CUIMC Update - March 6, 2024

March 6, 2024

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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

Columbia Launches Garrett Isaac Neubauer Center for Cardiovascular Innovation
The center, made possible through a gift by Lawrence Neubauer, aims to define the next cures for congenital heart disease and ensure that more children born with heart disease will survive and thrive through adulthood.

Building a Community: Meet Diana Mejia, VP for Student and Campus Services
Diana Mejia, the inaugural vice president for student and campus services, is bringing her knowledge of people, spaces, and operations at CUIMC to build community and transform the experience of working and studying at the medical center.

Promoting Diversity in Reproductive Psychiatry
As a reproductive psychiatrist at Columbia, Nicole Pacheco Tchalim, MD, works to address mental health needs related to patients' reproductive and gender-linked transitions. She shares her thoughts on the importance of expanding the reach of the field.

New York State Approves Joint Dental-Engineering Degree Program
Columbia's College of Dental Medicine and School of Engineering are now offering a joint DDS/PhD program in dental biomedical engineering. The program aims to advance translational research, education, and patient care in oral health. The schools will welcome the inaugural cohort this fall.

Making Parenthood Possible for More Families
The Mothers Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/CUIMC offers high-risk pregnant patients access to the comprehensive care they need. Read the stories of three Mothers Center patients and learn about their journeys to parenthood.

Events

Grants

College of Dental Medicine

  • Carol Kunzel, PhD
    $1,882,841 over five years from the Health Resources and Services Administration for Community-Based Dental Partnership."

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Christine Mauro, PhD, Biostatistics
    $399,818 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for "The OUD Cascade of Care and Critical Outcomes: Longitudinal Linkage with Opioid Use."
  • Parisa Tehranifar, DrPH, Epidemiology
    $2,016,928 over three years from the National Cancer Institute for "Advancing breast cancer risk prediction in national cohorts: the role of mammogram-based deep learning."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Charles Emala, MD, and May Hua, MD, Anesthesiology
    $1,747,185 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Anesthesiology Research Training."
  • Benjamin Izar, MD, PhD, Medicine
    $750,000 over three years from the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance for "A genomic-adaptive axis driving mechanisms of brain-metastatic organotropism."
  • Krzysztof Kiryluk, MD, Medicine
    $3,618,990 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Non-APOL1 genetic factors and kidney transplant outcomes."
  • Xin Lin, PhD, Psychiatry
    $896,904 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Impact of metabotropic glutamate receptor heteromerization on signaling and pharmacology."
  • Melissa Stockwell, MD, Pediatrics
    $788,263 over three years from the National Cancer Institute for "SEARCH: SMS Electronic Adolescent Reminders for Completion of HPV vaccination - Uganda."
  • Alison Taylor, PhD, HICCC
    $1,919,609 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Elucidating the Consequences of Chromosome 3 Arm Aneuploidies in Squamous Cell Carcinoma."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia Medicine on Instagram: "Flovent, a common medication prescribed to children with #asthma, was removed from shelves forcing parents and doctors to adjust to sudden changes in asthma medication choices for children.

In the News Highlights

What to Know About Lead Exposure in Children
Feb 27, 2024
The New York Times
How can I protect my children from the dangers of lead? Parents can be sure their children are getting a healthy diet rich in calcium and iron, minerals that are absorbed through the same pathways as lead, said Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, chairwoman of research at the Columbia University Department of Environmental Health Sciences. If children have exposures that impact their development, Dr. Navas-Acien said, parents can counteract some of the effects by keeping children in a stimulating educational environment and talking, reading, and playing with them.

Some States Are Trying to Make Sex Binary. Transgender People See Their Existence Denied
Feb 27, 2024
Associated Press
“You pass a law because there’s a problem. The medical community doesn’t see people having different gender identities or being born with an intersex condition as a problem for society,” said Dr. Jack Drescher, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual.

The Myth of Codependency
Feb 25, 2024
The Atlantic
Those who think they are codependent and therefore to blame may be missing important cues about what they truly want in a relationship, Amir Levine, a neuroscientist, an associate professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, and the co-author of Attached, told me. When thinking about our deepest relationships, Levine prefers the concept of interdependence, which emphasizes our interconnectivity as a species.