CUIMC Celebrates 2018-2019

Issue 5

CUIMC CELEBRATES acknowledges faculty, staff, and students at Columbia University Irving Medical Center who receive major research grants, who earn prestigious honors, who are elected to honorary societies, or who take leadership positions in professional organizations. Celebrates also gratefully acknowledges the gifts made by donors and friends of the medical center and highlights faculty who have appeared in the news recently. If you have an award or honor that you would like to have listed in Celebrates, please fill out this online form. Please note: All federal grants are automatically included based on institutional data provided by Sponsored Projects Administration. For more information, send an e-mail to the Celebrates editor.

Looking for an older issue? The CUIMC Celebrates archive can be accessed at https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/topics/campus-news/cuimc-celebrates/.

Research Grants

Awards & Honors

Philanthropic Gifts

CUIMC in the News

RESEARCH GRANTS

New awards $250,000 and above received through February 2019

VAGELOS COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

Rando Allikmets, PhD, Ophthalmology, will receive $2,114,808 over four years from the National Eye Institute for “Stargardt Disease With Low Lipofuscin.”

Christoph Anacker, PhD, Psychiatry, will receive $746,744 over three years from the National Institute of Mental Health for “Identifying Cellular and Molecular Substrates of Treatment-Resistant Depression.”

R. Graham Barr, MD, DrPH, Medicine, David Lederer, MD, Medicine, and Neil Schluger, MD, Medicine, will receive $1,376,689 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Training Program in Population Science of Respiratory Diseases.”

Adam Brickman, PhD, Taub Institute, will receive $883,102 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for a subaward of “Cognitive Function, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Related Disorders in the HAALSI Cohort.”

Joriene De Nooij, PhD, Neurology, will receive $1,771,875 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for “Molecular Correlates of Proprioceptor Subtype Identity.”

Nicolino Dorrello, MD, PhD, Pediatrics, will receive $323,999 over two years from the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for “Targeted Approach to Lung Repair and Regeneration in Alveolar Type II Cell Disease.”

Donna Farber, PhD, Surgery, and Jahar Bhattacharya, MD, DPhil, Medicine, will receive $2,574,812 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Immunobiology and Alveolar Physiology of the Aging Lung.”

Ragy Girgis, MD, Psychiatry, will receive $329,528 over five years from the National Institute of Mental Health for a subaward of “Individualized Risk Prediction in Persons at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Using Neuromelanin-Sensitive MRI.”

Robin Goland, MD, Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, will receive $421,751 over one year from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for a subaward of “Data Coordinating Center for Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet (UC4).”

David Goldstein, PhD, Institute for Genomic Medicine, will receive $971,313 over four years from the National Human Genome Research Institute for a subaward of “An Integrated and Diverse Genomic Medicine Program for Undiagnosed Diseases” in a competitive renewal.

Eric Greene, PhD, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, will receive $1,852,875 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Helicase Regulation During Homologous Recombination.”

Yian Gu, MD, PhD, Taub Institute, will receive $3,670,310 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for “The Role of Inflammation in the Association Between Diet and Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Michio Hirano, MD, Neurology, will receive $862,500 over three years from the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation for “Marriott Mitochondrial Disease Clinical Research Network (MMDCRN) 2.0: Targeting mtDNA as a Basis of Human Disease.”

Benjamin Hobson, MD-PhD candidate, VP&S Office for Research, will receive $253,572 over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Gene Expression Programs in Maturing Dopamine Neurons: Temporal Regulation, Subcellular Localization, and Alteration by Amphetamine.”

Jianhua Hu, PhD, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, will receive $296,455 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for a subaward of “Enhancing Responses to Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Melanoma via Modulation of the Microbiome.”

Yuefeng Huang, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology, will receive $446,069 over two years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for “The Generation, Migration, and Function of Inflammatory ILC2s.”

Holly Hunsberger, PhD, Psychiatry, will receive $258,768 over two years from the National Institute on Aging for “The Sex-Specific Impact of Anxiety on Alzheimer’s Disease Progression.”

Anna Lasorella, MD, Institute for Cancer Genetics, will receive $1,852,875 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Mechanisms of ID2 Regulation in Glioma.”

Guohua Li, MD, DrPH, Anesthesiology, will receive $1,249,095 over four years from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety for “LongROAD Phase 2: Columbia University Site.”

Fangming Lin, MD, PhD, Pediatrics, will receive $1,697,000 over four years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Generation of New Mouse Models of Low Nephron Numbers to Understand Pathogenesis of AKI and CKD in Humans Born Preterm.”

