CUIMC Update - October 8, 2025

October 8, 2025

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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

Greek Government Delegation Visits Bioengineering Lab
The First Lady of Greece, Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis, visited the laboratory of Elisa Konofagou, which is developing a new therapy for children with brain cancer.

What the Science Says about Tylenol and Autism
Is Tylenol safe during pregnancy? Columbia experts review autism research, clarify myths, and explain why acetaminophen remains the safest pain and fever relief option for expectant parents.

Feeling the Pressure: Smartwatches and Wearables Expanding Into Hypertension Monitoring
Wearable devices are adding hypertension notifications that promote early awareness, but they remain screening tools—not replacements—for medical devices and professional care. Ajay Kirtane, interventional cardiologist and Director of Columbia’s Interventional Cardiovascular Care program, discusses how to use wearable devices responsibly.

Changes to Intercampus Shuttle Starting Oct. 13
Schedule updates will take effect on the Intercampus Shuttle beginning October 13 to improve efficiency and increase access between the Morningside and CUIMC campuses during evening hours.

Hurricane Evacuation Patterns Differ Based on Where the Storm Hits
A study from researchers at Mailman compared evacuation patterns in response to two 2024 hurricanes, finding that people in coastal areas with frequent hurricane exposure were much more likely to travel out of harm’s way compared to people in inland areas.

Events

Grants

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Adam Brickman, Taub Institute
    $737,391 over four years for a subaward from the Military Suicide Research Consortium for “The Role of Genetic Risk Factors and Immune Response on NVU Function in Post-TBI Cognitive Impairment (Project 4).” 
  • Jan Claassen, Neurology
    $325,000 over three years from the Paris Brain Institute America for “Hierarchical Consciousness: a multimodal approach towards personalized diagnosis and prognosis of state-of-consciousness in brain-injured patients.” 
  • Carla Concepcion-Crisol, Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics
    $610,656 over three years from the Department of the Army, Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for “Deciphering epigenetic mechanisms that dictate poor responses to KRAS inhibition in lung cancer.” 
  • Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, Medicine
    $336,088 over four years for a subaward from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for “Genetic Factors associated with phenotypic beta-lactam resistance in extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacterales.”  
  • Chunhua Weng, Biomedical Informatics
     $822,500 over four years for a subaward from the National Library of Medicine for “Extraction and Summarization of Clinical Evidence.” 
  • Hynek Wichterle, Pathology
    $3,132,108 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for “Effects of re-expression of motor neuron selector transcription factors on ALS pathology.”   

Social Media Snapshot

Instagram

In the News Highlights

  • Breast Cancer by the Numbers: How Survival Rates Have Improved Over the Past 40 Years
    Oct 3, 2025
    ABC News Online
    "It’s so exciting to be someone treating breast cancer because we can see that our treatments and improvements in treatments are actually making women live longer on average," Dr. Julia McGuinness, an assistant professor of medicine within the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told ABC News. 
  • ALS Breakthrough Shows Fatal Disease Is Driven by Immune Attack
    Oct 1, 2025
    Bloomberg News
    In a study published Wednesday in Nature, scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and Columbia University showed that immune cells in ALS patients attack a protein found in neurons, triggering inflammation that accelerates nerve cell loss. The protein, known as C9orf72, was the first identified target of such an autoimune response in ALS. Editor's Note: Karen S. Marder and David L. Sulzer contributed to the study referenced here. Dr. Marder is the Sally Kerline Professor of Neurology and Dr. Sulzer is a professor of neurobiology at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. 
  • What Causes This Common Type of Dementia? Scientists Discover a New Clue.
    Sep 29, 2025
    National Geographic
    A paper published in Science in early September outlines a possible mechanism for how air pollution could spur toxic alpha-synuclein buildup. “We are among the first studies to provide a plausible mechanistic link between common environmental pollutants and the molecular pathology of Lewy body dementia,” says Xiao Wu, a study co-author and an associate professor of biostatistics at Columbia University. 
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