Inside Stanford Medicine
Notable People
May 2013
Butte, chief of systems medicine and associate professor of pediatrics and of genetics, was recently elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Butte is one of 80 new members from top scientific institutions across the country to be honored this year. He was formally inducted April 26 at the society's annual meeting in Chicago.
Maitra is among the 30 recipients of the 2013 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Established in 1998, the program acknowledges the "extraordinary promise, diversity, drive and determination of recent immigrants — and children of immigrants — to this country." Each fellow is awarded up to $50,000 in grants and up to $40,000 in tuition support for two years. Maitra was born in India and came to Texas when she was 10. She earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard and completed field research in Tanzania and Bangladesh with a focus on health-care needs of women affected by violence-related trauma. She is now working toward both a medical degree and a doctorate in anthropology at Stanford.
Pratx was appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, effective May 1. His research interests center around three areas of medical physics: radionuclide imaging, X-ray molecular imaging and high-performance medical computing. Pratx's research aims to advance cancer care by integrating new imaging techniques into the clinical workflow, and further basic understanding of cancer biology by designing new assays that can probe subtle biochemical processes in single cells.
Nicole Yamada, MD
Yamada, a postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, is the recipient of the 2013 Klaus Research Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The award provides $5,000 to support her research on deviations from the standard algorithm for neonatal resuscitation and focused strategies for remediation. That project is also supported by a grant from the AAP Neonatal Resuscitation Program.
Haile was appointed professor of medicine, effective May 1. He joined the Stanford faculty from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. A recognized leader in the genetic epidemiology of cancer, Haile's research focuses on the causes and prevention of colorectal and breast cancer.
Ngan Huang, PhD
Huang was appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective May 1. Her lab aims to understand the chemical and mechanical interactions between extracellular matrix proteins and pluripotent stem cells that regulate vascular and myogenic differentiation.
Pfeffer, the Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor in the Medical Sciences and chair of the Department of Biochemistry, is one of seven Stanford faculty elected members of American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. Founded in 1780, the academy is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious honorary learned societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Pfeffer, who is the only member from the School of Medicine, is among 4,600 members and 600 foreign fellows, which include some of the world's most accomplished leaders from academia, business, social policy, energy, global security, the humanities and the arts. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony Oct. 12 at the academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
El-Sayed, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, was appointed obstetrician in chief at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. He also serves as director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics. El-Sayed succeeds Maurice Druzin, MD, who has stepped down from the position after 22 years but will continue to care for patients, teach and conduct research. Prior to becoming chief, El-Sayed served as associate director of maternal-fetal medicine and obstetrics. He is the founder of the Stanford-Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Research Collaboration, and is the co-principal investigator of the NICHD Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network.
April 2013
Basaviah, clinical associate professor of medicine, was appointed assistant dean for pre-clerkship education. She will oversee the required MD program curriculum in the pre-clerkship years and provide leadership for the pre-clerkship course director group. In addition to her role as director of the Practice of Medicine course, she is also one of the founding members of the Educators for CARE program.
Michael Cherry, PhD
Cherry was promoted to professor (research) of genetics, effective March 1. His research focuses on identifying, validating and integrating scientific information into encyclopedic databases essential for investigation as well as scientific education.
Comiter was promoted to professor of urology, effective March 1. Using various animal models of bladder outlet obstruction, he is investigating how intervening with pharmacotherapy, neuromodulation and other novel therapies may help to reverse the adverse changes in the bladder caused by the obstruction. Comiter also serves as vice chair of the Professional Practice Evaluation Committee in the Department of Surgery.
Nishita Kothary, MD
Kothary was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective March 1. Her research interests include imaging and therapies for primary liver cancer. She also serves as director of clinical operations for the Division of Interventional Radiology.
William Kuo, MD
Kuo was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective March 1. He pioneered treatment of complications arising from the use of filters implanted in the inferior vena cava using advanced endovascular techniques, and his team at Stanford was the first in the world to successfully use this procedure in humans. His research has led to improvements in the treatment of venous thromboembolism and new protocols for managing embedded IVC filters.
Henry Lee, MD
Lee was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective March 1. His research interests include perinatal and neonatal epidemiology, health outcomes and quality improvement. He also serves as director of research at the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative.
Irene Loe, MD
Loe was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective March 1. Her research interests focus on executive function deficits, attention and learning difficulties, and behavior problems in children at risk for these problems because of premature birth and family history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. She is also interested in interventions to improve outcomes in children with or at risk for developmental disabilities.
George Sledge, MD
Sledge was promoted to professor of medicine, effective March 1. He is chief of the Department of Medicine's Division of Oncology, and is a former president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. As a clinician-scientist, he is interested in innovative treatments for breast cancer.
Lu Tian, PhD
Tian was promoted to associate professor of health research and policy, effective March 1. His research interests include survival analysis and semiparametric modeling; resampling method; meta-analysis; high dimensional data analysis; and personalized medicine for disease diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
Tharin was appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, effective March 1. The long-term goal of her research is the repair of damaged corticospinal circuitry.
Bioinformatics team
A team of five scientists and software developers at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research has won second place and a $10,000 prize in the national Health Data Platform Metadata Challenge. The contest's participants were asked to analyze 380 data sets in the Health Data Initiative and to provide mechanisms for integrating information in these data sets. The Stanford team consisted of Mark Musen, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and head of the Center for Biomedical Informatics Research; senior research scientist Natasha Noy, PhD; undergraduate student Amy Sentis; and software developers Csongor Nyulas, MS, and Manuel Salvadores, PhD.
March 2013
Roth, professor of pediatric cardiology, has been elected to a second consecutive term on the board of directors of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society. The society is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote excellence in pediatric cardiac critical care medicine. Roth is the James Baxter Wood and Yvonne Craig Wood Endowed Director for the Pediatric CVICU and chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Wernig has been selected as the recipient of the fifth annual International Society for Stem Cell Research-University of Pittsburgh Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2013. He is recognized for his research demonstrating that previously specified cells have the capacity to be reprogrammed directly to other, distantly related cell types, a discovery that has transformed the field of cellular reprogramming. Wernig, as assistant professor of pathology, will receive his award and present his latest research at the ISSCR annual meeting in Boston on June 15.
Axelrod has been promoted to professor of pathology, effective Feb. 1. His lab studies developmental patterning events at the level of morphogenesis, using a combination of genetic, molecular, cell biological and mathematical approaches. The goal of his research is to understand how genes orchestrate the elaborate choreography of development to reproducibly give rise to morphological patterns seen in multicellular organisms.
Jonathan Bernstein, MD, PhD
Bernstein was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Jan. 1. He is interested in the genetics of autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders. He is working with other Stanford researchers on developing induced pluripotent stem cell models of genetic disorders associated with autism and developmental disability. Bernstein also serves as associate director of the medical genetics residency program.
Paul Buckmaster, DVM, PhD
Buckmaster has been promoted to professor of comparative medicine, effective Feb. 1. The goal of his research is to better understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of temporal lobe epilepsy so that rational and effective therapies can be developed. He uses electrophysiological, molecular and anatomical techniques to evaluate neuronal circuitry in normal and in epileptic brains.
Liang Feng, PhD
Feng has been appointed assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, effective March 1. He is interested in the structure, dynamics and function of eukaryotic transport proteins mediating ions and major nutrients crossing the membrane; the kinetics and regulation of transport processes; the catalytic mechanism of membrane-embedded enzymes; and the development of small-molecule modulators based on the structure and function of membrane proteins.
Meyer, senior clinical fellow in the Department of Medicine, has been awarded a three-year, $240,000 grant from the Amy Strelzer Manasevit Research Program for the Study of Post-Transplant Complications, which supports research in blood and marrow transplantation. The program was created by Martin Strelzer, who lost his daughter to post-transplant complications in 1997. Meyer will use the grant to work on a project titled "Immune Monitoring of Regulatory T Cell Therapy to Treat Steroid Refractory Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease."
O'Brien has been appointed assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, effective March 1. Her research interests focus on the adaptive dynamics of stem cells and tissues, with emphasis on heterogeneity and tissue-level control of stem cell populations.
David Rosenthal, MD
Rosenthal was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Feb. 1. He is primarily interested in improving the care of children with heart failure and cardiomyopathy. Rosenthal also serves as director of the PACT Program for pediatric heart failure and heart transplantation at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
February 2013
Biswal was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective Jan. 1. He also serves as director of the musculoskeletal imaging fellowship in the Department of Radiology.
Paul Bollyky, MD, DPhil
Bollyky was appointed assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases), effective Jan. 1. His research is focused on the role of extracellular matrix in inflammation and infection.
Dubin was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Feb. 1. She is interested in the diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmia in pediatric heart failure, especially the use of resynchronization therapy in the pediatric and congenital heart population.
Giocomo was appointed assistant professor of neurobiology, effective Feb. 1. Her lab studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the organization of cortical circuits important for spatial navigation and memory.
Wysocka, associate professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology, is the recipient of a 2013 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. The awards were established in 2009 to encourage and support younger immigrants "who have already demonstrated exceptional achievements, and who often face significant challenges early in their careers," according to the Vilcek Foundation website. Wysocka is originally from Poland. She will receive a $35,000 cash prize for her work that has led to the discovery of novel and crucial insights into regulation of cell fate and lineage determination. She plans on addressing the questions related to gene regulation in human diversity as she moves forward with her research.
\January 2013
Gurtner, professor of surgery, is the recipient of a Harrington Scholar-Innovator grant awarded by the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals-Case Medical Center. The inaugural grant program is focused at supporting physician-scientists and their efforts to accelerate promising drug discoveries into novel treatments for patients. Gurtner will receive up to $200,000 over two years to work on the development of a novel topical drug to heal wounds, particularly in diabetic populations.
Mark Kay, MD, PhD
Kay, the Dennis Farrey Family Professor in Pediatrics and professor of genetics, will receive the 2013 Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy. Kay is also director of the School of Medicine's Program in Human Gene Therapy. He conducts studies on how diseases such as hemophilia, diabetes, and hepatitis B and C could be alleviated with gene therapy. He will accept the award and deliver a presentation about his research at the society's annual meeting in May in Salt Lake City.
John Kerner, MD
Kerner, professor of pediatric gastroenterology, and the nutrition support team at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, were recently named the recipient of the ASPEN Clinical Nutrition Team of Distinction Award. The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition selected Kerner and the entire team, including leaders Robert Poole, PharmD; Colleen Nespor, RN, CNS; and Andrea Gilbaugh, RD, for their excellent service and leadership in interdisciplinary clinical nutrition practice.
Lin, assistant professor of pediatrics and of bioengineering, is the recipient of a 2013 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The grant of $450,000 over three years is awarded to early career scientists whose projects have the potential to significantly impact the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Lin's project, ""Building the magic bullet: Protein switches for sensing oncogenic signals and executing therapeutic programs," aims to take a new approach to cancer treatment by reprogramming viruses to replicate specifically in cancer cells, triggering their destruction.
Nihar Nayak, PhD
Nayak has been appointed associate professor (research) of obstetrics and gynecology as of Dec. 1. His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms of endometrial angiogenesis and vascular remodeling during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Nayak's main goal is to identify the abnormalities in implantation that may lead to various pregnancy-related vascular complications.
A paper written by Ortiz, a PhD student in the lab of Drew Endy, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, was chosen as the "Article of 2012" by the Journal of Biological Engineering. Pieces are selected based on the number of accesses during the calendar year. "Engineered cell-cell communication via DNA messaging" was accessed 7,331 times in less than four months from the time of its publication on Sept. 7 to the end of the year. Ortiz's paper will be recognized during the Institute of Biological Engineering's annual meeting in March in Indianapolis.
Iris Schrijver, MD
Schrijver has been promoted to professor of pathology as of Dec. 1. Her research interests include the characterization of the molecular basis of inherited disorders such as hereditary hearing loss and cystic fibrosis, genotype-phenotype correlations, and development of novel molecular diagnostic tools. She also serves as director of the molecular pathology laboratory at Stanford.
Mehrdad Shamloo, PhD
Shamloo has been appointed associate professor (research) of comparative medicine as of Dec. 1. The goal of his research is to rapidly advance the understanding of normal brain function at the molecular, cellular, circuit, behavioral and functional levels, and to reveal the pathological process underlying malfunction of the nervous system following injury and neurologic disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease and autism. His effort will focus on the beta 1-adrenergic receptor and Npas4, a transcription factor.
December 2012
De la Zerda, assistant professor of structural biology, has been named one of Forbes Magazine's "30 under 30." Each year, the magazine compiles a list of 30 up-and-coming stars under the age of 30 in 12 different categories. Nominations are submitted by readers and a panel of experts in each category. De la Zerda, who was chosen for the science category, pioneered novel molecular-imaging techniques in which he uses nanotechnology to watch how molecules move within the body, leading to insights at the cellular level of what goes wrong in diseases such as cancer and age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
Bohon has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on the neural bases of eating disorders and obesity. She is particularly interested in the way emotion and reward is processed in the brain, and how that may contribute to eating behavior and food restriction.
