CUIMC Update - January 24, 2024

January 24, 2024

Share this page

CUIMC Update is a weekly e-newsletter featuring medical center news and the accomplishments of our faculty, staff, and trainees. Please send your news, honors, and awards to cuimc_update@cumc.columbia.edu. Grants are provided by the Sponsored Projects Administration office.

News

School of Nursing and Mailman Rank in Top 5 for NIH Funding
The Columbia University School of Nursing ranked No. 1 among nursing schools and the Mailman School of Public Health ranked No. 3 among public health schools for National Institutes of Health funding in fiscal year 2023. Read more about the research at Nursing and Mailman supported by NIH funding.

College of Dental Medicine Welcomes New Interim Dean
Roseanna Graham, DDS, PhD, has assumed the role of interim dean of the College of Dental Medicine. Graham is chair of CDM’s section of cariology and restorative sciences and director of the operative dentistry division.

You're Invited: Division of Nursing Practice Launch Event Jan. 31
The CUIMC community is invited to join a virtual launch on Jan. 31 at 5 p.m. for the Division of Nursing Practice, designed to provide professional development resources and career advancement opportunities for nurses and physician assistants at Columbia.

How Viral Infections Interact with Our Bodies
A study by Mailman researchers of symptomatic, asymptomatic, and mild viral respiratory infections sheds light on how our bodies respond to these infections on a molecular level.

Does Participating in Dry January Result in Change?
A growing number of people are participating in Dry January, a pledge to abstain from alcohol for the entire month. Columbia addiction psychiatrist Jeremy Kidd, MD, shares how sober challenges like Dry January can produce lasting change, strategies for success, and signs that you may have a serious drinking problem.

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Paris Adkins-Jackson, PhD, Epidemiology
    $627,210 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "The role of adverse community-level policing exposure on disparities in Alzheimer's disease related dementias and deleterious multidimensional aging."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Wellington Cardoso, MD, PhD, Medicine
    $7,771,980 over seven years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Regulation of Progenitor Cell Plasticity in Lung Development and Disease-Repair."
  • Thomas Connors, MD, Pediatrics
    $830,752 over one year for a subaward from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Functional Immune Responses in Children with Post-Acute Sequelae SARS-CoV-2 Infection."
  • Wesley Grueber, PhD, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics
    $675,000 over four years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Summer Program for Undergraduate Rising Stars (SPURS), a Columbia University biomedical sciences pipeline program."
  • James Noble, MD, Neurology
    $902,630 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "New Proposal Created for Chris Davis."
  • Alexander Sobolevsky, PhD, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
    $2,055,560 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Single-particle cryo-EM characterization of AMPA receptor functional states."
  • Hanrui Zhang, PhD, Medicine
    $3,113,142 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Integrative genomic and functional genomic studies to connect variant to function for CAD GWAS loci."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia University Irving Medical Center 

Researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center are harnessing the incredible regenerative powers of zebrafish and killifish to unlock groundbreaking insights into human health and disease.

In the News Highlights

  • Your Healthspan Is as Important as Your Lifespan—and It’s Declining
    Jan 17, 2023
    The Wall Street Journal
    “The period of life spent not healthy is getting larger and larger and the implications of that are enormous,” says Dr. John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University. “70 is the new 80.”
    Health officials might also be catching more cases of diseases that they previously missed thanks to increased surveillance and diagnostic sensitivity, says Dan Belsky, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Robert N. Butler Aging Center.
  • Hochul to Propose $25 Million in State Funding for A.L.S. Research
    Jan 15, 2024
    The New York Times
    Dr. Neil A. Shneider, the director of the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center at Columbia University, said that New York was well positioned to advance A.L.S. research because of the number of specialized centers in the state, such as his own and the New York Genome Center, as well as nonprofit groups like Target ALS.“This kind of effort, I think, can only be supported by government funds,” he said. “I think this money will be a real impetus for progress and change.”
  • American Air Is Getting Cleaner, but Benefits Aren't Reaching All
    Jan 17, 2024
    U.S. News & World Report
    Overall, U.S. air pollution emissions have decreased substantially, but the magnitude of the change varies based on demographics, the researchers found. “Policies specifically targeting reductions in overburdened populations could support more just reductions in air pollution and reduce disparities in air pollution exposure,” said lead researcher Yanelli Nunez, an environmental health scientist with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.