CUIMC Update - January 29, 2025

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

New AI Predicts Inner Workings of Cells
In the same way that ChatGPT understands human language, a new AI model developed by Columbia computational biologist Raul Rabadan and his lab captures the language of cells to accurately predict their activities.

Exit Interview with Linda P. Fried, Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health
Dean Linda P. Fried has led the Mailman School of Public Health to global prominence and is stepping down after 16 years. In this interview, she discusses the highlights of her time at Columbia and what's on the horizon for public health.

Yes, You Can Have Allergies in Winter
It’s respiratory illness season, when stuffy noses, coughs, and sneezes abound. Columbia allergist Joel Brooks shares why you may experience these symptoms from seasonal allergies, even if you don't have a cold, flu, or other respiratory illness, and how to get relief.

Becoming a Better Neighbor
Columbia has established a dynamic hub dedicated to strengthening and building relationships throughout our local communities. Read more from the Winter 2024/25 issue of Columbia Medicine magazine.


Events


Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Charles Branas, Epidemiology
    $4,249,918 over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for "Columbia Center for Injury Science and Prevention (CCISP)."
  • Allison Kupsco, Environmental Health Sciences
    $3,452,556 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for "Metal Mixtures, MicroRNAs and Metabolomics in Extracellular Vesicles, and Early-life Programming of Childhood Sleep Patterns: A Longitudinal Study."
  • Linda Valeri, Biostatistics
    $472,767 over two years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for "Machine Learning remedies to unmeasured confounding biases in environmental mixture studies."

School of Nursing

  • Rebecca Schnall
    $1,361,936 over four years for a subaward from the Department of Health & Human Services for "Project PrOVIDE: PrEP Optimization Via Implementation, Dissemination, and Evaluation."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Jean Gautier, Institute for Cancer Genetics
    $2,708,410 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Maintenance of genome stability."
  • Syed Hussaini, Taub Institute
    $2,075,564 over three years from the National Institute on Aging for "The role of neuronal hyperexcitability and proteostasis in Alzheimer's disease."
  • Annie Lee, Sergievsky Center
    $630,070 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "Genetic Association Between Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Cardio-Cerebrovascular Risk Factors (CVRFs)."
  • Catherine Monk, Obstetrics & Gynecology
    $899,721 over four years from The Bridge Project for "Mother Child Outcomes following Perinatal Cash Transfer: A RCT."
  • Arthur Palmer III, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
    $3,140,700 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Macromolecular dynamics and conformational changes in biological function."
  • Catarina Maria Quinzii, Neurology
    $300,000 over three years from the Muscular Dystrophy Association for "The role of cholesterol metabolism abnormalities in Coenzyme Q deficiency."
  • Simone Sanna-Cherchi, Medicine
    $360,836 over one year from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Human genetic studies to solve the etiology of congenital obstructive uropathy and its subphenotypes."
  • Catherine Spina, Radiation Oncology
    $3,306,403 over three years from Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research for "Radiopharmaceutical Translational Collaboration on Biological and Immunologic Implications of Radionuclide Therapy in Men with Prostate Cancer."
  • Alan Tall, Medicine
    $12,059,294 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Atherosclerosis."
  • Clarissa Waites, Pathology & Cell Biology
    $452,375 over two years from the National Institute on Aging for "A pulse-labeling assay to track extracellular vesicle spreading in the brain."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons


Social Media Snapshot

Simon Element | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, @columbiamed professor and founding director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research at... | Instagram


In the News Highlights

  • Ideas: Why Congress Should Act Now to Prevent Another Pandemic
    Jan 3, 2025
    TIME
    Fortunately, progress is being made in this area through the Pandemic Research Alliance led by doctors and research scientists from several countries including the U.S., Australia, China, and Singapore, led by the eminent Columbia University scientist Dr. David Ho. This and similar efforts merit strong financial and governmental support as well. In an increasingly fragmented world, such an effort can be at least one major multinational source for protecting the wellbeing of humanity.
    David Ho is the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
  • A Better Understanding of Our Hormones and Sleep Could Improve Both
    Jan 22, 2025
    New Scientist (UK)
    “How the body processes, metabolises and releases various hormones can be disrupted by a lack of sleep,” says Marie-Pierre St-Onge, director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep & Circadian Research at Columbia University in New York. For instance, when St-Onge and her colleagues restricted men and women to four hours sleep per night for four consecutive nights, they observed a rise in the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin in the men and a fall in the satiety-promoting hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 in the women. “At the end of the day, it means the same thing: people are more motivated to eat more, which can lead to increases in body weight and accompanying metabolic disorders,” says St-Onge.
  • The New Science of Menopause: These Emerging Therapies Could Change Women’s Health
    Jan 22, 2025
    Nature
    Still, some specialists point out, replacing hormones might not be enough. The ovaries are responsible for more than making oestrogen, progesterone, and eggs. The small organs send chemical signals throughout the body, driving “hundreds of other factors with health benefits,” says Zev Williams, a reproductive endocrinologist at Columbia University in New York.
    Williams and his colleagues are investigating the use of rapamycin, an oral drug that is approved for prevention of organ-transplant rejection, among other indications. Previous research showed that the drug extends the lifespan of ovaries in mice. In humans, this could slow the pace at which a woman’s eggs are lost and potentially delay menopause by around seven years, says Williams.