Edward Bertaccini, MD
Bertaccini, associate professor of anesthesia, had research that was selected as "Best of abstracts: Basic science" by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He gave an oral presentation of the scientific abstract titled, "Assessment of homology templates and the anesthetic binding site within the GABA receptor," during the ASA's annual meeting in October.
Gerald Crabtree, MD, PhD
Crabtree, professor of pathology, is one of 13 recipients of a cancer grant from the Mary Kay Foundation to fund innovative gynecological cancer research. He will use the $100,000 grant to investigate the function of the protein ARID1A. Using a combination of biochemistry and mouse genetics, Crabtree hopes to uncover how ARID1A functions within a certain complex to protect cells from becoming oncogenic.
Tracy George, MD
George has been promoted to associate professor of pathology as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on translational hematopathology, which includes systemic mastocytosis and other myeloproliferative neoplasms, laboratory hematology, post-transplant and immunodeficiency-related lymphoproliferative disorders, and reactive lymphadenopathies.
Leonard Herzenberg, PhD, and Leonore Herzenberg, PhD
The Herzenbergs have been selected to receive the ABRF Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies presented by the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities. The award recognizes those who develop powerful tools that serve as the foundation of the modern biological research enterprise. Since 1959, they have jointly operated research groups at Stanford focused on gene regulation in the immune system, the development and function of B cell subpopulations, and applications of fluorescence-activated cell sorting. The award will be presented at the annual ABRF meeting in March 2013.
Ware Kuschner, MD
Kuschner has been promoted to professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. He is interested in occupational and environmental lung disease; pulmonary and systemic responses to toxicant inhalation; and indoor and outdoor air pollution health effects. Kuschner also serves as chief of the pulmonary section at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.
Mackey has been promoted to professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine and of neurology and neurological sciences as of Nov. 1. His primary research interest involves the use of advanced research techniques — such as neuroimaging, psychophysics and neurobehavioral assessment — to investigate the neural processing of pain and neuronal plasticity in patients with chronic pain. Mackey also serves as chief of the Division of Pain Management and co-director of the Stanford Pain Research and Clinical Center.
Tracey McLaughlin, MD
McLaughlin has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. She conducts a number of clinical research studies related to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. McLaughlin also serves as chair of the diabetes task force at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Beverly Mitchell, MD
Mitchell is the recipient of the 2012 Mentor Award winner for Clinical Investigation, presented by the American Society of Hematology. The award recognizes hematologists who have excelled in mentoring trainees and colleagues. Mitchell, MD, the George E. Becker Professor and director of the Stanford Cancer Institute, developed the Clinical Research Training Institute, a career-development programs now in its 10th year. She accepted the award at ASH's annual meeting Dec. 9.
Mindie Nguyen, MD
Nguyen has been promoted to associate professor of medicine (gastroenterology & hepatology) as of Nov. 1. Her research interests include the clinical aspects, molecular epidemiology and pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma with an emphasis on disease determinants, diagnostic and screening tests, and ethnic differences. She is also interested in epidemiological and clinical behaviors of viral hepatitis, particularly in hepatitis C patients with novel genotypes and in understudied populations.
Andrew Quon, MD
Quon has been promoted to associate professor of radiology as of Nov. 1. He is interested in multimodality fusion imaging with PET, CT and MRI for oncology; translational research bringing new radiotracers to clinical use; and cardiovascular multimodality PET/CT imaging.
Steven Shafer, MD
Shafer has been appointed professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine as of Nov. 1. He is interested in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of intravenous anesthetics, including drug interactions and continuous measures of drug effect; model-based drug development; target-controlled drug delivery; and advanced models of drug behavior.
Manjula Tamura, MD
Tamura has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. Her primary interest is in improving the quality of end-stage renal disease care among older adults. Her work aims to describe outcomes in older patients and to compare the effectiveness of different renal-disease management strategies on these outcomes.
Heather Wakelee, MD
Wakelee has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. Her research is focused on clinical trials in patients with lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, such as thymoma and thymic carcinoma. She also works with novel agents for all malignancies as part of the developmental therapeutics group of Stanford's cancer center. Other interests include translation projects in thoracic malignancies, and collaborations with population scientists regarding lung cancer questions.
Irene Wapnir, MD
Wapnir has been promoted to professor of surgery as of Nov. 1. Her research includes exploring the activity of breast iodide transporter in breast cancer, which has lead to translational research protocols. She also serves as chief of breast surgery for the surgical oncology section.
Wysocka is the winner of the Harland Winfield Mossman Award in Developmental Biology presented by the American Association of Anatomists. The award recognizes Wysocka for her role in the study of epigenetic regulation of gene expression in developmental biology, using biochemical approaches in her investigations of chromatin in embryonic stem cells and in embryos leading to seminal contributions such as identification of chromatin regulators of stem cell fate and discovery of epigenetic priming of developmental enhancers in pluripotent cells. She will present an award lecture at the AAA annual meeting in 2013.
November 2012
Barr has been promoted to professor (teaching) of pediatrics as of Nov. 1. His research focuses on undergraduate premedical education, and how innovative approaches to teaching can contribute to enhancing the academic and cultural diversity of students applying to medical school. He is working to develop integrated, web-based teaching resources in human behavior and in health disparities.
Lloyd Minor, MD
Minor has been appointed professor of otolaryngology as of Sept. 1. Minor, who will become the dean of the School of Medicine on Dec. 1, specializes in the diseases and disorders of the inner ear.
Gregory Scherrer, PharmD, PhD
Scherrer has been appointed assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine as of Oct. 1. He is interested in resolving the identity of the neurons in the nerves, spinal cord and brain that participate in generating the sensation of pain, and to uncover the molecular mechanisms by which opioids regulate neural activity in pain circuits.
Theriot has been promoted to professor of biochemistry and of microbiology and immunology as of Nov. 1. Her group studies the mechanics and dynamics of cell structure, organization and motility both in bacteria and in eukaryotic cells.
Wu has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. His lab seeks to identify mechanisms regulating cardiac lineage commitment during embryonic development and the biology of cardiac progenitor cells in development and disease. He received a 2008 NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and is an investigator for the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium.
Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Wysocka has been promoted to associate professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology as of Nov.1. Her research focuses on understanding how chromatin modifications affect stem cell biology.
Annes has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Oct.1. His research interests are in discovering new treatments for diabetes and a rare hereditary cancer known as the paraganglioma syndrome. These two disorders, while very different in clinical manifestation, have a common basis: pathologic disruption of cellular metabolism. His lab is finding ways to therapeutically leverage these disease-related defects in metabolic behavior. Annes is clinically interested in hereditary endocrine disorders and is developing a specialized clinic to care for these families.
Carette, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, is the recipient of the 2012 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He will receive an unrestricted research grant of $875,000 over five years. Carette's lab uses a unique genetic approach in human cells to study the interplay between pathogens and their host. He believes that expanding and sharpening the genetic tools to dissect virus-host interactions is a powerful way to systematically discover genes paramount in health and disease.
Monack has been promoted to associate professor of microbiology and immunology as of Oct. 1. The primary focus of her research is to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms of intracellular bacterial pathogenesis. She uses two model systems, Salmonella typhimurium and Francisella tularensis, to study the complex host-pathogen interactions.
Joy Wu, MD, PhD
Wu has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Oct. 1. As a physician-scientist with a clinical focus on osteoporosis, her lab addresses the mechanisms guiding the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, and how mesenchymal lineages support hematopoiesis in the bone marrow.
October 2012
Altman, the Kenneth Fong Professor and professor of genetics and of medicine, has been appointed to two new positions: president-elect of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics and chair of the science board to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The ASCPT is the largest scientific and professional organization serving the discipline of clinical pharmacology. He will assume the presidency in March 2013. As chair of the FDA's science board, he will provide advice to the FDA commissioner and to the agency's chief science officer. He will assume these duties this fall. Altman's research focuses on a molecular understanding of drug response, including pharmacogenomics, 3D structure-function relationships, data mining, and systems pharmacology.
Garcia, professor of medicine, has been named the William and Dorothy Kaye University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, part of the Bass University Fellows in Undergraduate Education program. Established in 2001, the appointment recognizes faculty for extraordinary contributions to undergraduate education, including faculty from the graduate and professional schools. Garcia also serves as associate dean for MD admissions.
Cochran has been promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, as of Oct. 1. Her lab uses interdisciplinary approaches in chemistry, engineering and biophysics to study complex biological systems and develop new technologies for biomedical applications, including regenerative medicine and cancer imaging and therapy.
Winslow, assistant professor of genetics and of pathology, is the recipient of a 2012 V Scholar grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a leading cancer research foundation. He is one of 17 researchers to win the $200,000 two-year grant, which funds "rising star" scientists as they begin their careers in cancer research. Winslow will use this funding to better characterize the molecular mechanisms that govern lung cancer metastasis.
Adler, the Dorothy and Thye King Chan Professor in Neurosurgery, Emeritus, is the recipient of the 2012 Cloward Award given by the Western Neurosurgical Society. The award honors the late Ralph Cloward, MD, and his pioneering efforts to establish anterior cervical and posterior lumbar interbody fusion plus the numerous instruments he devised. Adler was chosen for his work in the development and implementation of computerized, image-guided surgical tools to be used during minimally invasive brain operations, particularly his invention of the Cyberknife, which administers radiation deep into the brain and the body to treat cancer. The award, which includes a medal and a special lecture, was presented in September during the WNS' 58th annual meeting in Colorado.
September 2012
Baker has been promoted to associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology as of Sept. 1. She is interested in primary ovarian insufficiency/premature ovarian failure, infertility and outcomes from assisted reproductive technology. Baker serves as medical director of the Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center In Vitro Fertilization and Reproductive Endocrinology Program and research-committee chair of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a national professional organization.
Stephen Baccus, PhD
Baccus has been promoted to associate professor of neurobiology as of Aug. 1. He studies how the neural circuitry of the retina transforms visual images into electrical signals in the optic nerve. He uses a combination of physiological experiments and computational approaches to understand rules of how neural circuits of the brain function.
Victor Carrion, MD
Carrion has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of Sept. 1. His research examines the interplay between brain development and stress vulnerability via a multi-method approach that includes psychophysiology, neuroimaging, neuroendocrinology and phenomenology. Carrion is particularly interested in treatment development that focuses on individual and community-based interventions for stress-related conditions in children and adolescents who experience traumatic stress.
Stephanie Chao, MD
Chao has been named to receive the 2012 Association of Women Surgeons Hilary Sanfey Outstanding Resident Award for clinical excellence and accomplishments during professional development years. The award will be presented at the 2012 annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 in Chicago. Chao, who is now a chief resident in the Department of Surgery, will be joining the pediatric surgery division for a two-year fellowship at the completion of her residency. She is the third Stanford surgery resident to receive the award.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth has been promoted to professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Sept. 1. His research focuses on developing optical, molecular and cellular tools to observe, perturb and re-engineer brain circuits. He is both a practicing psychiatrist and the developer of optogenetics, a technique that allows scientists to tease apart the complex circuits that compose the brain so that the role of individual circuit components in brain function can be studied with high precision.
Dragoo has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, as of Sept. 1. His research has focused on the development of viable tissue-engineered structures of the knee including articular (hyaline) and meniscal (fibrocartilage) cartilage, as well as bone. The goal of this research will be curing the patient's arthritis by re-establishing articular cartilage using their own stem cells. Dragoo also serves as the head team physician for the Stanford football program.
Heller, the Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in the School of Medicine, has been elected as a member of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. Established in 1926, CORLAS is an association of otorhinolaryngologists with more than 400 members. Heller, a leader in stem-cell based research on the inner ear, has recently focused on two paths for possible cures for deafness: drug therapy and stem cell transplantation into the inner ear. He delivered two presentations during the CORLAS annual meeting in Rome on Aug. 26-29.
Henry Lowe, MD
Lowe has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of Sept. 1. His research focuses on the development of novel uses of information technology and computer science to improve human health. Lowe also serves as chief information officer at the School of Medicine; senior associate dean for Information Resources and Technology; and director of both the Stanford Center for Clinical Informatics and the CTSA Translational Informatics Program.
Walter Park, MD
Park has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Sept. 1. His research interests are in the diagnosis and management of pancreatic cysts, acute and chronic pancreatitis, and quality improvement in gastrointestinal diseases. His approach includes translational collaborations in biomarker discovery and methods in health services research including the use of large observational data sets and cost-effectiveness studies. He also serves as medical director of the Pancreas Clinic within the Digestive Health Center.
Veeravagu, a neurosurgery resident, has been appointed by President Barack Obama to be one of the 15 members of the 2012-13 class of White House fellows, based on his record of professional achievement, evidence of leadership potential and proven commitment to public service. Veeravagu works on advancing minimally invasive diagnostic and surgical techniques for diseases of the central nervous system and has developed a novel radiotherapeutic to treat glioblastoma multiforme, a malignant brain tumor. He most recently served as chief neurosurgery resident at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, caring for soldiers returning from Afghanistan with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries.