Jose Luchsinger, MD, Medicine, will receive $3,890,963 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for a subaward of “Subclinical Vascular Contributions to Alzheimer’s Disease: The Multi Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) Multisite Study of AD.”

Filippo Mancia, PhD, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, will receive $648,000 over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for a subaward of “Heme and Hemoglobin Utilization by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.”

Claude Mellins, PhD, Psychiatry, will receive $3,330,807 from the National Institute of Mental Health over five years for “Pathways to Successful Aging Among Perinatally HIV-Infected and Exposed Young Adults: Risk, Resilience, and the Role of Perinatal HIV Infection” in a competitive renewal.

Ilana Nossel, MD, Psychiatry, will receive $4,999,995 over five years from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for “Promoting Hope and Opportunities for Youth with Early Psychosis.”

Edward V. Nunes, MD, Psychiatry, will receive $540,255 over three years from the Department of the Army for “Investigation of the NMDA Antagonist Ketamine as a Treatment for Tinnitus.”

Tal Nuriel, PhD, Taub Institute, will receive $627,090 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for “Investigating the Cause of APOE4-Associated Microglial Activation and its Resulting Neurotoxicity of Tauopathy-Afflicted Neurons.”

Utpal Pajvani, MD, PhD, Medicine, will receive $1,669,157 over four years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Jagged-Notch Signaling in NASH/Fibrosis.”

Jianwen Que, PhD, Medicine, will receive $1,573,794 over four years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Basal Progenitor Cells and Eosinophilic Esophagitis” in a competitive renewal.

Christine Rohde, MD, Surgery, will receive $549,726 over two years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for a subaward of “Evaluation of Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Naltrexone Implant.”

Yufeng Shen, PhD, Systems Biology, will receive $315,015 over two years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Integrate Gene Expression Data to Characterize the Contribution of Rare Genetic Risk Factors to Structural Birth Defects.”

Daichi Shimbo, MD, Medicine, will receive $1,278,794 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for a subaward of “Evaluating Novel Approaches for Estimating Awake and Sleep Blood Pressure” and $540,824 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for a subaward of “Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Falls in Older Treated Patients With Hypertension.”

Janet Sparrow, PhD, Ophthalmology, will receive $1,620,000 over four years from the National Eye Institute for “Quantitative Fundus Autofluorescence in Retinal Disorders” in a competitive renewal.

David Sulzer, PhD, Psychiatry, will receive $1,940,374 over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Dopamine Synapses and Operant Conditioning” in a competitive renewal.

Alan Tall, MD, Medicine, will receive $1,641,210 over five years from the Fondation Leducq for “Clonal Hematopoiesis and Atherosclerosis.”

Joy-Sarah Vink, MD, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Kristin Myers, PhD, Mechanical Engineering, will receive $1,797,891 over five years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a subaward of “A Multi-modality, Multi-scale Approach to Understanding Parturition.”

Arif Yurdagul, PhD, Medicine, will receive $335,448 over two years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Processing of Apoptotic Cell-Derived Cargo by Macrophages Continues Efferocytosis and Drives Atherosclerosis Regression.”

MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Wafaa M. El-Sadr, MD, ICAP, will receive $50,000,000 over six years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - PEPFAR for “HIV-Focused Population Surveys in Countries Supported Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.”

Daniel Giovenco, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, will receive $341,983 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for a subaward of “Examining the Effects of Advertising, Packaging, and Labeling on Perceptions, Use, and Exposure of Combustible Tobacco Products.”

Gary Miller, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, will receive $561,793 over one year from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for a subaward of “National Exposure Assessment Laboratory at Emory.”

Matthew Perzanowski, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, will receive $991,572 over three years from the Department of Housing & Urban Development for “Urban Fungal Exposure, Sensitization, and Asthma Among a Low-Income Population.”

Seth Prins, PhD, Epidemiology, will receive $862,573 over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Adolescent Substance Use as Determinant and Consequence of the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Disentangling Individual Risk, Social Determinants, and Group Disparities.”

Virginia Rauh, ScD, Population & Family Health, will receive $2,425,133 over four years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Brain and Behavioral Indicators of Risk for Parkinsonism Among Adolescents With Early Pesticide Exposure.”

Marni Sommer, DrPH, Sociomedical Sciences, will receive $284,859 over one year from the U.S. Agency for International Development for “A Global Scoping and Documenting of Effective Practices to Address Menstrual Hygiene, Laundry, Disposal, and Waste Management Among Displaced Populations.”

