CUIMC Update - May 22, 2024

May 22, 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

A Look Back at Commencement Week 2024
The College of Dental Medicine, Mailman School of Public Health, School of Nursing, and Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons celebrated their 2024 graduating classes last week. Take a look back at the festivities.

Make the Most of Your Vacation Time This Summer
The fiscal year ends June 30, and some unused vacation time may not roll over, so it's important to carefully plan your time off. Learn what’s new about time off this year and get tips from CUIMC’s Chief of HR Neil McClure for how to make the most of your vacation days.

The Role of the Environment in Women's Health
A new initiative brings researchers in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology closer to understanding the impact of the environment on women's health.

Complaints About NYC Transit Remain Elevated Despite Subway Safety Plan
Research from the Mailman School of Public Health showed that complaints about crime on New York City transit remain elevated following the implementation of the Subway Safety Plan in 2022.

Events

Grants

College of Dental Medicine

  • Sunil Wadhwa
    $250,062 over five years from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for "Dental-Biomedical Engineering Scholars Training (D-BEST) Program."

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Katrina Kezios and Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, Epidemiology
    $263,466 over two years from the National Institute on Aging for "Investigating financial wellbeing, biological aging, and risk of Alzheimers disease and related dementias in a life course synthetic cohort."
  • Susan Michaels-Strasser, ICAP
    $7,440,000 over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for "Strengthening Scale Up of HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment Programs in South Sudan under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)."

School of Nursing

  • Ruth Masterson Creber
    $1,795,350 over seven years for a subaward from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for "Revascularization Choices Among Underrepresented Groups Evaluation."
  • Rebecca Schnall
    $5,335,905 over five years from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities for "Promoting Viral Suppression through the CHAMPS+ Intervention in the Deep South."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Mohammed AlQuraishi, Systems Biology
    $2,056,250 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Machine learning of biomolecular interactions and the human signaling networks they comprise."
  • Shweta Antani, Pediatrics
    $613,374 over one year for a subaward from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for "Adolescent-Only SBI versus Family-Based SBI in Primary Care for Adolescent Alcohol Use."
  • Jack Cioffi, Ophthalmology
    $575,000 over four years from Research to Prevent Blindness for "Research to Prevent Blindness Unrestricted Grant."
  • Christoph Kellendonk, Psychiatry
    $764,865 over three years for a subaward from the Hope For Depression Research Foundation for "Novel Approaches to Antidepressant Leads."
  • Benjamin Lebwohl, Medicine
    $6,888,211 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Evaluation of Novel Technologies to Improve Clinical Management of Celiac Disease: The GLUTECH Trial."
  • Francesco Lotti, Neurology
    $2,056,250 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "METTL3-mediated regulation of motor neuron function."
  • Lena Mamykina, Biomedical Informatics
    $1,198,522 over four years from the National Science Foundation for "SCH: Human-Centered Reinforcement Learning for Personalized Nutritional Coaching."
  • Joseph John Mann, Psychiatry
    $267,802 over three years for a subaward from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Leveraging Longitudinal Survey and EHR Data to Dissect the Impact of COVID-19-related Stressors and Infections on Child Mental Health and Suicide Risks."
  • Julia McGuinness, Medicine
    $450,000 over three years from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for "Deep learning mammographic evaluations to refine breast cancer risk."
  • Vilas Menon, Neurology
    $1,167,784 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "Molecular and cellular underpinnings of limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy neuropathological change (LATE NC)."
  • Kathrine Meyers, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
    $483,983 over two years from the National Institute of Mental Health for "The TAIL-PrEP Study: Acceptability and Feasibility of a Tailored Adherence Intervention for Safe Discontinuation of Long-acting PrEP."
  • Max O'Donnell, Medicine
    $376,567 over two years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Nanoluciferase reporter phage for rapid phenotypic characterization of resistance to next-generation antimycobacterial agents."
  • Jordan Orange, Pediatrics
    $2,456,070 over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Directing Function at the Natural Killer Cell Secretory Immunological Synapse."
  • Utpal Pajvani, Medicine
    $2,909,414 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Jagged-Notch signaling in NASH/fibrosis."
  • Serge Przedborski, Neurology
    $2,623,526 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Circuit-specific, chemogenetic neuromodulation in nonhuman primates."
  • Sandra Ryeom, Surgery
    $493,500 over three years for a subaward from the Department of Defense for "Identifying New Therapies and Therapeutic Targets in Gastroesophageal Cancer."
  • Milan Stojanovic, Medicine
    $890,432 over four years for a subaward from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for "Harnessing cooperativity to achieve high-precision in vivo measurements."
  • Kazuki Sugahara, Surgery
    $1,480,500 over three years from the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for "A peptide-based drug delivery system to target metastatic prostate cancer."
  • Nan Wang, Medicine
    $2,416,271 over three years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "The role of eosinophil in thrombosis and atherosclerosis in LNK deficiency."
  • Robert Wechsler-Reya, HICCC
    $429,267 over three years for a subaward from the National Cancer Institute for "Identifying therapeutic pathways targeting medulloblastoma-immune cell interactions."
  • Xuebing Wu, Medicine
    $275,000 over three years from the Norn Group for "Awakening a heart ribosome in brain and other tissues to enhance proteostasis and delay aging."