Yao has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery as of Sept. 1. His research interests include developing minimally invasive and arthroscopic treatment alternatives for common hand and wrist disorders and using stem cells for the biologic augmentation of tendon repair strategies.
Edward Riley, MD
Riley has been promoted to professor of anesthesia as of Aug. 1. The primary focus of his research is on anesthesia for cesarean delivery and labor analgesia.
Six researchers from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences have been selected to receive the 2012 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant, which provides up to $60,000 over two years to enable promising investigators to either extend research fellowship training or begin careers as independent research faculty. This year's recipients and their research focus are: Alexander Urban, PhD, (schizophrenia); Ami Citri, PhD, (addiction and related disorders); Sergiu Pasca, MD, (schizophrenia); Lara Foland-Ross, PhD, (depression); Melissa Warden, PhD, (depression); and Amit Etkin, MD, PhD, (anxiety). The grants, which are considered one of the highest distinctions in the field of mental health research, are awarded by Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
August 2012
Felsher has been promoted to professor of medicine and of pathology as of Aug. 1. His laboratory has shown that tumors are addicted to oncogenes and exploits this to develop novel therapies for cancer.
De la Zerda has been appointed assistant professor of structural biology as of Aug. 1. His lab focuses on developing new optical imaging instrumentation and chemistry tools to study the complex spatiotemporal behavior of biomolecules in living subjects. The lab uses animal models for cancer and ophthalmic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.
Aaron Gitler, PhD
Gitler has been appointed associate professor of genetics as of July 1. His lab studies the cell biology and genetics underpinning human neurodegenerative diseases, which include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).
Kelley, postdoctoral scholar in genetics, is the recipient of the 2012 L'Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science. Recipients receive up to $60,000 toward their postdoctoral research. Kelly will explore the genomic basis of adaptation to environments containing high levels of hydrogen sulfide. She will use sulfide spring populations of the fish Poecilia from three river drainages to study adaptive trait divergence, differentiation in gene sequences and gene expression patterns.
Anthony Oro, MD, PhD, and Jean Tang, MD, PhD
Oro, professor of dermatology, and Tang, assistant professor of dermatology, have won a $600,000 translational grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, one of the nation's leading cancer research foundations. They are one of 10 research teams to win the three-year grant, which aims "to bridge the gap between the laboratory and patient bedside" and "bring the benefits of new basic-level understandings to patients more quickly and efficiently." Oro and Tang plan to work on novel therapies for hedgehog-dependent cancers.
Prochaska has been appointed associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center as of July 1. Her research focuses on developing treatments for tobacco dependence and other leading risk factors (e.g., sedentary behavior, obesity, stress and distress), with a focus on complex and multi-problem groups including the homeless, the unemployed and people with serious mental illness, alcohol and drug problems, and heart disease.
Diane Tseng and John Burg, PhD
Tseng, an MD/PhD student, and Burg, a postdoctoral scholar in molecular and cellular physiology, are recipients of grants from the Cancer Research Institute to further their research in cancer immunology. The CRI funds global research efforts to develop immunotherapies to prevent, treat and eventually cure all cancers. Tseng, who works in the lab of Irving Weissman, MD, the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor, will be focusing on characterizing the role of anti-CD47 therapy on antigen presentation in solid tumors. Burg, who is being sponsored by Christopher Garcia, PhD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of structural biology, will be working on structural studies of the calcium release activated calcium.
Hintz has been promoted to professor of pediatrics as of June 1. Her work focuses on understanding and improving short-term morbidities and neurodevelopmental outcomes of extremely premature and high-risk infants. Hintz is Stanford's principal investigator for neurodevelopmental follow-up as part of the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. She is also a leader in the California Children's Services/CPQCC High-Risk Infant Follow-Up Quality-of-Care Initiative, and serves as medical director of the Center for Fetal and Maternal Health at Packard Children's.
Robert Harrington, MD
Harrington has been appointed professor of medicine as of July 1. An interventional cardiologist and experienced clinical investigator in the area of heart disease, he joins Stanford as the new chair of the Department of Medicine. He came from Duke, where he served as director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
James Kahn, MD
Kahn has been appointed professor of medicine as of July 1. He serves as chief of medical services at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and vice chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford. Much of his work has focused on HIV/AIDS including antiretroviral therapy. His most recent research involves capitalizing on the data stored in electronic medical records for outcomes-based research, HIV disease modeling and developing a mentorship program for early career scientists.
Kohrt has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Aug. 1. He is interested in immune cell allotransplantation and augmenting antibody therapy for curing cancer.
Sam Lolak, MD, and Tracy Rydel, MD
Lolak and Rydel have been selected as Rathmann Family Foundation Educators-4-CARE Medical Education Fellows in Patient-Centered Care for 2012-13. The program provides the part-time salary support for a Stanford faculty, fellow or chief resident to pursue further study and activities focused on promoting patient-centered care in medical education. Lolak, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate director of the psychosomatic medicine fellowship program, is interested in mindfulness practices and compassion cultivation in medical education, brief bedside psychotherapy for the medically ill and curriculum development in psychosomatic medicine. Rydel, clinical assistant professor and co-director of the core clerkship in family medicine, is interested in a holistic approach to primary care with particular attention to nutrition, behavioral change and the mind-body connection in somatic disease, as well as fostering patient-centered communication in the clinical setting.
Jose Montoya, MD
Montoya has been promoted to professor of medicine as of Aug. 1. His work focuses on infections of immunocompromised hosts, laboratory diagnosis of toxoplasmosis and infectious triggers of chronic unexplained illnesses. Montoya also directs the National Reference Laboratory for the Study and Diagnosis of Toxoplasmosis.
Stephen Skirboll, MD
Skirboll has been promoted to associate professor of neurosurgery as of June 1. He is also chief of neurosurgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, and his primary clinical interest is in brain tumors. His research focuses on the characterization of cancer stem cells in human brain tumors, and he is working to develop a novel technique to identify cancer stem cell phenotypes in glioblastoma multiforme.
Ta has been promoted to professor of ophthalmology as of Aug. 1. His research and clinical interests include cornea transplantation, the prevention and treatment of ocular infectious diseases, device development for dry eyes and ocular graft-versus-host disease.
C. Jason Wang, MD, PhD
Wang has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of July 1. His research focuses on using mobile consumer technologies to motivate patients to do a better job of following medical advice, and to enhance provider-patient communications and care coordination. He is the recipient of a 2011 NIH Director's New Innovator Award.
July 2012
Alexander Butwick, MBBS, FRCA, MS
Butwick has been appointed assistant professor of anesthesia as of May 1. His research in obstetric anesthesia focuses on investigating dynamic hematologic and hemostatic changes that occur in women during the peripartum and postpartum periods, as well as clinical and analytic strategies for better preventing and managing postpartum hemorrhage.
Garret Anderson, PhD, and Dean Carson, PhD
Anderson, postdoctoral scholar in neuroscience, and Carson, postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, have each been awarded an Autism Speaks Postdoctoral Fellowship in Translational Research. Anderson received $108,700 to study the role of the CNTNAP2 gene in neuronal development and synaptic transmission. Carson received $104,200 to conduct a randomized, controlled trial of oxytocin treatment for social deficits in children. Autism Speaks funds autism research, increases awareness of autism and advocates for the needs of individuals with autism.
Daniel Chang, MD
Chang has been promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology as of June 1. He is interested in developing stereotactic body radiotherapy for tumors of the liver, both primary and metastatic, and in developing functional imaging as a means of determining treatment response with radiation. Other interests include developing image-guided radiotherapy to improve radiation delivery for GI cancers.
Nayer Khazeni, MD, MS
Khazeni has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of June 1. Her research interests include international health policy, pulmonary infectious diseases and strategic planning for global health catastrophes, with a focus on international pandemic influenza mitigation strategies.
Lopez Angel, a medical student and PhD candidate in immunology, has received a 2012 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Fellows receive tuition and living expenses of up to $90,000 over two academic years for study at a U.S. university. The fellowships were established for the children of immigrants and are awarded for creativity, originality, initiative and sustained accomplishment. Lopez Angel is studying the influence of age on T-cell function in the lab of Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and has worked with Stanford's free clinic.
Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD
Parvizi has been promoted to associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences as of June 1. As principal investigator in the Laboratory of Behavioral & Cognitive Neurology, he conducts research on the human brain using direct recordings from the cerebral cortex in patients implanted with intracranial electrodes, seeking to understand the anatomical and physiological basis for cognition in the human brain and how this might be broken during epileptic seizures.
Lee Sanders, MD
Sanders has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of June 1. His research focuses on the field of health literacy. Using social cognitive theory, he conducts interdisciplinary research to understand child and parent health literacy as potentially modifiable determinants of child health disparities, especially in kids with chronic illness and special health-care needs.
Alexander Ungewickell, MD, PhD
Ungewickell, a postdoctoral scholar, received the 2012 American Society of Hematology Research Training Award for Fellows, a $50,000 grant that encourages junior researchers to pursue careers in academic hematology by supporting their research during their fellowship training. He studies the role of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathway in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
June 2012
Jason T. Lee, MD
Lee, associate professor of surgery and program director in vascular surgery, was lead author of a study titled, “Simulation-based endovascular training improves resident performance in the OR: Results of a randomized prospective trial,” that was chosen as one of the top 10 abstracts of the June 8 annual meeting of the Society for Vascular Surgery in Washington, D.C. Co-authors included David Gaba, MD, professor of anesthesiology; Thomas Krummel, MD, professor of surgery; Ronald Dalman MD, professor of surgery; and Amy Peruzzaro, vascular research coordinator.
Mendoza has received the 2012 Stanford President’s Award for Excellence through Diversity. The award is given to one individual and one group at the university each year. Mendoza, chief of general pediatrics at Packard Children’s and a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, was honored for creating a range of programs supporting diversity in medicine, including what is now the Leadership in Health Disparities Program, as well as the Center of Excellence in Diversity in Medical Education. Mendoza was also commended for his role as a mentor to physicians in training, and for his compassion, caring and dedication to public service.
Mark Pegram, MD
Pegram has been appointed professor of medicine as of May 1. He is head of the Breast Oncology Program and co-leader of the Molecular Therapeutics Program. Pegram’s research efforts include a continued focus on the oncogene that encodes HER-2, and developing new ways to target cancer cells expressing this marker. He is also pursuing various strategies for targeting estrogen receptors, implicated in some 70 percent of all breast cancer cases.
Popp, professor emeritus of cardiovascular medicine, is one of four recipients of the 2012 Rambam Award from Technion University’s Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. Popp was recognized for his pioneering technique of applying ultrasound technology to detect heart diseases as well as for his commitment to medical education and training in Israel. The award is the Rambam Health Care Campus’s highest honor.
Eila Skinner, MD
Skinner has been appointed professor of urology as of May 1. Her primary research interests are in the area of cancer prevention, bladder cancer and urinary tract reconstruction. She is the chair of the Department of Urology.
Edda Spiekerkoetter, MD
Spiekerkoetter has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of June 1. She is working to develop an assay for screening FDA-approved drugs and small molecules for their potential to induce type-2 bone morphogenetic protein receptor signaling in cells. She is also studying microRNA expression in pulmonary hypertension and the potential of microRNAs to regulate BMPR2 expression.
Tibshirani, professor of health research and policy and of statistics, won the 2012 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada. This award recognizes a Canadian statistician who has made outstanding research contributions to statistical sciences. Tibshirani’s award citation notes his pioneering work in the development and implementation of statistical methodology in many important and evolving fields such as the bootstrap, generalized additive models, statistical learning, high-dimensional data analysis, multiple hypothesis testing and significance analysis of microarrays.
Day has been appointed professor of neurology as of April 1. His research involves identifying the genetic cause of several neuromuscular disorders and working with patients to define these disorders more rigorously and to understand them more thoroughly, so that novel treatments can be developed.
Gabriel Garcia, MD
Garcia, professor of gastroenterology and hepatology, was named one of five finalists for the 2012 Campus Compact Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award. Founded in 1985 by the presidents of Brown, Georgetown and Stanford universities, Campus Compact is a national coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education. The award is named in honor of Thomas Ehrlich, former chair of the Campus Compact board of directors.
Suzana Kahn, PhD
Kahn, a postdoctoral scholar, was one of 10 researchers named 2012 Pew Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The fellowship, established in 1991, provides $30,000 salary support in each of two years for postdoctoral-level, Latin American scientists to work in top laboratories in the United States. Upon completion of the U.S.-based research, fellows returning to Latin America to establish labs in their home countries receive an additional $35,000 in funding. Kahn, from Brazil, studies cancer cell biology in the lab of Irving Weissman, PhD, director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Her work attempts to isolate and characterize cells that initiate cancer in the brain.
Leeper has been appointed assistant professor of surgery as of April 1. His research interests include the investigation of the genetics of abdominal aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis, and translational studies of vascular regeneration therapies for patients with peripheral vascular disease.