Rafal Tokarz, PhD, Center for Infection & Immunity, and Nischay Mishra, PhD, Center for Infection and Immunity, will receive $1,210,107 over two years from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation for “Development and Validation of a Multiplex Serologic Assay for Tickborne Diseases.”

Shuang Wang, PhD, Biostatistics, Krzysztof Kiryluk, MD, Medicine, and Chunhua Weng, PhD, Biomedical Informatics, will receive $2,236,063 over five years from the National Library of Medicine for “Big Data Methods for Comprehensive Similarity-Based Risk Prediction.”

SCHOOL OF NURSING

Amanda Hessels, PhD, Scholarship & Research, will receive $1,860,798 over five years from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for “Simulation to Improve Infection Prevention and Patient Safety: The SIPPS Trial.”

Lusine Poghosyan, PhD, Scholarship & Research, will receive $1,877,966 over five years from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for “Social Networks in Medical Homes and Impact on Patient Care and Outcomes.”

AWARDS & HONORS

VAGELOS COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators

Five faculty members were inducted into the Apgar Academy, a community of educators at VP&S dedicated to promoting, rewarding, and supporting outstanding education for medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty.

  • Kim Hekimian, PhD, Pediatrics
  • Allison Lee, MD, Anesthesiology
  • Shunichi Nakagawa, MD, Medicine
  • Prakash Satwani, MD, Pediatrics
  • Aubrie Swan Sein, PhD, Center for Education Research and Evaluation
Vanneck-Bailey Scholar

Sidney Hankerson, MD, Psychiatry, received the Apgar Academy’s 2019-20 Vanneck-Bailey Award, which supports the development of educational programs that help medical students improve their knowledge and skills in the practice of medicine so they can model compassionate, humanistic care to all patients.

VP&S Student Research Day

On VP&S Student Research Day, 14 projects were recognized for research excellence.

Scholarly Projects
  • Yichun Fu, first place (tie) in clinical science, “The Effect of Dietary Fiber Intake on Short Chain Fatty Acid-Producing Bacteria During Critical Illness: A Prospective Cohort Study”
  • Brian Reuland, first place in narrative medicine, “Patients’ Acceptance of Incorporating Their Photograph Into the Electronic Health Record”
  • Denzel Woode, first place (tie) in clinical science, “Effect of Chronic Kidney Disease on 30-Day Outcomes for Repair of Complex Aortic Abdominal Aneurysm”
  • Margot Yopes, first place in basic science, “Human Mucosal Sites Are Reservoirs for Naïve T Cells During Early Life”
Research-Year Projects
  • Deborah Boyett, second place in clinical science, “MRI-Localized Biopsies Reveal Histopathologic Heterogeneity in Post-Treatment Recurrent High-Grade Glioma”
  • Michael Lubin, first place in clinical science, “Baseline Regional Gray Matter Volume in Major Depressive Disorder and Three-Month Naturalistic Treatment Outcomes”
  • Max McClure, first place in basic science, “Blacklegged Tick Nymph Host-Finding Success and Modeled Host Encounter Rates Are Higher in Mainland Connecticut Than on Block Island”
  • Akshay Save, second place in basic science, “Stimulated Raman Microscopy and Highly Multiplexed RNA-Sequencing in Post-treatment Recurrent High-Grade Gliomas”
MD-PhD Projects
  • Adan Horta, first place (tie), “Cell Type-Specific Interchromosomal Interactions as a Mechanism for Transcriptional Diversity”
  • Benjamin Schrank, first place (tie), “Nuclear Arp2/3 Drives DNA Double-Strand Break Clustering for Homology-Directed Repair”
Summer Research
  • Laura Goetz, first place in basic science, “Developing an Olfaction-Based Go-No-Go Task for Social Memory”
  • Rashmi Jain, second place in clinical science, “Improvement in Myocardial Strain After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Patients with Ischemic Cardiomyopathy”
  • Farhan Khan, second place in basic science, “The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Ictal Behavior in an Ex-Vivo Model of Glioma Associated Epilepsy”
  • Mia Nishikawa, first place in clinical science, “Dietary Prebiotic Consumption Is Associated with Reduced Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease in an Elderly Population”

Other Honors

Ibrahim Batal, MD, Pathology & Cell Biology, received a 2019 Gloria Gallo Award, which recognize mid-career scientists whose research has had significant impact on renal pathology, from the Renal Pathology Society.

Jiook Cha, PhD, Psychiatry, and his colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)/Computational Science Initiative comprise a finalist team (led by Shinjae Yoo, PhD, at BNL) in the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) Exascale Science Application Program. Their project, “Extreme Scale Spatio-Temporal Learning,” is part of an effort to prepare NERSC’s next supercomputer.