Honors

Mailman School of Public Health

  • The Mailman School of Public Health was recognized by the Fourth Purpose Scholarship Initiative from the provost's office, which aims to accelerate the recruitment of outstanding faculty members who work to bring forward rigorous knowledge and scholarship to societal impact and serve the public good.
  • Diana Hernández and Merlin Chowkwanyun, Sociomedical Sciences
    received a Societal Impact Seed Grant from the provost's office for their project "Empowering Rates: Towards an Evidence-Based Equity Toolkit for Utility Pricing." These grants support innovative faculty-led projects that leverage scholarly research for broader societal impact. Hernández's initiative Power Uptown: Tackling Energy Insecurity in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx also will be featured at the Bollinger Convenings, which highlight Columbia’s commitment to its Fourth Purpose by showcasing innovative initiatives that create societal impact and advance human welfare. 

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • The Department of Psychology at Morningside was awarded Research Funds to Accelerate STEM Cluster Hiring by the provost's office to support the collaborative research of Dima Amso and Bianca Jones Marlin, who also has an appointment in Neuroscience.
  • Maria Diaz, Neurology
    Received a certificate of achievement as an inaugural member of the Society for Neuro-Oncology and Oxford University Press 2023 Editorial Scholars Program.
  • Elisa Konofagou, Radiology
    Received a Faculty Service Award from the provost's office, which recognizes full-time faculty members whose extraordinary and creative voluntary service has contributed significantly to the university’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
  • Catherine McManus and Angel Rosario, Surgery
    Received a Dialogue Across Difference Seed Grant from the provost's office for their project "Race and Health Curriculum Expansion: Leveraging Cultural Humility in Dialogue." These grants support new spaces for critical conversations by providing frameworks to promote constructive dialogue and convening forums where we can hold difficult conversations with mutual respect. 
  • Christopher Wiggins, Systems Biology
    Received a Cross-Disciplinary Frontiers Courses award from the provost's office for his course Persuasion at Scale. 

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia Medicine | A week ago, #ColumbiaMed celebrated our newest physicians and scientists from #ColumbiaVPS! 🎓✨

In the News Highlights

  • US Drug Overdose Deaths Decreased in 2023 for the First Time in Five Years
    May 15, 2024
    CNN Online
    “It is a hopeful trend in some ways,” said Dr. Katherine Keyes, a professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health whose research focuses on substance use epidemiology. “We know that this drug epidemic is dynamic and changes quite quickly, so any time you see a leveling off or a slight decrease, it is promising. It is certainly not a sign that we need to take the foot off the gas of overdose prevention.”
  • How Some Common Medications Can Make People More Vulnerable to Heat
    May 1, 2024
    Scientific American
    “There are a lot of drugs out there that diminish our ability to radiate off heat and cool down,” says Adam Blumenberg, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Emergency room visits for medication-related heat stress or illness, also known as drug-induced hyperthermia, are still relatively rare—but Blumenberg says this will likely change as heat waves and record-breaking temperatures continue to increase.
  • Long Dismissed, Chronic Lyme Disease Is Finally Getting Its Moment
    May 16, 2024
    TIME
    It’s true that researchers don’t know what causes post-Lyme symptoms. However, there are signs of progress. Columbia University in 2021 launched a Lyme-focused treatment clinic, and Yale followed suit last year with a new research center dedicated to post-infectious illnesses including chronic Lyme.