John Ratliff, MD
Ratliff has been appointed associate professor of neurosurgery as of April 1. His research interests focus on preventing complications in spine surgery, assessing patient outcomes after spine surgery procedures and developing population-based metrics for assessing surgical outcomes. Trained in complex spinal reconstructive surgery, he is working to develop a clinical tool to assess the risk of complications in spine surgery procedures that could be used in patient counseling.
Yang has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of April 1. His research focuses on developing innovative in vivo cellular and molecular MRI of stem cell biology to understand the mechanism of cell therapy in restoring the injured myocardium. By combining the chemical sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance with high spatial and temporal resolution, a wide range of regenerative processes spanning from molecular to physiologic processes is visualized.
May 2012
Busque has been promoted to professor of surgery as of April 1. His research interest centers on the improvement of clinical immunosuppression in kidney transplant patients, with the goal of achieving freedom from drugs now required to prevent rejection of donated organs. He also evaluates new immunosuppressive drugs and participates in trial design and data analysis of the drug development process from phase-1 to phase-3 studies.
Kiki Chang, MD
Chang has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of April 1. As director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorders Program, he conducts research into various facets of bipolar disorder. He is currently conducting phenomenologic, biologic, pharmacologic and genetic studies of the disorder in adults and children, and is particularly interested in detecting prodromal bipolar disorder in children who might then be treated to prevent the development of the full-blown form of the disease. He is the co-director of the Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic and the director of research initiatives for the Division of Child Psychiatry.
Lynne Huffman, MD
Huffman has been appointed associate professor (teaching) of pediatrics as of May 1. Her research interests and activities include the early identification and treatment of behavioral problems, particularly in children at increased risk for developmental disorders, and the use of evidence-based practices in behavioral health care.
Jason Lee, MD
Lee has been promoted to associate professor of surgery as of April 1. His clinical and research interests include endovascular treatment of aortic aneurysms, carotid angioplasty/stenting, endovascular lower extremity procedures, thoracic outlet syndrome, vascular disorders in high-performance athletes and surgical education.
Lin, a medical student, has been selected as one of the 2012-13 Bay Area Schweitzer Fellows. This year’s 15 local graduate-student fellows join approximately 230 from across the country in carrying out service projects that address the social determinants of health in underserved communities. For her project, Lin will assist in developing and implementing a new electronic medical record program to help patients at the medical school’s Pacific Free Clinic in San Jose keep track of upcoming appointments, prescriptions, tests and other medical services. The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship is a national nonprofit organization with offices located in Boston and hosted by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Philippe Mourrain, PhD
Mourrain has been appointed associate professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of May 1. His research focuses on neurobiology and genetics of sleep and associated behaviors. He uses zebrafish as a model to investigate the functions of sleep and the neural circuits underpinning its regulation.
Norton, the Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery, received the 2012 Flance-Karl Award at the American Surgical Association’s annual meeting. The award recognizes a surgeon who has made a seminal contribution in basic laboratory research that has application to clinical surgery. The awards committee cited Norton’s work in advancing the understanding of tumor and cytokine interactions and in the immunotherapy of cancer, and noted that his translational studies have fundamentally altered the surgical therapy of a number of malignancies. The Flance-Karl Award was established in 1996 by Samuel Wells Jr., MD, who was then the ASA’s president.
Xinnan Wang, PhD
Wang has been appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery as of May 1. Her research studies the regulatory mechanisms controlling mitochondrial dynamics and function in cells, and the ways even subtle disturbances of these processes may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders.
Chua has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective May 1. Her research interests include understanding molecular processes that underlie aging and age-associated pathologies in mammals.
Jorina Elbers, MD
Elbers has been appointed assistant professor of neurology, as of March 1. Her research interests include inflammatory vasculopathies and neuroimaging techniques for the study of stroke and inflammation. She is a member of Packard Children’s neurology team.
Neil Gesundheit, MD, MPH
Gesundheit has been promoted to professor (teaching) of medicine, effective July 1. An endocrinologist and the school’s associate dean for medical student advising, Gesundheit helped design the current Stanford medical school curriculum. His research interests include developing and validating the best educational practices to train competent and compassionate physicians and physician-scientists.
Girod, associate professor of surgery, has been selected as a fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women at the Drexel University College of Medicine. The program prepares senior women faculty for leadership positions at academic health centers. Girod serves as chief of Stanford’s oral medicine and maxillofacial surgery service.
Karla Kirkegaard, PhD, and Peter Sarnow, PhD
Kirkegaard, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, and Sarnow, professor of microbiology and immunology, have been elected fellows at the American Academy for Microbiology. They are among 80 microbiologists chosen as fellows through a peer-review process, based on their achievement and original contributions to the field.
Nachury, assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, was awarded one of the Human Frontier Science Program’s eight 2012 Young Investigators research grants. The award provides $250,000 annually for the next three years for a project involving Nachury’s lab in collaboration with physicist Manuel Thery, PhD, of Grenoble, France. The researchers will probe how a cellular component, the microtubule, opens the cellular lattice to provide access to its interior. The grants are given to international teams of scientists who are all within five years of obtaining their first independent positions, and strong preference is given to intercontinental collaborations taking on risky projects relating to complex biological systems.
Edward Plowey, MD, PhD
Plowey has been promoted to assistant professor of pathology, as of March 1. His research focuses on novel roles for neuronal autophagy in synaptic development and dysfunction.
Biomedical informatics students
Hua Fan-Minogue, Katie Planey, Ken Jung, Tomer Altman and Jon Palma, all graduate students in the Biomedical Informatics Training program, won the Innovate 4 Healthcare Challenge, awarded by the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, for their project NeoStream. The team’s winning entry developed an online platform to improve outcomes for sick babies by better engaging parents in their care. The collegiate competition seeks to improve health care through new processes enabled by information technology applications and supported by a sustainable market strategy. NeoStream was chosen from among 26 entries and received the $20,000 first prize.
April 2012
Bronte-Stewart has been promoted to professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of April 1. Her research investigates the mechanisms of abnormal axial, limb and fine-motor control in people with movement disorders, and the role of neuronal oscillations in abnormal movement among patients undergoing deep brain stimulation. She serves as director of the Stanford Movement Disorders Center, co-director of the Stanford Balance Center and chief of the movement disorders division.
James Brooks, MD
Brooks has been promoted to professor of urology, as of April 1. His research interests encompass developing diagnostic and prognostic markers for urological diseases, including the use of genomic approaches to discover biomarkers. His laboratory focuses on prostate and kidney cancer research as well as kidney obstruction.
Cho has been appointed assistant professor of neurology, as of March 1. He was recently recruited from Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School, and his laboratory studies medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children.
Manisha Desai, PhD
Desai has been appointed associate professor (research) of medicine, as of March 1. She is interested in applying biostatistical methods to all areas of medicine, and is involved in studies of HIV, breast cancer, obesity, women’s health and chronic fatigue syndrome. She works on methods for analyzing studies with correlated data and with missing observations. Desai is the director of the quantitative sciences unit in the Department of Medicine.
Grant Miller, PhD
Miller has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of April 1. His primary interests are health economics, development economics and economic demography. His research includes two major arms: one investigates the principal determinants of population health improvement around the world, and the other analyzes fundamental behavioral obstacles to further health gains using field experiments.
Stephen Ruoss, MD
Ruoss has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of March 1. His work focuses on both the basic and clinical aspects of non-tuberculous mycobacterial lung infections, as well as on clinical care and therapy research for women with lymphangioleiomyomatosis.
Kathleen Sakamoto, MD, PhD
Sakamoto has been appointed professor of pediatrics, as of March 1. She conducts research on the molecular regulation and development of blood cells. Her research focus is to understand how aberrancies in blood formation result in diseases, including leukemia, bone marrow failure and myeloproliferative disease. Sakamoto is also the director of the Bass Center for Cancer and Childhood Blood Diseases at Packard Children’s Hospital.
Smolke has been promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, as of June 1. Her research focuses on the design and application of new molecular tools for performing information processing, computation and control functions in living systems. These technologies are leading to transformative advances in how we interact with and program biology, and are being applied to address key challenges in cellular therapeutics and green biosynthesis strategies.
Glyn Williams, MD
Williams has been promoted to professor of anesthesia, as of March 1. His research interests pertain to pediatric cardiac anesthesia and include the perioperative management of children with conditions such as pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathy, coagulation disorders and low birth weight.
March 2012
Steven Artandi, MD, PhD
Artandi has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Feb. 1. His research involves unraveling the molecular and cellular mechanisms with which telomeres and telomerase modulate stem cell function and carcinogenesis. Telomeres are the nucleotide repeats that cap and protect the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Without the telomerase protein, telomeres gradually shorten with each cell division.
Jackler, the Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in Otorhinolaryngology, was recently inducted as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England at a ceremony in London. During his visit, he gave a graduation oration to the school’s diplomates who had recently completed their surgical training.
Johns has been appointed assistant professor of comparative medicine, as of Feb. 1. She studies hematologic changes in infectious diseases, and is investigating altered production and trafficking of immune cells during granulocytic anaplasmosis due to infection with the tick-borne pathogen A. phagocytophilum. She is a veterinary clinical pathologist and supervisor of the diagnostic laboratory in the Veterinary Service Center at Stanford.
Erica Machlin, Peter Sarnow, PhD, and Selena Sagan, PhD
The researchers won the 2011 Cozarelli Prize in biomedical science, awarded by the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for their paper, “Masking the 5’ terminal nucleotides of the hepatitis C virus genome by an unconventional microRNA-target RNA complex.” Machlin, Sarnow and Sagan are, respectively, a graduate student, a professor and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. This paper and five other winners, each in one of the different disciplines that comprise the journal’s coverage, were chosen for their excellence and originality from more than 3,500 research articles that appeared in PNAS in 2011.
John Morton, MD, MPH
Morton, director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and associate professor of surgery, is one of three practicing physicians selected to receive a Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award for Clinical Excellence. Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. is a health-care research firm that publishes America’s Top Doctors, among similar titles. The award will be presented to Morton on March 26 in New York City.
Nayak, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is one of seven scientists whose work will be supported by the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Initiative grants. The 2012 grants of almost $3 million bring the 8-year-old program’s total to more than $22 million. Nayak will investigate how the interaction of two genes in the placenta may contribute to pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy-related form of high blood pressure that contributes to about 15 percent of premature births. Pre-eclampsia can be fatal and the only effective treatment is early delivery.
February 2012
Chang has been appointed assistant professor of dermatology, as of Feb. 1. Her current studies focus on the genetics of healthy skin aging and on novel therapeutics for non-melanoma skin cancers. She also serves as director of the adult dermatological clinical trials.
Christopher Contag, PhD
Contag has been promoted to professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, as of Feb. 1. His lab develops and uses molecular imaging tools to understand oncogenesis, reveal patterns of cell migration in immunosurveillance, monitor gene expression, visualize stem cell biology and assess the distribution of pathogens in living animal models of human biology and disease. He serves as co-director of Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford; director of the Stanford Center for Photomedicine and the Stanford Center for Innovation in In Vivo Imaging; and associate chief of the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine.
Damrose has been promoted to associate professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), as of Feb. 1. His lab is primarily interested in laryngeal physiology and function, with a particular interest in the application of advanced imaging techniques in studying vocal fold physiology. Damrose is interested in developing a method of high-speed digital image analysis of normal and abnormal vocal fold vibration in a variety of states, including neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and spasmodic dysphonia.
Garry Gold, MD
Gold has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Feb. 1. His primary focus is in the application of new magnetic resonance imaging technology to musculoskeletal problems. Gold is currently studying the application of new MRI techniques such as rapid imaging, real-time imaging and short echo time imaging to learn more about the biomechanics and pathology of bones and joints.
Edward Graves, PhD
Graves has been promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology, as of Feb. 1. His research is focused on applications of emerging functional and molecular-imaging techniques in radiation therapy for cancer.
Li has been appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, as of Feb. 1. His clinical practice will focus on patients with primary brain tumors. His lab studies the biology of brain tumors with the goal of developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of malignant tumors and translating that research into clinical trials.
Kim Butts Pauly, PhD
Pauly has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Feb. 1. Her research interests lie in the area of magnetic resonance and MR-guided, high-intensity, focused ultrasound for minimally invasive cancer therapy and neuromodulation. She also serves as director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging at Stanford.
Aaron Straight, PhD
Straight has been promoted to associate professor of biochemistry, as of Feb. 1. His research is focused on understanding how chromosomes are faithfully transmitted during cell division. Straight’s lab studies the structure and biology of chromosomes and the mechanisms of chromosome segregation during mitosis.
Fischbein has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Dec. 1. Her research interests include the imaging of head and neck cancer and diseases of the skull base, as well as the application of advanced imaging modalities for the diagnosis and evaluation of ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage and diseases of the spinal cord. Fischbein is chief of head and neck radiology and also serves as senior editor for head and neck for the American Journal of Neuroradiology.
