CUIMC Update - June 11, 2025

June 11, 2025

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

You’re Invited: ColumbiaDoctors at the Farmers’ Market
Every Tuesday from June to August, Columbia experts will offer free health resources at the ColumbiaDoctors booth at the Fort Washington Greenmarket. Learn more and see the Health Awareness Days schedule.

A Wake-Up Call for Women’s Heart Health
Columbia researchers build the evidence base to connect women's sleep quality and cardiovascular disease. Read more from the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Columbia Medicine magazine.

Emile A. Bacha Named President of American Association for Thoracic Surgery
Emile A. Bacha, professor of surgery and chief of the Division of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery, was named the 106th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery during the group's annual meeting in Seattle.

E. Sander Connolly Named President-Elect of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons
E. Sander Connolly served as president-elect at the recent American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting in Boston and will be serving in 2026 as AANS President.

Honoring Six Decades of Excellence
Columbia Nursing’s chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, the international honor society of nurses, recently gathered at the School of Nursing to celebrate the chapter's 60th anniversary.

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • R. Graham Barr, Medicine
    $2,012,966 over six years for a subaward from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "SubPopulations and InteRmediate Outcomes in COPD (SPIROMICS) III."
  • Joriene De Nooij, Neurology
    $3,047,097 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Molecular dissection of proprioceptor subclass identity."
  • Eric Greene, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
    $533,000 over five years for a subaward from the National Cancer Institute for "Project 2: Regulation of BRCA-dependent Genome Repair via the 53BP1 Axis."
  • Frances Levin, Psychiatry
    $748,792 over three years for a subaward from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration for "Opioid Response Network: Collaborating, Advancing, Responding, Educating."
  • Jose Luchsinger, Medicine
    $3,779,605 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "Subclinical Vascular Contributions to Alzheimer’s Disease: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) Multisite Study of AD."
  • Anne Moscona, Pediatrics
    $2,681,196 over three years for a subaward from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Vaccine and Therapeutic Antibodies to Respiro, Rubula, Peribunya and Phenuiviridae (R2P2) ReVAMPP."
  • Zizhang Sheng, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
    $1,875,300 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "Impacts of drug abuse-mediated inflammatory perturbations on affinity maturation of anti-CD4 autoantibodies and poor immune reconstitution from ART in HIV."
  • Melissa Stockwell, Pediatrics
    $774,425 over three years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for "Simultaneous RSV prevention antibody (nirsevimab) and other childhood vaccines in infants study (Contributing)."
  • Anne-Catrin Uhlemann and Tal Korem, Medicine
    $4,142,402 over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Microbial biomarkers of intestinal MDR colonization after solid organ transplantation."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • A team led by George Hripcsak, Biomedical Informatics, won a National Eye Institute prize competition aimed at integrating eye care and ocular imaging data into studies using large health care datasets in biomedical research. The Columbia team's project was titled "Eye Care and Vision Drug Characterization."

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia Medicine (@ColumbiaMed)

Two ALS patients experienced a remarkable response to the experimental therapy ulefnersen (formerly jacifusen), developed by #ColumbiaMed neurologist Dr. Neil Shneider in collaboration with Ionis Pharmaceuticals — offering renewed hope for others affected by the disease. https://columbiamed.link/43UsBhk

In the News Highlights

  • Interactive: The Disappearing Funds for Research
    June 4, 2025
    The New York Times
    In his first months in office, President Trump has slashed funding for medical research, threatening a longstanding alliance between the federal government and universities that helped make the United States the world leader in medical science. In all, the N.I.H., the world’s premier public funder of medical research, has ended 1,389 awards and delayed sending funding to more than 1,000 additional projects, The Times found. Columbia University Health Sciences: Canceled grants total: $108 million; Delayed grants total: $33 million.
  • The MIND Diet May Help Reduce Alzheimer's Risk, a Large Study Shows
    Jun 3, 2025
    NBC News Online
    In general, the MIND diet is in line with the principles of the two diets it’s built from, said Dr. Yian Gu, an associate professor of neurological sciences at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “Each of those diets has unique characteristics,” she said. The MIND diet is easy to follow, Gu said, encouraging people to pick the green, leafy vegetables they prefer. What’s important is to increase the diversity of vegetables.
  • Scientists Just Mapped Your Tongue. It May Be the Key to Helping You Lose Weight
    May 7, 2025
    Independent (UK)
    For the first time, researchers have mapped out the three-dimensional structure of the tongue and the sweet taste receptor. Better understanding this sweet taste receptor could help aid the discovery of things to regulate it and potentially alter our appetite for sugar, they announced on Wednesday. “The leading role that sugar plays in obesity cannot be overlooked," Dr. Juen Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said in a statement.
    "Defining the binding pocket of this receptor very accurately is absolutely vital to understanding its function," study co-author Dr. Anthony Fitzpatrick, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, said. “By knowing its exact shape, we can see why sweeteners attach to it, and how to make or find better molecules that activate the receptor or regulate its function,” he added.