CUIMC Update - May 14, 2025

May 14, 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

VP&S Academy of Clinical Excellence Honors Residents, Fellows
Sixty-one VP&S residents and fellows were recognized for outstanding patient care at the inaugural Academy of Clinical Excellence Rising Star Awards ceremony on May 8. James M. McKiernan, interim dean of VP&S, delivered the 2025 Bill Campbell Clinical Champions Symposium at the event. 

Human Flourishing is a Collective Enterprise: Mailman Dean Linda Fried’s Parting Lessons
In a wide-ranging conversation, Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb spoke with Dean Fried about Fried’s transformative leadership of the School of Public Health, pioneering climate-health initiatives, and guiding the school through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family-Oriented Care for Hearing Loss at Columbia
After being diagnosed with hearing loss shortly after birth, 8-year-old Megan Guallpa is thriving with the support of Columbia cochlear implant specialists Megan Kuhlmey and Ana Kim. Guallpa’s story is one of several successes to celebrate during Better Hearing Month in May.

How Common Plastic Products May Be Impacting Our Health
Nanoplastics are found in our environment, our drinking water, and even our bodies. Julie Herbstman, director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, shares ways to reduce your exposure.

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Jeanine Genkinger, Epidemiology
    $875,502 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "LIFEstyle factors and LONGevity (LIFELONG) Study."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Sachin Jambawalikar and Mary Salvatore, Radiology
    $887,599 over four years for a subaward from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Predicting Post-Covid Pulmonary Fibrosis with Explainable Deep Learning and Optimal Biomarker Discovery."
  • Sebastian Riquelme Colet, Pediatrics
    $444,973 over two years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Impact of Regulatory T Cells on Host Susceptibility to Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infection."
  • Daniel Tsze, Emergency Medicine
    $16,111,419 over five years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "Efficacy of intravenous sub-dissociative ketamine versus intravenous morphine in children with acute pain."

Honors

School of Nursing

  • Maura Abbott and Diana Hernandez
    Honored by ColumbiaDoctors’ Patient Safety Team. Abbott received the ColumbiaDoctors Leadership/Stewardship award, and Hernandez received the ColumbiaDoctors Rising Star/Unsung Hero award. 

Social Media Snapshot

Instagram

In the News Highlights

  • 60 Minutes Overtime: The Trends Behind the Historically Low U.S. Birth Rate
    Apr 27, 2025
    CBS News (video)
    60 Minutes Overtime spoke with Dr. Thoại Ngô, chair of Columbia University's Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health. "The big data story from the CDC data is that women under the age of 30 are having less babies," Dr. Ngo explained. "Teenage pregnancy has been declining and… [there's] a macro-societal shift on how people value family, work, and personal fulfillment moving forward."
  • Why Cancer Doesn’t Have To Be a ‘Death Sentence’
    May 8, 2025
    Boston Globe
    “I think of cancer more and more as a journey,” Mukherjee said. “In some cases, the journey’s abruptly terminated, which is sad, but in many, many cases, the journey continues. While the journey continues, we’ve given back people real lives ... I think they need to understand it‘s not a death sentence.”
    Siddhartha Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
  • The Next Superbug Threat Is Already Here. It's Going to Be Even Harder to Overcome
    May 6, 2025
    CNN Online
    Candida auris is third on the critical list and unique in several ways. Also known as C. auris, the yeast is unusual because it’s “sticky,” adhering to both plastic and skin in ways that other Candida species don’t, said fungal researcher Dr. Jatin Vyas, a professor of medicine at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. “A patient can be colonized with C. auris, then a health care worker or someone who’s caring for them touches them and gets the organism,” Vyas said. “The caregivers can then be colonized and pass it from patient to patient.”