Douglas Owens, MD
Owens, associate director of the Center for Health Care Evaluation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, has been appointed to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. The task force is an independent, volunteer panel of 16 experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that makes recommendations about preventive services for primary care clinicians and patients. As a member of the USPSTF, Owens will evaluate the benefits and harms of preventive services for specific groups of people. Owens is also director of the Center for Health Policy in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.
Sourkes has been promoted to professor of pediatrics, as of Dec 1. Her area of interest is pediatric palliative care. Sourkes established and developed the palliative care program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and has served as the first Elizabeth A. Haehl and John A. Kriewall Director of Palliative Care at LPCH since 2001. She has published several books on psychological aspects of life-threatening illness and bereavement, and co-edited the recently published Textbook of Interdisciplinary Pediatric Palliative Care.
Spudich, the Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular Disease, has won the 11th annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Science. The prize, established by the Wiley Foundation in 2001, recognizes breakthrough research in pure or applied life science that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. Spudich shares the award with Columbia professor Michael Sheetz, PhD, and UCSF professor Ronald Vale, PhD, for their work on the mechanisms of cell transformation. Understanding motor functions in cells is integral to understanding and treating deficiencies which lead to disease. The award will be presented at a ceremony in New York City in April.
Abraham Verghese, MD
Verghese, professor of medicine and senior associate chair for the theory and practice of medicine, reached on Feb. 5 the two-year mark —104 weeks — for his novel, Cutting for Stone, being on the New York Times best-seller list. The listing describes it as the story of “twin brothers, conjoined and then separated, growing up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia.” Most of its main characters are involved in the practice of medicine at two hospitals, one in Addis Ababa, the other in the Bronx.
January 2012
Chen has been promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, as of Dec. 1. Her area of research is in abnormalities in connective tissue metabolism in women with pelvic-floor disorders. Chen, who also serves as co-director of urogynecology and pelvic reconstructive surgery, is interested in evaluating and treating female urinary conditions, pelvic organ prolapse, vaginal abnormalities and sexual dysfunction related to pelvic-floor disorders.
Halamek has been promoted to professor of pediatrics, as of Dec. 1. He serves as director of the Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education, which he founded in 2002. His primary focus is using simulation-based learning methods to improve the performance of health-care professionals and systems and to enhance patient safety. He also directs the neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship program.
Jaradeh has been appointed professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Dec. 1. His research focuses on autonomic disorders, small fiber neuropathies and developing methods of testing and treating these disorders. Jaradeh, who serves as director of the autonomic disorders program at Stanford, also has an interest in the neurology of phonation and swallowing disorders, as well as peripheral nerve injury and repair.
Kiran Khush, MD
Khush has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. She is interested in evaluating donors and recipients for heart transplantation; mechanisms of adverse outcomes after heart transplantation, including coronary allograft vasculopathy and antibody-mediated rejection; the treatment of acute decompensated heart failure; and the cardio-renal syndrome.
Jennifer Tremmel, MD
Tremmel has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. She studies sex differences in cardiovascular disease, and is investigating differences in coronary endothelialmicrovascular disease in women and men who have chest pain, but also have normal-appearing coronary arteries. She is an interventional cardiologist and clinical director of Women’s Heart Health at Stanford.
The Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program was one of nine organizations to receive grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support clinical research experiences for high school students from underrepresented minority groups. SIMR will receive a three-year grant of up to $194,400 to provide as many as 10 students per year the opportunity to participate in mentored, clinical research activities. P.J. Utz, MD, associate professor of medicine, serves as director of SIMR.
Barres, professor of neurobiology, of developmental biology and of neurology and neurological sciences, is one of four recipients of the 2012 Memory and Cognitive Disorders Award presented by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. The award encourages collaboration between basic and clinical neuroscientists, with the ultimate goal of helping to translate laboratory discoveries into diagnoses and therapies for brain disorders. Barres’ project is titled, “Do astrocytes control synaptic turnover? A new model for what causes Alzheimer’s disease and how to prevent it.”
Cox, professor and associate chair of pediatrics and senior associate dean for clinical affairs/pediatrics and obstetrics, will receive the American Liver Foundation’s 2012 “Salute to Excellence” Award. The award, which honors those who have made an outstanding contribution to biotechnology and medical innovation, will be presented at ALF’s annual gala in March. Cox also serves as chief medical officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as well as chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition and medical director of the pediatric liver transplant program.
Goodman, the Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The AIMBE is a nonprofit organization representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2 percent of medical and biological engineers. Goodman’s research focuses on adult reconstructive surgery, arthritis surgery, joint replacement, biomaterials, biocompatibility, tissue engineering and mesenchymal stem cells.
December 2011
Matthew Anderson, MD, PhD
Anderson has been appointed assistant professor of pathology, as of Nov. 1. His research interests include the use of high-throughput sequencing technologies for clinical diagnostics and biomarker discovery, focused on transplantation and the molecular pathogenesis of lymphoma.
Blish has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. Her research aims to provide insights into the prevention and control of HIV by studying the interplay between the virus and the host immune response. She hopes to gain additional insights into the control of infectious diseases by studying how co-infections and human conditions, including pregnancy and aging, modulate immune responses.
Matias Bruzoni, MD
Bruzoni has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, as of Nov. 1. He is interested in minimal access surgery, education and biodesign. He also is medical director of Packard Children’s vascular access program and serves as site director of pediatric surgery rotation-general surgery residents.
Luis de Lecea, PhD
De Lecea has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Dec. 1. His lab uses molecular, optogenetic, anatomical and behavioral methods to identify and manipulate neuronal circuits underlying brain arousal, with particular attention to sleep and wakefulness transitions. He also studies changes that occur in neuronal circuits in conditions of hyperarousal, such as stress and drug addiction.
Elizabeth Kidd, MD
Kidd has been appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, as of Nov. 1. She is interested in radiation oncology, gynecologic malignancies, breast cancer, thyroid cancer and brachytherapy.
Kushida, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Stanford Center for Human Sleep Research, has been elected president of the World Sleep Federation for a four-year term. Established in 1987, the WSF aims to increase public awareness of the importance of sleep research and the impact of sleep disorders, and support international training in sleep medicine and research. Kushida is a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which is one of the charter members of the WSF.
Natkunam has been promoted to professor of pathology, as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on the identification and characterization of key markers for hematolymphoid neoplasia. Natkunam also serves as co-director of the immunodiagnosis lab, and associate chair for faculty development and diversity and hematopathology.
Oxana Palesh, PhD, MPH
Palesh has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Nov. 1. Much of her research is in the area of cancer control, with a particular interest in the impact of cancer treatments on sleep, fatigue and quality of life.
Mary Teruel, PhD
Teruel has been appointed assistant professor of chemical and systems biology, as of Nov. 1. Her lab uses a combination of engineering and biological approaches to investigate how the insulin-PI3K signaling network regulates actions in fat cells such as glucose uptake, differentiation and fatty acid uptake and release. Teruel’s long-term goal is to understand when and where in the fat-cell-signaling network to apply therapeutic interventions to treat adipose-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Philip Tsao, PhD
Tsao has been promoted to professor (research) of medicine, as of Dec. 1. His primary interests are in the molecular underpinnings of vascular disease as well as assessing disease risk. He is particularly interested in the role of microRNAs in gene expression pathways associated with disease. He also serves on the executive committee of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
Andrew Zolopa, MD
Zolopa has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. His patient-oriented research program focuses on optimizing antiretroviral therapies for HIV infection and the associated complications of AIDS. He is the principal investigator for Stanford’s AIDS clinical trial unit, and is the founding director of the Positive Care clinic. His research has recently extended into immunologic studies of aging among those with HIV. He is also developing a clinical research mentoring program in Rwanda.
November 2011
Kay has been awarded the 2012-13 Samuel Rosenthal Prize for Excellence in Academic Pediatrics. The prize, which comes with a $50,000 award to be used for two years of research, is given annually by Boston Children’s Hospital. Kay, who is a professor of pediatrics and of genetics and a member of Bio-X, the Child Health Research Institute and the Stanford Cancer Institute, will use the award as seed money for a project titled, “RNA-directed RNA synthesis in mammals: An undiscovered gene regulatory circuit?”
Relman, the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor, has received a one-year, $100,000 award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenge Exploration program, which funds projects that show promise in tackling global health issues. Relman’s goal is to develop a means of predicting responses to oral polio vaccine in children, based on the composition of their intestinal microbial flora when they are vaccinated. This could help to identify children at heightened risk for vaccine failure.
Shatz, the Sapp Family Provostial Professor and director of the Bio-X program, has received the Society for Neuroscience’s 2011 Ralph W. Gerard Prize. The $25,000 award, which honors a neuroscientist for significant lifetime contributions, was presented Nov. 14 at the society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Shatz is a former president of the organizations.
David Stevenson, MD
Stevenson, the Harold K. Faber Professor of Pediatrics, has received the March of Dimes Foundation’s Jonas Salk Award for Leadership in Prematurity Prevention. The award is given for achievement in improving human health through health-care leadership, medical practice or scientific discovery. It was awarded Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C. Stevenson, director of the Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services at Packard Children’s, is also the PI for the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Ranjana Advani, MD
Advani has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. Her research interests include the clinical investigation of Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas and cutaneous lymphomas. Advani is also interested in experimental therapeutics with novel chemotherapy and biologically targeted therapies.
Ching-Pin Chang, MD, PhD
Chang has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. The goal of his lab is to define the molecular mechanisms underlying cardiovascular development and disease, and translate the bench findings to clinical applications. He is interested in understanding how the major types of cardiac cells interact with each other to generate heart tissues.
William Greenleaf, PhD
Greenleaf has been appointed assistant professor of genetics, as of Nov. 1. His lab focuses on developing methods to probe the genome and epigenome at the single-cell and single-molecule levels. Greenleaf’s efforts are split between building new tools to leverage the power of high-throughput sequencing and cutting-edge microscopies, and bringing these new technologies to bear against basic biological questions of genomic and epigenomic variation.
Monte Winslow, PhD
Winslow has been appointed assistant professor of genetics, as of Nov. 1. The goal of his lab is to use unbiased genomic methods and in vivo models to better understand the molecular and cellular changes that underlie tumor progression and each step of the metastatic cascade. He uses genetically engineered mouse models of metastatic cancer in which the resulting tumors recapitulate the genetic alterations and histological progression of the human disease.
Amieva has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, as of Nov. 1. His lab studies the strategies pathogens use to colonize and subvert the epithelial barrier. In particular, he is interested in how the gastric pathogen Helicobater pylori may cause cancer by interfering with cell signaling at the epithelial junctions, and how other microbial pathogens like Listeria monocytogenes and Yersinia enterocolitica subvert the epithelium to invade.
De Jesus Perez has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. His work is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in the development and progression of pulmonary arterial hypertension. He is also interested in understanding the role that the BMP and Wnt pathways play in regulating functions of pulmonary endothelial and smooth muscle cells both in health and disease.
Garner has been appointed associate professor of comparative medicine, as of Oct. 1. His lab uses an integrated interdisciplinary approach, best described as developmental neuroethology, to address issues in human and animal well-being.
Michelle Monje, MD, PhD
Monje has been appointed assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Nov. 1. Her lab studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms of postnatal neurodevelopment. As a practicing neurologist and neuro-oncologist, she is particularly interested in the roles of neural precursor cell function and dysfunction in the origins of pediatric brain tumors and the consequences of cancer treatment.
Anthony Oro, MD, PhD
Oro has been promoted to professor of dermatology, as of Oct. 1. His lab studies the role of the Sonic hedgehog signaling system in the pathogenesis of the most common human tumor, basal cell carcinoma of the skin. He and his colleagues are also seeking to find ways to use patient-specific human stem cells as therapeutics for skin disease.
Matthew Smuck, MD
Smuck has been appointed associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, as of Oct. 1. His research is focused on improving the effectiveness and safety of commonly used percutaneous spine interventions, developing new technologies and techniques for minimally invasive treatment of spine disease and investigating the mechanisms behind spine injury and pain.
Randall Stafford, MD, PhD
Stafford has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Oct. 1. As part of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, he focuses on developing and testing innovative strategies for preventing and treating chronic conditions. His research also examines disparities in health care, quality of care, medication prescribing patterns and health and pharmaceutical policy. Stafford serves as director of the Program on Prevention Outcomes and Practices.
October 2011
Carette has been appointed assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, as of Oct. 1. His research focuses on the identification of host genes that play critical roles in the pathogenesis of infectious agents including viruses. His lab uses haploid genetic screens in human cells to perform loss-of-function studies.
Chen has been appointed associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Oct. 1. The long-term goal of her research is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie synapse function during behavior in the developing and mature brain, and how synapse function is altered during mental retardation.
Mark Hlatky, MD
Hlatky, professor of health research and policy and of cardiovascular medicine, has been named to the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee. This committee advises the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on national coverage decisions, such as, whether particular services are effective and appropriate to be covered by Medicare. MEDCAC judges the strength of the available evidence and makes recommendations to CMS based on that evidence.
