CUIMC Update - May 23, 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
VP&S Celebrates the Class of 2025
The VP&S Class of 2025 celebrated graduation on May 21, honoring 136 students who received MD degrees and 44 students who received PhD degrees in biomedical sciences. The students selected Siddhartha Mukherjee, associate professor of medicine, to deliver the graduation address.
Stories from the Class of 2025
Graduates share how their time at Columbia made an impact on them and what they plan to do after graduation. Read more from the VP&S Class of 2025 and hear stories from the School of Nursing Class of 2025.
Columbia Mailman Celebrates the Class of 2025
The May 20 Class Day ceremony celebrated more than 800 master’s and doctoral graduates and affirmed their readiness to tackle complex health challenges and drive measurable progress in communities worldwide.
What To Know About Prostate Cancer
Former President Joseph Biden recently became one of the more than 300,000 Americans who are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year. Columbia urologist Christopher B. Anderson explains current approaches to prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, and shares good news about advances in care.
Calderone Honors Recognize Public Health Leadership
The Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health was awarded to Jonathan Samet for his transformative work on air pollution and tobacco control, while two New York City community organizations were recognized for their vital local impact, receiving the Drs. Frank and Mary Calderone City Health Award.
Scientists Develop First Broad Antivenom to Counter Snakebites
Thanks to a man who allowed himself to be bitten by his pet snakes, scientists have developed the first broad-spectrum antivenom that neutralizes the neurotoxins in 19 of the world’s deadliest snakes. Columbia infectious disease specialist Peter Kwong co-led the research.
Events
- HICCC Clinical Trials Day
May 27, 10 a.m.
Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium - ACE Master Clinician Lecture Series: “You Are Truly a Great Parent! Clinician Conversations about Childhood to Young Adult Development"
June 4, noon
Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium - Thriving Through Cancer and Beyond: A Celebration for Survivors and Thrivers
June 5, 5 p.m.
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1130 St. Nicholas Ave., 1st Floor Auditorium - CUIMC Open Forum
June 10, noon
Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium and via Zoom - The CUIMC Virginia Kneeland Franz Society: "Advancing Together: A Peer Mentoring and Networking Forum"
June 11, 4 p.m.
Vagelos Education Center, 104 Haven Ave., Rooms 902 and 903 - Precision Ophthalmology 2025: In Our DNA
June 14, 8 a.m.
Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center, 173 Fort Washington Ave., Myrna L. Daniels Auditorium - Center for Innovation in Imaging Biomarkers and Integrated Diagnostics Launch Event
June 16, 10 a.m.
School of Nursing, 560 W. 168 St., 7th Floor - Ethics for Lunch: From Coma to Consciousness: Are We Worried?
June 17, 1 p.m.
VP&S Building, 630 W. 168 St., Amphitheater 1 or via Zoom
Grants
Mailman School of Public Health
- Andrea Howard, ICAP
$1,000,000 over two years from Chevron Corporation for "Technical assistance to the Ministry of Health in the Republic of Kazakhstan to expand sub-national public health emergency management capacity."
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Swarnali Acharyya, Institute for Cancer Genetics
$450,000 over three years from Metavivor for "Targeting S100A9 signaling to treat therapy-resistant brain metastases in HER2+ breast cancer." - Francesca Bartolini, Pathology & Cell Biology
$3,227,785 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Investigating the Pathogenic Role of Tubulin Post-translational Modifications in CIPN." - Eric Greene, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
$533,005 over five years for a subaward from the National Cancer Institute for "Project 3: Regulation of BRCA-dependent Genome Repair via the 53BP1 Axis." - Stavroula Kousteni, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics
$13,753,076 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Aging-related hematopoietic stem cell intrinsic and microenvironmental signals in AML transformation." - Jose Luchsinger and Gary Miller, Medicine
$12,505,595 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "Impact of environmental toxicants on AD and ADRD risk in the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes study AD/ADRD project." - Anne Moscona, Pediatrics
$485,604 over three years for a subaward from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Vaccines and Therapeutic Antibodies to Respiro, Rubula, Peribunya and Phenuiviridae (R2P2) ReVAMPP." - Christiane Reitz, Sergievsky Center
$2,344,125 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "Characterizing the Genetic Risk for Alzheimer's Disease in African and Admixed African-American Ancestries." - Robert Wechsler-Reya, HICCC
$300,000 over two years for a subaward from the Goldsztein Family Foundation for "Combining Epigenetic Therapy and Immunotherapy to Target Group 4 Medulloblastoma."
Honors
School of Nursing
- Natalya Pasklinsky and Mary Hickey
Received a Dialogue Across Difference Seed Grant from the provost's office for their project "Modeling Dialogue Across Differences Using Standardized Simulation Patient Scenarios." - Jacquelyn Y. Taylor
Received the 2025 Faculty Service Award from the provost's office, recognizing full-time faculty whose extraordinary and creative voluntary service has contributed significantly to the University’s inclusion and belonging efforts.
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Michel Sadelain, Medicine, is one of four biomedical innovators to be jointly awarded the 2025 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, a groundbreaking form of personalized cancer immunotherapy.
Social Media Snapshot
In the News Highlights
- When They Couldn’t Get Benzos Anymore, Quitting Was Torture
May 14, 2025
The New York Times
“Benzos generate as much anxiety in the prescriber as they do in the patient,” said Dr. Ronald M. Winchel, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. “Do I start it? Is it the right context? Is it safe? Is my patient going to abuse it? What will my colleagues think?” - ‘Jumping Gene’ Enzyme Can Make Big, Precise Changes to Human DNA
May 15, 2025
Science
Previous studies have determined that CASTs are nearly 100% efficient at shoehorning hunks of DNA into target locations within bacterial genomes. But they’ve fallen short in human cells. Last year, for example, biochemist Samuel Sternberg of Columbia University and colleagues reported that the efficiency of the process was only about 0.1%. To improve the approach, Sternberg’s lab combined forces with a team led by genome editing virtuoso David Liu, a chemical biologist at Harvard University and the Broad Institute. - Sweet Tooth Explained: Researchers Reveal How We Taste Sugar
May 11, 2025
HealthDay News
“By uncovering the structure of the sweet receptor, we gain knowledge into the molecular mechanisms that govern how we detect sweetness, and how a single receptor can recognize such a broad range of sweet-tasting molecules,” Zhang Juen, an associate research scientist and co-first author of the study, said in a news release. Charles Zuker of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute led the study with members of his Columbia University lab. Back in 2001, his team found the genes that control the sweet receptor. Now, they’ve figured out what it looks like and how it works.