Mitchell Elkind, MD, Neurology, was elected president of the American Heart Association, with his term to commence July 2020. Dr. Elkind also received the Stroke Hero Award from the American Stroke Association at the CycleNation NYC event.

Janet Falk-Kessler, EdD, Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine, received the 2018 President’s Award from the New York State Occupational Therapy Association for her contributions and dedication to the profession of occupational therapy.

Andrew Gerber, MD, PhD, Psychiatry, was named the 2019 Champion for Recovery by the nonprofit organization Laurel House.

Raymond Givens, MD, PhD, was named 2019 Physician of the Year by Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Rebecca Haeusler, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology, presented the Journal of Clinical Investigation Award Lecture, “The Intersection of Bile Acid Composition and Metabolic Regulation,” at the ASBMB-Deuel Conference on Lipids.

Martin Leon, MD, Medicine, received the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology in recognition of his work in the field of cardiovascular disease and for serving as a role model.

Zoila Areli Lopez Bujanda, PhD candidate, received a Scholar-in-Training Award from the American Association for Cancer Research and Prostate Cancer Foundation for her abstract titled “Androgen-Regulated IL-8 Expression in Prostate Cancer: Insights into Tumor Cell-Mediated Immunosuppression.”

Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, DPhil, received the 2019 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science, which honors scientists as inspirational authors, from Rockefeller University.

Dawn Nilsen, EdD, Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine, received a 2019 Recognition of Achievement Award, given to occupational therapy practitioners who have made notable contributions to the profession and its consumers in a focused area of occupational therapy practice, from the American Occupational Therapy Association.

Jianwen Que, MD, PhD, Medicine, was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Joseph Sellers, MD, Medicine, was elected vice president of the Medical Society of the State of New York.

David Seres, MD, Medicine, received the 2019 Barney Sellers Public Policy Award from the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition for his contributions to advocacy and public policy.

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD, University Professor, was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Runsheng Wang, MD, Medicine, received the Spondylitis Association of America/Bruckel Early Career Investigator Award in Axial Spondyloarthritis.

Nancy Wexler, PhD, Neurology, was selected to receive a 2019 Double Helix Medal from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in recognition of her research leading to the discovery of the Huntington’s disease gene.

MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Yusuf Hamied Fellows

Four Mailman faculty members were selected for the inaugural Yusuf Hamied Fellowships, a program to advance interdisciplinary research on urgent public health issues in India.

  • Elena Ladas, PhD, Epidemiology, “Nutritional Policy in India Through a Pediatric Oncology Framework”
  • Jasmine McDonald, PhD, Epidemiology, and Mary Beth Terry, PhD, Epidemiology, “Effects of Environmental Exposures on Breast Cancer”
  • Bhaven Sampat, PhD, Health Policy & Management, “Effects of the Globalization of Patent Laws on Drug Prices and Access to Medicines”

Other Honors

Salim Abdool Karim, PhD, Epidemiology, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest science academy.

Jamie Daw, PhD, Health Policy & Management, will receive the 2019 AcademyHealth Outstanding Dissertation Award for “Insurance Coverage for Pregnant Women: Assessing Patterns, Policy Impacts, and Methods for Evaluation”, which recognized “an outstanding scientific contribution from a doctoral thesis in health services or health policy.”

Connie Nathanson, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, was awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship for her work focusing on the history, politics, and sociology of public health policy in the United States and peer countries.

Matthew Neidell, PhD, Health Policy & Management, was named to the executive committee of the newly created External Environmental Economics Advisory Committee, an organization of nationally recognized environmental economists established to strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to assess environmental policies.

Rachel Shelton, ScD, Sociomedical Sciences, was elected a member delegate for the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) and will serve in this position and on the executive board of SBM for the next three years.

SCHOOL OF NURSING

Billy Caceres, PhD, Scholarship & Research, was elected to the nominating committee of the Eastern Nursing Research Society.

Marie Carmel Garcon, DNP, Academics, was selected as a recipient of a WESTY (West Side Thanks You Award) from the West Side Spirit, a local newspaper, for her dedication to patient care. 

Rebekah Ruppe, DNP, Academics, received the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award from the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE

Shantanu Lal, DDS, Pediatric Dentistry, was named chair of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentists Council on Predoctoral Education.

Ngobitak Ndiwane, DDS’20, won first place in the student poster competition at the American Dental Education Association meeting in March for her research poster titled, “Summer Health Profession Program: Impact of Dental Student Participation.”

