Four VP&S Physician-Scientists Named Gerstner Scholars
The Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholars Program named its 17th group of exceptional early-career physician-scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Established in 2008 by a gift from Louis V. Gerstner Jr., this groundbreaking faculty development program supports select clinician investigators in their pursuit of novel translational research with the potential to improve human health. Each Gerstner Scholar receives up to three years of funding. In 2014, the Gerstner Family Foundation created the Gerstner Merit Award, which provides a fourth year of funding for a Gerstner Scholar who has made extraordinary progress in research.
The 2025 Gerstner Scholars are:
- Osama Al Dalahmah, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology
- Dominique Bailey, MD, MSEd, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
- Giuseppe Cullaro, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine
- Joel Gabre, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine
Jennifer Small-Saunders, MD, PhD, a 2022 Gerstner Scholar, received this year’s Gerstner Merit Award.
Since its inception, the Gerstner Scholars Program has become Columbia’s premier faculty development program, serving as a model for cultivating early-career physician-scientists. Including this year’s cohort, 72 junior investigators at VP&S have been named Gerstner Scholars and 11 have received the Gerstner Merit Award. In total, excluding the newest cohort, the Gerstner Scholars have been granted more than $358 million in additional funding from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.
The Gerstner Family Foundation generously reaffirmed its partnership with VP&S in 2023 with a renewal gift of $7 million for the Gerstner Scholars Program. This new gift allowed the program to increase each scholar’s annual grant from $75,000 to $100,000, ensuring that the most innovative research continues moving forward rapidly for the clinical benefit of patients.
The Gerstner Scholars are selected through a careful evaluation process conducted by the Gerstner Scholars Program selection committee, led by Jay Vyas, associate dean for academic innovation and director of physician scientist programs at the Roy and Diana Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science. The selection committee is composed of six distinguished Columbia faculty who are established investigators with expertise in biomedical research, medical education, and patient care. In addition to Vyas, the committee members are Anne Moscona, Howard Worman, Scott Small, Joshua Milner, and Robert Kass. To be considered for the program, applicants must meet specific eligibility criteria, including holding or pursuing an NIH K or R award, being on tenure track, and at least three to five years of post fellowship training.
James McKiernan, interim dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and VP&S, shared his gratitude about the Gerstner Scholars Program: “Mr. Gerstner’s philanthropy helps advance research and new treatments to improve human health. I am grateful for the Gerstner Family Foundation’s extraordinary partnership and generosity. I’m also grateful to the selection committee for their judicious review of each applicant to the program.”
2025 Gerstner Scholar and Merit Awardee Projects
Osama Al Dalahmah, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology
Project title: “Combined targeting of fatty acid metabolism and ferroptosis to treat glioblastoma”
Osama Al Dalahmah is a neuropathologist and physician-scientist who is developing new ways to target treatment-resistant glioblastoma, the most common primary brain cancer in adults. Al Dalahmah has an active research program on the role of glial cells in glioblastoma and neurodegeneration. Previously, he helped develop a model for isocitrate dehydrogenase mutant gliomas, and recently, he discovered targetable glioblastoma tissue states defined by cellular composition and metabolic dependencies. He completed his MD at the University of Jordan, and his PhD at the University of Oxford. He then completed his neuropathology fellowship training at Columbia University.
Dominique Bailey, MD, MSEd
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition)
Project title: “Elucidating novel therapeutic targets for pediatric eosinophilic esophagitis”
Dominique Bailey’s goal is to improve the lives of children with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic inflammatory disease of the esophagus that is rapidly increasing in incidence worldwide. She founded the Pediatric Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Diseases Program at Columbia and serves as the principal investigator on multiple research grants investigating the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the pathogenesis of pediatric EoE. For her Gerstner project, she will utilize patient-derived organoids and innovative mouse models of EoE to pinpoint novel treatment targets and potential biomarkers, ultimately reducing the necessity for invasive testing in infants and children with EoE.
Bailey earned her BS in Biology from Duke University, an MSEd from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MD from Georgetown University. She completed her pediatric residency and a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at VP&S, where she conducted postdoctoral research focused on developmental and epithelial cell biology under the mentorship of Jianwen Que. She also received advanced training in translational science, guided by Joshua Milner. Additionally, she pursued further training in eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases through the Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers.
Giuseppe Cullaro, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Digestive & Liver Diseases)
Project title: “Elucidating the role of bile acid metabolism in acute kidney injury recovery among patients with decompensated cirrhosis"
Giuseppe Cullaro is a gastroenterologist and transplant hepatologist who cares for patients with general hepatology and transplant hepatology needs. His research is at the intersection of hepatology and nephrology, focused on improving outcomes for patients with end-stage liver disease by identifying predictive markers of future kidney dysfunction. His research encompasses all aspects of the clinical paradigm of kidney dysfunction in cirrhosis, including investigations into various types of kidney dysfunction, identification of predictors for acute kidney injury (AKI) incidence and recovery, and the development of preventative and therapeutic treatments.
As a Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholar, Cullaro will longitudinally profile serum bile acid composition and concentration in 150 patients with cirrhosis and AKI, while examining the molecular pathways regulating bile acid metabolism. He will elucidate the mechanisms by which specific bile acids induce nephrotoxicity. Cullaro earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Boston University.
Joel Gabre, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Digestive & Liver Diseases and Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center)
Project title: “Deciphering mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in esophageal adenocarcinoma using machine learning”
Joel Gabre is a gastroenterologist with clinical expertise in hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes and a research focus on the biology of GI cancers and precancerous conditions. In his laboratory, Gabre employs advanced 3D cell culture systems, single-cell sequencing, and computational tools to investigate mechanisms of tumor development and progression.
As a Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholar, he will focus on esophageal adenocarcinoma, an increasingly common and difficult-to-treat cancer. His research seeks to uncover how intra- and inter-patient tumor heterogeneity contributes to resistance to chemoradiation—the current standard of care. To address this challenge, Gabre’s team will integrate patient-derived 3D organoid models with artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to identify key signaling pathways and transcriptional signatures driving resistance. This work has the potential to inform the development of novel biomarkers and more effective, personalized treatment strategies.
Gabre earned his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree from the University of Maryland. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati and his GI fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jennifer Small-Saunders, MD, PhD
Gerstner Merit Awardee
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases)
Project title: “tRNA reprogramming as a driver of artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum”
Jennifer Small-Saunders is a physician-scientist who treats hospitalized patients with infectious diseases and conducts research on malaria in the laboratory. Her laboratory applies cutting-edge gene-editing and mass spectrometry techniques to understand the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance and stress responses in Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria parasites.
Small-Saunders’s investigations focus on how changes in tRNA modifications can help malaria parasites respond to stress or survive drug pressure. This novel scientific direction has the potential to illuminate entirely new stress response mechanisms in the parasite, which can be targeted to treat drug-resistant malaria. Since becoming a Gerstner Scholar, Small-Saunders has been awarded a Young Physician Scientist Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2023), an M. Irene Ferrer Scholar Award (2024) and an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2024). She earned her BS in Biochemistry from Georgetown University and her MD and PhD in Microbiology & Immunology from Weill Cornell Medical College.