peking University. He earned a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom in 1990. Prior to joining CWRU in 2000, he served on the faculty of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Georgia.
HHMI President Robert Tjian to Step Down
Robert Tjian Photo credit James Kegley Courtesy of HHMI
Robert Tjian, PhD, announced that he will step down from his post as President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in late 2016. He plans to return to research in his lab at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. He has served as president of HHMI since April 2009.
Dr. Tjian earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Berkeley in 1971 and a PhD from Harvard University in 1976. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley in 1979. At Berkeley, Dr. Tijan previously served as the Director of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center and was the Faculty Director of the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous honors and awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University.
NICHD Director Alan Guttmacher Retires
Alan Guttmacher Photo courtesy of the NIH
Alan E. Guttmacher, MD, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), retired from his position effective September 30, 2015. He had served as NICHD Director since 2010.
Dr. Guttmacher began his NIH career as a special assistant to then-director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), Dr. Francis Collins. He became deputy director of NHGRI in 2002 and acting director in 2008. During his tenure, he helped shape the development of a scientific vision for the institute and, among many other accomplishments, initiated the Human Placenta Project.
Catherine Y. Spong, MD, NICHD’s Deputy Director, assumed the post as acting director on October 1.