Montgomery has been appointed assistant professor of pathology and of genetics, as of Oct. 1. He is interested in understanding the effects of genome variation on cellular phenotypes and cellular modeling of disease. He uses genomic approaches such as next-generation RNA sequencing in combination with developing and working with state-of-the-art bioinformatics and statistical genetics approaches.
Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD
Wyss-Coray has been appointed professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Oct. 1. His lab studies the role of immune and injury responses in neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease. Wyss-Coray is interested in understanding how immune responses and injury pathways may modulate neurodegeneration and age-related changes in the brain.
Juergen Willmann, MD
Willmann has been appointed associate professor of radiology, as of Oct. 1. Willmann is an attending physician on the body radiology service. He also has a lab that works on the development and clinical translation of novel molecular and functional imaging biomarkers with special focus on early detection and treatment-monitoring of various types of abdominal and pelvic cancer as well as breast cancer.
Kidd, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Genetics, is the recipient of a 2011 National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award. The award is part of an NIH-wide effort to empower the biomedical research workforce, particularly through the support of investigators early in their careers. Kidd will receive $250,000 a year for five years to work on characterizing the global architecture of genomic diversity.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
Butte, associate professor of pediatrics, has been recognized by the National Human Genome Research Institute for having the Genomic Advance of the Month for two papers published in September. The closely related studies, simultaneously published online Aug. 17 in Science Translational Medicine, describe the Butte team’s mining of public gene-expression databases using an “opposites attract” algorithm that “pairs old drugs with new indications.”
Nayak, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is the recipient of a 2011 Vision Grant awarded by the Preeclampsia Foundation, whose mission is to provide patient support and education, raise public awareness, catalyze research and improve health-care practices. The $25,000 grant will fund medical research pertaining to the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. One of Nayak’s major research goals is to understand and develop novel therapies for preeclampsia and other pregnancy-associated vascular disorders.
Robbins, the Thelma and Henry Doelger Professor of Cardiac Surgery II and chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, has been named president-elect of the board of directors for the American Heart Association Western States Affiliate. He will help steer the regional activities of the AHA, which is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary health organization dedicated to building healthier lives, free of heart disease and stroke. Robbins also serves as director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
September 2011
Einav has been appointed assistant professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, as of Sept. 1. She is interested in translational positive RNA virus research. Her lab combines innovative systems virologic/proteomic, molecular virologic, genetic, biochemical, functional genomic and molecular pharmacological approaches for studying the interactions of Flaviviridae (primarily hepatitis C and dengue viruses) with the human host and for translating this knowledge into novel antiviral strategies.
Heller, the Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in the School of Medicine III, has been elected to the Collegium, an international organization that was established in 1926 to promote the free exchange of scientific information. Membership is by invitation only. Heller, a leader in research on the inner ear, has recently focused on two paths for possible cures for deafness: stem cell transplantation into the inner ear and drug therapy, which could be as simple as an application of ear drops.
Mark Hlatky, MD
Hlatky, professor of health research and policy and of cardiovascular medicine, has been named scientific advisor to the Medical Advisory Panel of the Technology Evaluation Center of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. TEC does evidence-based, comprehensive evaluations of the clinical effectiveness and appropriateness of medical procedures, devices and drugs. Hlatky has been a member of the TEC Medical Advisory Panel since 2004.
Plant has been appointed associate professor of neurosurgery, as of Sept. 1. His research focuses on the repair of the injured spinal cord using adult stem cells and glial cell transplantation.
Yang, assistant professor of bioengineering and of orthopedic surgery, has been named to the 2011 list of “35 Innovators Under 35,” by MIT’s Technology Review. Yang studies how the body repairs blood vessels damaged by heart attacks, strokes and diabetic ulcers. She has developed a biodegradable polymer that binds to DNA to form nanoparticles that can then penetrate stem cells in order to release their cellular instructions. The polymer then degrades naturally, producing a safer outcome than current viral techniques.
Cherry has been promoted to professor of pathology and of pediatrics, as of Aug. 1. Her research interests focus on the use of molecular and molecular cytogenetic methods to identify chromosomal abnormalities in acquired and congenital disorders.
Chu has been promoted to associate professor of anesthesia, as of Aug. 1. He has two lines of research, one involving educational informatics and use of technology in postgraduate medical education and another involving NIH-funded work in patient-oriented clinical research regarding opioid use and physiologic responses associated with acute and chronic exposure in humans.
Stefanie Jeffrey, MD
Jeffrey has been promoted to professor of surgery, as of Aug. 1. Her lab performs molecular profiling of cancer cells with the goal of identifying tumor-specific therapies for the personalized treatment of cancer. Her research involves extracting and profiling circulating tumor cells from blood and bone marrow to shed light on the metastatic process and eventually to help guide selection of appropriate therapies in individual cancer patients. Jeffrey serves as chief of surgical oncology research at Stanford.
Michael McConnell, MD, MSEE
McConnell has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Aug. 1. He specializes in cardiovascular disease, with a focus on imaging and prevention of coronary atherosclerosis and vascular disease. McConnell oversees the Preventive Cardiology Clinic and the cardiovascular MRI program in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, as well as the NIH Multi-Disciplinary Training Program in Cardiovascular Imaging at Stanford.
Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD
Nadeau has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Aug. 1. Her lab focuses on the mechanisms of immune dysfunction in primary immune disease, allergy, and asthma.
David Weill, MD
Weill has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Aug. 1. He is interested in pulmonary disease and critical care. Weill directs both the Center for Advanced Lung Disease and the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center, and is medical director of the Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford.
Elizabeth Barnett, MD
Barnett, a pediatrics resident at the School of Medicine, has been selected as a 2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. Through the program, scholars are able to spend two years examining the delivery, impact and organization of health care. Barnett plans to begin her fellowship at UCLA next fall.
August 2011
David, clinical associate professor of family and community medicine, has been selected as the 2011-13 James C. Puffer, M.D./American Board of Family Medicine Fellow at the Institute of Medicine. He was chosen for his work on smoking cessation and health promotion. David will work with researchers, policy experts and clinicians on initiatives convened by the IOM to provide nonpartisan, evidence-based guidance to national, state and local policymakers, academic leaders, health-care administrators and the public.
Nachury, assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, is the recipient of the 2011 Early Career Life Scientist Award presented by the American Society for Cell Biology. He was selected for his pioneering work in two major, recently emerging areas in cell biology: Ran-regulated spindle assembly, and the nature of the ciliary compartment. He has also made contributions to the poorly understood process of tubulin acetylation. He will receive the award during the ASCB’s annual meeting in Denver this December.
Tang, assistant professor of dermatology, is the recipient of a clinical investigator award presented by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The award is part of “Accelerating Cancer Cures,” a new model of collaboration in cancer research that will help support 50 clinical investigators over the next five years. Tang, whose research focuses on finding new ways to treat and prevent non-melanoma skin cancer, is working to characterize mechanisms of drug resistance in treatment of skin cancer.
Michael Eisenberg, MD
Eisenberg has been appointed assistant professor of urology effective Aug. 1. His research centers around the diagnosis and treatment of male infertility, sexual function and hypogonadism. The primary focus of his research explores the potential health implications of impaired testicular function such as the development of cancer or cardiovascular disease.
Dominik Fleischmann, MD
Fleischmann has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of July 1. His clinical and research interests include non-invasive cardiovascular imaging, image post-processing and CT technology. He also serves as chief of cardiovascular imaging in the Department of Radiology and director of computed tomography at Stanford Hospital.
Adolf Pfefferbaum, MD, and Edith Sullivan, PhD
Pfefferbaum, emeritus professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Sullivan, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, are recipients of the 2011 Distinguished Researcher Award presented by the Research Society on Alcoholism. The RSA rarely selects joint awardees, but they were chosen for their collaborative work spanning more than 20 years on the intricate structure-function relationships of alcohol-induced brain damage. The award was presented at the 2011 RSA Scientific Conference, held June 27 in Atlanta.
June 2011
Hargreaves has been promoted to associate professor (research) of radiology, as of June 1. His research supports both clinical applications and general technical developments in MRI. As director of the body magnetic resonance group, he aims to translate all technical improvements into clinical use, so the two areas overlap substantially.
Sanjiv ”Sam” Gambhir, MD, PhD
Gambhir, professor of radiology, has been named this year’s recipient of the Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award for his contributions to the nuclear medicine profession. An internationally recognized expert in molecular imaging, Gambhir’s work has focused on interrogating fundamental molecular events in living subjects. The award was presented June 5 in San Antonio during the annual meeting of SNM, an international scientific and medical organization
Booil Jo, PhD
Jo has been promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of June 1. Her research is focused on developing and applying biostatistical methods including latent variable modeling, causal inference and missing data analysis techniques in the context of prevention-intervention studies and clinical trials.
Most has been promoted to professor of otolaryngology, as of June 1. He is interested in evidence-based medicine in facial plastic surgery, testing of various over-the-counter "cosmeceutical" products and facial nerve recovery after injury. He is also chief of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Sage has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics, as of June 1. His lab focuses on the links between the basic cell cycle machinery and the factors controlling self-renewal, differentiation and regeneration. In particular, Sage is interested in the differences and similarities between "normal" cells, cancer cells and stem cells.
Shreyas Vasanawala, MD
Vasanawala has been promoted to associate professor of radiology, as of June 1. He is interested in developing new MRI techniques, including novel applications for children. His group uses a comprehensive approach, exploring novel hardware, MRI pulse sequence techniques and motion correction methods. These approaches are then evaluated for cardiovascular, abdominal and musculoskeletal pediatric MRI exams.
Alizadeh has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective July 1. His research is focused on attaining a better understanding of the initiation, maintenance and progression of lymphoid tumors and their response to immunochemotherapy with the goal of improving current treatment strategies.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
Butte has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics, effective June 1. His laboratory builds and applies computational tools that convert more than 30 billion points of molecular, clinical and epidemiological data —measurements from researchers and clinicians over the past decade — into diagnostics, therapeutics and new insights into diseases. Butte serves as chief of the pediatric Division of Systems Medicine, and director of the Center for Pediatric Bioinformatics at Packard Children's Hospital. He is also associate director of the CTSA Translational Informatics Program.
Daldrup-Link has been appointed associate professor of radiology, effective June 1. Her lab develops translational cellular magnetic resonance imaging techniques for cancer imaging and stem cell imaging. The ultimate goal of her research is to detect specific cells in the tumor environment that are linked to poor prognosis, to monitor tumor cell-targeted therapies and to monitor stem cell engraftment outcomes in vivo.
Desai has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective June 1. His research focuses on pulmonary disease, and he is particularly interested in understanding how alveolar epithelial type AT-1 and AT-2 cells are generated during lung development and replaced in adult life during aging and following injury.
Michael Lin, MD, PhD
Lin, assistant professor of pediatrics and of bioengineering, is the recipient of the 2010 Young Investigator Award from the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy. The ACGT is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to facilitate funding for high-potential research into gene therapies, with the hopes of realizing more effective alternatives for the treatment and management of cancer. Lin, whose research focuses on engineering protein tools for studying biology and on developing new technologies for gene therapy, will use the $250,000 grant to study the application of protein-control switches to cancer therapy.
Amelie Lutz, MD
Lutz has been appointed assistant professor of radiology, as of May 1. Her research activities cover molecular imaging in oncology and inflammatory disorders. Her main research work is currently focused on the development of translational molecular imaging strategies for early detection of ovarian cancer. Lutz’s clinical activities include sub-specialization in musculoskeletal and body imaging.
May 2011
Shatz, the Sapp Family Provostial Professor and director of the Bio-X program at Stanford, has been elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society, which is composed of approximately 1,500 distinguished scientists from the United Kingdom and around the world. Each year, eight new foreign members are elected by existing fellows on the basis of excellence in science. Shatz, professor of neurobiology and of biology, studies how the brain changes with learning, especially during early developmental critical periods. The goal of her research is to understand cellular and molecular mechanisms that transform early brain circuits into mature adult connections. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Newsome, professor of neurobiology, is among the 37 new scholars who were recently elected to the American Philosophical Society. Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” the American Philosophical Society honors leading scholars, scientists and professionals through elected membership and opportunities for multidisciplinary, intellectual fellowship. Newsome conducts research with the aim of improving scientists’ understanding of the impact of the brain and its processes on vision, perception and decision making.
Gore-Felton, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been selected as a 2011-12 fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women at the Drexel University College of Medicine. Established in 1995, the program is dedicated to preparing senior women faculty for positions of leadership at academic health centers. Gore-Felton co-directs the Stanford Psychology and Biobehavioral Sciences Laboratory.
Almario, a first-year medical student, is among 12 graduate students selected for the inaugural Bay Area Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program, a local chapter of a national program. She will work with the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley to create and implement a diabetes prevention program serving Native American youth. She plans to integrate the 5-2-1-0 Healthy Kids Countdown, a health promotion initiative based on evidence-based messaging that emphasizes healthy nutritional choices and behaviors. The U.S. Schweitzer Fellows Program, begun in 1991, involves more than 125 graduate students in health-related fields to assist communities where health needs are not being met. The Bay Area program, founded in 2006, is one of 13 program sites throughout the United States.