Scott Noh, DDS’21, was honored at the New York College of Dentists’ dinner in February for his research project, “Periodontal Disease Prevalence in Post-menopausal HIV-Infected and HIV-Uninfected Women in New York City.”

Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDent, dean, was selected to lead the Surgeon General’s Oral Health 2020 report’s section on substance use, the opioid epidemic, high-risk behaviors, and mental health.

PHILANTHROPIC GIFTS

VAGELOS COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

A donor made a $32,500,000 commitment to fund an endowment in the Division of Cardiology that will support programs in patient care, research, and education.

A foundation made a $2,865,000 commitment to the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center to support  the annual Frontiers in Diabetes Research Symposium and the Naomi Berrie Awards for Achievement in Diabetes Research. 

A donor made a contribution of $2,250,000 to endow a clinical retina fellowship in the Department of Ophthalmology and to advance research in retinal diseases and disorders.

A donor made a $2,100,000 commitment to the Integrative Therapies Program for Children with Cancer within the Department of Pediatrics’ Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation. 

An organization made a $1,050,000 commitment to advance research and clinical care in non-verbal learning disabilities in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  

A bequest of $580,038 was realized to provide support to the Division of Nephrology and to support medical ethics training in the Department of Medicine. 

A donor made a $505,228 contribution to the Department of Medicine to provide fellowship support for the Division of Cardiology. 

A donor made a $250,335 gift to the Division of Gynecologic Oncology to support research in women’s cancer.

An organization made a gift of $130,950 to the Department of Pediatrics to support blood and marrow transplant research in the Division of Pediatric Oncology.

A donor made a $123,000 contribution to the Department of Psychiatry to advance research in mitochondrial function in psychiatric disorders.

A donor made a $110,000 contribution to provide unrestricted support to the Department of Medicine. 

A foundation made a $100,000 contribution to the Department of Medicine to support the Teen to Young Adult Autoimmune Disease Transition Program.

A foundation made a pledge of $100,000 to the Division of Neonatology and Perinatology to support the Neonatal Comfort Care Program.

A donor made a gift of $100,000 to enhance clinical programs at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center.

A foundation made a $100,000 gift to the Department of Neurology to help establish an assistant/associate professorship specializing in MS and related neuro-immunological disorders.

A donor made a $100,000 contribution to support the MDS-Leukemia Stem Cell Research Center to advance clinical and basic research in MDS and leukemia.

MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

A family foundation made a gift of $200,000 toward the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. 

A family foundation made a commitment of $200,000 to the Judson Wolfe Fellowship Fund, an endowed scholarship in memory of Judson Wolfe.

A family foundation made a gift of $100,000 toward the Health Policy Management Research Fund. 

CUIMC IN THE NEWS

Nearly 1 in 13 US Males Reported Having Sex Before Age 13, Study Says

CNN | April 10, 2019

Dr. David Bell, pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Columbia Mailman School of Public Health associate professor of population and family health, and Samantha Garbers, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, wrote an editorial published alongside the study in JAMA Pediatrics.… They called for improvements in sex education and screening for sexual activity in youth.

Does Your Smartphone Know if You’re Depressed?  

The Wall Street Journal | April 1, 2019

“Part of the problem that we’re faced with in the field is that we really need to become better at identifying the factors that lead to the escalation of suicide risk,” says Randy Auerbach, an associate professor of psychiatry at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

After 2 Apparent Student Suicides, Parkland Grieves Again

The New York Times | March 24, 2019

Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who helped lead a suicide prevention event in Parkland last year, has developed a protocol of questions that anyone—not just medical professionals—can ask to identify people who may be at risk of suicide.... “They don’t necessarily have the will to come and ask for help,” Dr. Posner said.

Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery

The New York Times | March 16, 2019

The study led by Dr. Mack and Dr. Martin Leon, an interventional cardiologist at Columbia University in New York, tracked deaths, disabling strokes and hospitalizations at one year following the procedures. The rates were 15 percent with surgery versus 8.5 percent with TAVR. The rates of deaths and disabling strokes—the factors most important to patients—were 2.9 percent with surgery versus 1 percent with TAVR.

Columbia Researchers Secure $3.7M To Study Infection Prevention, Social Networks

Crain’s Health Pulse | March 13, 2019

Each year HAIs affect about 2 million patients in the U.S. and cost about $6.7 billion, said Amanda Hessels, an assistant professor at Columbia Nursing and principal investigator of the study. Additionally, about 1 in 25 nurses are exposed to blood-borne pathogens. “We’re going to bring this training into the real world and institute setting,” Hessels said.

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