Cho has been promoted to professor (research) of pediatrics, as of May 1. Her major areas of interest include: ethical and social issues in genetic research, stem cell research, bio-weapons and microbial genome research, the effects of gene patenting on clinical genetic testing and research, and the impacts of academic-industry ties on biomedical research. Cho also serves as associate director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and director of the Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, an NHGRI-funded Center for Excellence in ELSI research.
Galli, the Mary Hewitt Loveless, MD Professor and chair of the Department of Pathology, is the recipient of the 2011 Scientific Achievement Award presented by the World Allergy Organization, an international umbrella organization whose members consist of 84 regional and national allergology and clinical immunology societies from around the world. Galli’s research focuses on circulating white blood cells called mast cells and basophils, which are linked to allergies, asthma and, more favorably, the immune response to parasites. Mast cells in particular are also implicated in autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, angiogenesis and many other physiological pathways.
Barry Behr, PhD
Behr has been promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, as of March 1. He is interested in the development of improved embryo culture conditions in vitro, prevention of multiple pregnancy, fertility preservation and improving IVF outcome. Behr also iserves as director of Stanford’s IVF and Assisted Reproductive Technology Laboratory.
Bruce Daniel, MD
Daniel has been promoted to professor of radiology, effective May 1. His research activities include the development and investigation of new MRI methods for detecting and characterizing breast cancer, and MRI-guided interventions in the prostate and other organs. His clinical activities include sub-specialization in body imaging and breast MRI. He also serves as director of the breast MRI service at Stanford, which aims to bring the latest MRI technology to the clinic, including novel scanning methods, and MRI-guided breast biopsies and tumor localizations.
Cheryl Koopman, PhD
Koopman has been promoted to professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of May 1. Her research focuses on survivors of stressful events, including political and interpersonal violence, natural disasters and serious illness. Koopman evaluates social interventions to promote physical and mental health in under-served communities. Also, she is collaborating with experts in Lyme disease and biostatistics to investigate the diverse manifestations of Lyme disease in relation to medical history, co-infections and diagnostic tests.
Jianghong Rao, PhD
Rao has been promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective July 1. His main research focus is to design, synthesize and evaluate novel molecular probes for imaging or for manipulating targeted biomolecules in normal and diseased states. Rao’s lab is also interested in developing novel biosensors, new strategies for early biomarker detection in biological samples and for imaging-assisted drug screening, and drug delivery.
April 2011
Rivas has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, as of April 1. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he served as assistant professor of surgery, and co-director of the minimally invasive surgery fellowship program at the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Rivas is a pioneer and leader in single-incision laparoscopic surgery and in other novel surgical techniques, including natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery. He is director of innovative surgery at Stanford.
Fiorentino has been promoted to associate professor of dermatology, as of April 1. He is interested in the pathophysiology, natural history and treatment of patients with immune-mediated skin disease. Fiorentino co-directs a multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to the care of patients with rheumatic skin diseases, such as lupus erythematosus, vasculitis, dermatyositis and scleroderma. He is a founding member of the North American Rheumatologic Dermatology Society.
Longaker, the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor, is the recipient of the 2011 Flance-Karl award presented by the American Surgical Association, the oldest surgical association in the United States. The award, established in 1996 by Samuel A. Wells Jr., MD, then president of the ASA, is the highest research honor that the association can award. It is presented to a surgeon who has made a seminal contribution in basic laboratory research, which has application to clinical surgery. Longaker, who is also director of children's surgery research at Packard Children's Hospital, has broad experience in pediatric plastic surgery, developmental biology, epithelial biology, tissue repair and tissue engineering. He serves as director of children’s surgical research as well as director of the Program in Regenerative Medicine and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
Stephen Quake, PhD
Quake, the Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering, has been awarded the 2011 Promega Biotechnology Research Award presented by the American Society for Microbiology. The award honors outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development. Quake was chosen for his “significant and influential contributions to the development of new biotechnology at the interface between physics and biology.” He is also the recipient of the 2011 Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics, awarded at Tel Aviv University. The award, established through the Sacklers, is given to outstanding scientists of 45 years or younger in recognition of innovative physical techniques in biology. Quake pioneered the development of microfluidic methods for biophysics and structural biology of proteins and nucleic acids.
Monje, instructor in neurology and neurological sciences and a former neuro-oncology fellow at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, is the recipient of the 2011 Peter A. Steck Memorial Award. In addition to receiving $5000 to support her research, Monje will make a presentation on her work involving pediatric brain tumors. The Peter A. Steck Memorial Award is given in honor of the late Steck, a leader in brain tumor research. This national award, sponsored by the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, recognizes scientific excellence by a young investigator in a research area relevant to cancer of the central nervous system. Monje, whose research focuses on pediatric brain tumor origins and the molecular signals that drive their growth, will be honored April 28 at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Pelletier, a School of Medicine health and safety officer, has achieved the Certified Emergency Management designation from the International Association of Emergency Managers — the highest honor that is bestowed by the group. The CEM program is for professionals with comprehensive emergency management responsibility. Pelletier is one of 1,640 emergency management practitioners to receive this honor and is currently the only CEM within the university.
E. Alejandro Sweet-Cordero, MD
Sweet-Cordero, assistant professor of pediatrics (cancer biology), is the recipient of the 2011 Innovative Research Grant awarded by Stand Up To Cancer, an organization established by leaders from the film and media industries who use the resources of those businesses to get the public involved in supporting a new model of cancer research. The grants honor the late Judah Folkman, MD, whose pioneering work led to a new understanding of angiogenesis in cancer and the development of important new treatments based on his discoveries. Sweet-Cordero will receive a total of up to $750,000 over the next three years to conduct high-risk/high-reward translational cancer research. His work will focus on inhibiting innate resistance to chemotherapy in lung cancer stem cells.
Jonathan Berek, MD, MMS
Berek, professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, has been elected president of the Council of University Chairs in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He will begin his two-year term at this year’s American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ 59th annual clinical meeting in Washington, D.C. April 30-May 4. In his role as CUCOG president, Berek will also serve as a member of the national Liaison Committee for Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is the immediate past president of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society.
Howard Chang, MD, PhD
Chang, associate professor of dermatology, is the recipient of the 2010 CERIES research award, presented by Chanel Research and Technology. The award honros a scientific researcher with a proven track record in fundamental or clinical research work, for a one-year period, on the subject of physiology or biology of healthy skin and/or its reactions to environmental factors. Chang was chosen for his research on how genes are regulated so that the right cells do the right thing at the right time. He has pioneered new methods for dissecting the regulatory programs that control gene expression, providing insights into human development, cancer and aging.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of bioengineering, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the 2011 Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award, presented by the ARVO Foundation for Eye Research to a clinician-scientist under age 40. The award honors Sallmann, MD, a distinguished ophthalmologist and ophthalmic investigator whose contributions greatly increased the basic and clinical understanding of vision and ophthalmology. Deisseroth’s pioneering work in optogenetics — the engineering of nerve cells so that they can be stimulated or inhibited by different wavelengths of light — has had a wide impact on many fields, including ophthalmology and visual sciences. He will be speaking at a minisymposium at the 2011 ARVO Annual Meeting on May 2 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Marcelo Fernández-Viña, PhD
Fernández-Viña has been appointed professor of pathology, as of Feb. 1. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he served as director of the histocompatibility typing laboratory and professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. His research focuses on HLA variation in multiple world populations, identifying susceptibility and resistance factors for diseases and in the impact of HLA mismatches in allogeneic transplantation.
Philip Hanawalt, PhD
Hanawalt, the Dr. Morris Herzstein Professor in Biology and professor of dermatology, is the recipient of the fifth annual AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship for international collaboration, presented by the American Association for Cancer Research. The lectureship is presented to a scientist whose work has had a far-reaching impact on the detection, diagnosis, treatment or prevention of cancer. Hanawalt has been a productive researcher in the field of DNA repair since his pioneering discovery of repair replication in E. coli in 1963. Hanawalt and his colleagues also discovered a dedicated DNA repair pathway, termed transcription-coupled repair, that is targeted to expressed genes. DNA repair is important for protecting against cancer and some aspects of aging in humans. He presented a lecture titled, “Transcription, DNA repair and cancer,” during the AACR’s 102nd annual meeting April 2-6 in Orange County, Fla.
Christopher Payne, MD
Payne has been promoted to professor of urology as of March 1. His practice is concentrated in three areas — pelvic reconstructive surgery for urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse; interstitial cystitis; and urodynamic evaluation of complex bladder dysfunction. Payne is particularly interested in defining the role of the pelvic floor muscles in patients with chronic pelvic pain, and he has extensive experience in clinical trial design. He is currently preparing for a sabbatical trip to Africa where he will be doing research into incontinence caused by childbirth injuries, and will be working with African surgeons in repairing obstetric fistulas.
March 2011
Blau, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter professor, will be awarded the seventh annual AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship, presented by the American Association for Cancer Research. The lectureship was established in 2004 to acknowledge an individual whose outstanding innovations in science and whose position as a thought leader have the potential to inspire creative thinking and new directions in cancer research. Blau, director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology, will present a lecture titled, “(Re)-evolutionary regenerative medicine,” during the AACR’s 102nd annual meeting April 2-6 in Orange County, Fla.
Li has been appointed assistant professor of genetics, as of March 1. His lab is interested in identifying and understanding sequence variations in RNA and DNA. Li hopes to advance the field of RNA editing with his expertise in genetics, genomics, computational biology and technology development.
Shah has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of March 1. His research group studies ontology-based approaches to annotate, index, integrate and analyze diverse unstructured information available in biomedicine for the purpose of enabling data-driven analytics in medicine and health care.
February 2011
Brunet has been promoted to associate professor of genetics, as of Feb. 1. Her lab studies the molecular basis of longevity and age-dependent diseases. Brunet is also interested in the role of the nervous system in the control of life span.
John Ioannidis, MD, DSc
Ioannidis, the C.F. Rehnborg Professor in Disease Prevention and director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, has been appointed to the methodology committee of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a private, nonprofit entity established by the health reform bill that is to spearhead efforts to prioritize and fund comparative effectiveness research. Ioannidis will help the PCORI develop and update methodological standards and guidance for comparative clinical effectiveness research.
Moore has been promoted to associate professor of neurobiology, as of Feb. 1. His research focuses on how networks of neurons in the brain selectively process visual stimuli.
Porteus has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics and of cancer biology, as of Feb.1. His research focuses on gene therapies for sickle cell anemia, hemophilia and other diseases.
Rebecca Smith-Coggins, MD
Smith-Coggins has been promoted to professor (teaching) of surgery, as of Feb. 1. She focuses her research efforts on the use of simulation in medical education and studies the effect of physician fatigue and sleep deprivation on performance. Smith-Coggins also serves as associate dean for medical student life advising, and is on the board of directors for the American Board of Emergency Medicine.
David Stevenson, MD
Stevenson, the Harold K. Faber Professor of Pediatrics and vice dean of the School of Medicine, is the recipient of the 2011 Maureen Andrew Mentorship Award, which acknowledges individuals who serve as exemplary mentors for trainees and junior faculty working in child health research. He will accept the award at the Society for Pediatric Research meeting from April 30-May 3 in Denver. Stevenson’s research focuses on neonatology, particularly neonatal jaundice. The award was established in 2003 to honor the contributions of the late Maureen Andrew, MD, wife of Hugh O’Brodovich, who is chair of pediatrics. Andrew was a past president of the Society for Pediatric Research and founded and nurtured the field of neonatal hemostasis.
Irving Weissman, MD
Weissman, the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research and director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, has been elected to serve on the governing council of the National Academy of Sciences. Weissman will serve a three-year term starting July 1. The NAS is a private, nonprofit organization established by Congress to elect to membership outstanding scientists and engineers and to serve as an independent advisor to the federal government on issues of science and technology.
Angst has been promoted to professor of anesthesia, as of Jan. 1. His lab uses quantitative, reliable and mechanism-based approaches to study pain and its relief in human biology. Angst is interested in the identification of pain biomarkers and potential analgesic targets, the early validation or rejection of novel analgesic interventions and the pharmacogenomics and proteomics of opioid-analgesics.
Elias, assistant professor of chemical and systems biology, is one of five recipients of the 2011 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award. The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awards the $450,000 grant to scientists carrying out especially innovative work early in their careers. The grant will allow him to advance his research into how cancer cells survive despite a tendency to produce more damaged proteins than most ordinary cells. Elias suspects that cancer cells have ways of deactivating the abnormal proteins and that they might also use cell division as a way to escape them.
Bendavid has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Jan. 1. His research interests involve understanding the relationship between policies and health outcomes in developing countries. Bendavid is also interested in global health, HIV and tuberculosis.
Zhiping Pang, MD, PhD; Asya Rolls, PhD; Kimberly Thompson, PhD; and Simon Warby, PhD
The four postdoctoral scholars at the School of Medicine are among the 214 researchers who have been selected to receive 2010 Distinguished and Young Investigator awards from the National Alliance for Research of Schizophrenia and Depression, a charitable organization devoted exclusively to funding scientific research on psychiatric brain disorders. Each will receive up to $60,000 over two years to pursue brain and behavior research.
Jesse McKenney, MD
McKenney has been promoted to associate professor of pathology and of urology, as of Jan. 1. His research focuses on the classification of human neoplasms involving the genitourinary tract, specifically those of the bladder, prostate and kidney. He also serves as director of urologic pathology.
Rajni Agarwal-Hashimi, MD
Agarwal-Hashimi has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Jan. 1. She is interested in the development of clinical research protocols to reduce toxicity from high doses of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, graft manipulation to reduce complications from graft vs. host disease and studying the late complications of transplant. She serves as associate chief of pediatric hematology/oncology/stem cell transplantation as well as the clinical director of the pediatric stem cell transplant program at Packard Children’s.
Brendan Carvalho, MD
Carvalho has been promoted to associate professor of anesthesia, as of Jan. 1. He is interested in cesarean anesthesia and labor analgesia. Carvalho’s current area of research focuses on post-cesarean pain, predicting pain, pregnancy-induced changes in pain perception, long-acting neuraxial opioids and patient-controlled epidural labor analgesia.
Ricardo Dolmetsch, PhD
Dolmetsch has been promoted to associate professor of neurobiology, as of Jan. 1. His lab studies the underlying neurobiology of autism and other neuro-developmental disorders.
January 2011
Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was selected for his “distinguished contributions in the areas of human-microbe interactions and human microbial ecology.” Relman has developed methods that have enabled him to detect thousands of species of bacteria that live inside all of us. He is also working with colleagues to understand the various functions of these microbes. His experiments and ideas were key to establishing the Human Microbiome Project, a $115 million, five-year government-funded effort launched in 2007 to explore the microbial communities occupying different parts of the body. Relman, the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor and chief of the infectious diseases division at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, will be honored Feb. 19 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Reimer, has been appointed associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Dec. 1. His lab is interested in understanding how nerve cells make and recycle neurotransmitters, the small molecules that they use to communicate with each other. In better defining these processes he hopes to identify novel sites for treatment of diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.
Butte has been appointed as the inaugural division chief of the newly created Division of Systems Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. The division, which came into being Jan. 1, was created to reflect increased research interest in using data-driven approaches to improve health and health care. Butte will be joined in the division by Christopher Longhurst, MD, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and chief medical information officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and Henry Lowe, MD, senior associate dean for information resources and technology at the School of Medicine. Two additional faculty positions will be filled in the next few months. With continued exponential growth in clinical, genetic and molecular measurements and data, Butte anticipates that the new division will attract a wide spectrum of research and funding opportunities.
Bustamante, professor of genetics, has been selected as a top "under 40" scholar by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education Magazine. The magazine profiles 12 "under 40" scholars from around the country who are making their mark in the academy through teaching, research and service. Bustamante’s research focuses on analyzing genome-wide patterns of variation within and between species to address fundamental questions in biology, anthropology and medicine.
Gore-Felton has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Dec. 1. Her clinical focus is the treatment of anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Her research focuses on developing effective psychotherapy interventions to reduce chronic stress as well as enhance positive health behaviors to reduce morbidity and mortality among patients coping with chronic, medical illnesses, which are often life-threatening.
December 2010
Chang has been appointed assistant professor of ophthalmology, as of Nov. 1. He specializes in cataract and glaucoma surgery. His research interests include optical coherence tomography and visual field testing as well as international ophthalmology.
Cheshier has been appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Nov. 1. His research lab focuses on determining the lineage relationships of brain tumor stem cells and progenitors as well normal central nervous system stem cells. Cheshier is a former recipient of the Van Wagenen fellowship — the most prestigious research award offered to a new neurosurgeon in North America.
Gutierrez has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Nov. 1. Her research interests include clinical studies of antiviral therapies in infants. Gutierrez also studies the epidemiology of childhood infectious diseases in California and the epidemiology of hospital acquired infections.
Clete Kushida, MD, PhD
Kushida has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Nov. 1. He directs several NIH- and industry-sponsored research studies, focused on topics such as the physiologic changes associated with obstructive sleep apnea and the management of restless legs syndrome. Kushida also serves as medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center and director of the Stanford Center for Human Sleep Research. In addition, he is immediate past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
Mark Musen, MD, PhD
Musen led a Stanford team that has won first prize in Elsevier’s 2010 Semantic Web Challenge. Musen’s group was honored for its approach to mining medical resources on a web-size scale, in a way that can be used by ordinary people or scientists. Musen, professor of medical informatics, is principal director of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology. Elsevier’s annual Semantic Web Challenge promotes the dissemination of knowledge from academia to society and industry. This year, the four-day contest was held in early November in Shanghai.
Joel Neal, MD
Neal has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. He is interested in applying new technologies to the diagnosis, characterization, and treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer.
Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD
Pinsky has been appointed assistant professor of pathology, as of Nov. 1. His research focuses on the development and implementation of diagnostic assays for the detection and identification of clinically important viruses. He is also interested in understanding the role of phosphatase signaling in viral immunity.
Sharon Pitteri, PhD
Pitteri has been appointed assistant professor (research) of radiology, as of Nov 1. Her research focuses on the discovery and validation of molecules for cancer diagnostics. In particular, she is interested in blood-based biomarkers and identification of novel targets for molecular imaging.
George Poultsides, MD
Poultsides has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, as of Nov. 1. He is interested in clinical trials of experimental therapeutics and outcomes analysis following combined modality treatment of hepatic, pancreatic and gastrointestinal malignancies.
November 2010
Thompson, director of the Research Management Group in the School of Medicine, is one of this year’s recipients of the university’s Marsh O’Neill Award, which honors staff members who have made outstanding contributions to Stanford’s research mission. The award was established by the dean of research in 1990 and was named for its first recipient, Marshall O’Neill, who retired that same year after nearly four decades as associate director of the W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory. Thompson received a check for $5,000 during an awards presentation on Nov. 8.
Wu, associate professor of medicine and of radiology, is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers — the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their research careers. Each winner will receive grants to pursue their research for up to five more years. He was chosen for his work studying how embryonic and adult stem cells survive, proliferate and transform into other cell types. Wu, whose grant is from the National Institutes of Health, is also exploring ways to safely and effectively deliver genes to improve damaged heart cells.
Robinson has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. His lab studies the molecular mechanisms of and develops therapies to treat autoimmune and rheumatic diseases, with a focus on rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and osteoarthritis.
Christopher Longhurst, MD
Longhurst, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, has been named one of the top 25 clinical informaticists of 2010 by Modern Healthcare. Longhurst has led the hospital’s implementation of computerized physician order entry, and, after serving as physician lead and medical director for clinical informatics, he was named Packard Children’s chief medical information officer earlier this year.
John Oghalai, MD
Oghalai has been appointed associate professor of otolaryngology, as of Nov. 1. He is interested in developing techniques to improve human hearing, and his research focuses on understanding mechanisms within the ear’s cochlea that underlie progressive sensorineural hearing loss. Oghalai also serves as director of the Children’s Hearing Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Jonathan Berek, MD, MMS
Berek, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology, director of the Women’s Cancer Center at Stanford and president of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, chaired the IGCS’ 13th biennial scientific meeting in Prague, the Czech Republic, Oct. 22-26. Attended by 3,000 people from 97 countries, the meeting was the largest and most successful in the society’s 25-year history. The IGCS is the largest scientific international organization in gynecologic oncology, its mission is to support the worldwide exchange of scientific information, to sponsor education and outreach programs and to promote the improvement of screening and treatment for women’s cancers.
Douglas Blayney, MD
Blayney has been appointed professor of medicine, as of Oct. 1. His primary responsibility is assuring excellent patient service in the Stanford Cancer Center, and is interested in measuring and improving the quality of cancer care delivery and in studying the incorporation of medical informatics tools into the measurement and improvement of quality. Blayney also serves as the Ann and John Doerr Medical Director of the Stanford Cancer Center, and he is immediate past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Andrei Iagaru, MD
Iagaru has been appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective Sept. 1. His research focuses on the use of whole-body MRI and PET/CT for early cancer detection. He is also interested in nuclear medicine and radioimmunotherapy.
Lyell has been promoted to associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, as of Oct. 1. She is interested in prevention of prematurity, prenatal diagnosis and complications of cesarean delivery. Lyell also is the associate fellowship director for the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, is director of the Center for Placental Disorders and serves on the quality assurance committee of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
MacIver has been promoted to professor (research) of anesthesia, effective Oct. 1. He is interested in neuropharmacology and his lab studies anesthetic and analgesic actions in the central nervous system.
Mary Norton, MD
Norton has been appointed professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective Oct. 1. Norton is interested in maternal and fetal medicine, prenatal diagnosis and reproductive genetics.
Jongsoo Park, MD
Park has been promoted to associate professor of neurosurgery, as of Oct. 1. His research interests include non-fusion dynamic spinal stabilization, artificial disc technologies and regenerative spinal technologies.
Rose has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, effective Sept. 1. Her research focuses on the neuromuscular mechanisms underlying gait abnormalities in children with cerebral palsy and other pediatric orthopaedic conditions. Rose also is director of the Motion & Gait Analysis Lab at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Paul Sharek, MD, MPH
Sharek has been promoted to associate professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, effective Oct. 1. His research focuses on hospital-based quality of care improvement, particularly pediatric patient safety. Sharek has spent his early research career developing practical tools to more accurately identify adverse medical events and to establish national rates of these adverse events, and is presently identifying and implementing best practices to decrease these adverse events. He is a chief clinical patient safety officer and medical director of quality management at Packard Children’s.
Gary Steinberg, MD, PhD
Steinberg, professor and chair of neurosurgery, has received the 2010 Outstanding Achievement in Medicine Award from the Santa Clara County Medical Association. This award is given annually to a physician who has achieved widespread recognition for unique contributions to the betterment of patient care.
Katalin Szabo
Szabo is one of 20 medical students receiving the American Medical Association Foundation Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship based on her academic performance, financial status and community service. The award includes a $10,000 scholarship to help defray the expenses of medical education.
Nancy Ewen Wang, MD
Wang has been promoted to associate professor of surgery, effective Oct. 1. She has a strong interest in community health, education and researching disparities in pediatric emergency care, both locally and internationally. Her current research includes investigating disparities in trauma access in the California pediatric population. Wang also serves as associate director of pediatric emergency medicine.
October 2010
Barth, chief of pediatric radiology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and professor of radiology, was named No. 8 on a list of the top 25 most influential people, institutions and events that shaped radiology in 2010 by rt image magazine, the national weekly magazine for radiology professionals. Under Barth’s leadership, the Packard Children’s radiology team has been honored with several awards for research in pediatric imaging.
Amit Etkin, MD, PhD
Etkin has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Oct. 1. He is interested in the neural basis of emotional disorders and their treatment, with a particular emphasis on psychotherapy, and to leverage this knowledge to develop novel treatment interventions.
Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral, sciences, has co-authored a book, Drug Policy and the Public Good, that won the British Medical Association’s Best Book on Public Health award for 2010. The book, written with 11 other leaders in the field of addiction, describes recent advances in research that have direct relevance to drug policy on the local, national and international levels. Humphreys, whose research focuses on interventions for substance abuse and psychiatric disorders, was a drug policy advisor in the Obama administration.
Sibley, associate professor of pediatrics in gastroenterology, has been elected to the American Clinical and Climatological Association, a scientific society established in 1884 that initially concerned itself with treatment of tuberculosis but has since expanded its scope to multiple disciplines within internal medicine.
Elizabeth Mellins, MD
Mellins has been promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Sept. 1. Her group studies molecular mechanisms in autoimmune and autoinfllammatory diseases. A long-standing focus of her research is the immunobiology of MHC class II proteins, which are known to confer an inherited risk of autoimmunity. She also spearheaded the development of a national network for clinical research in pediatric rheumatology.
Jarred Younger, PhD
Younger has been appointed assistant professor (research) of anesthesia, effective Oct. 1. His research focuses on discovering mechanisms and treatments of chronic pain. He is particularly interested in the role opioid-peptides and microglia play in complex pain disorders.
Grant Miller, MD, MPP
Miller, assistant professor of medicine, has received the Inter-American Award for Research on Social Security 2010 from the Conferencia Interamericana de Seguridad Social Centro Intermericano de Estudios de Seguridad Social.
Auerbach, the Redlich Family Professor of Surgery, has been elected a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He hopes to work on matters related to health care as a method of diplomacy.
Mell has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Sept. 1. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness of health-care delivery for complex surgical diseases, including optimizing outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Mell’s clinical interests include all aspects of vascular surgery, with an emphasis on complex aortic disease.
Quinn has been promoted to professor of surgery, effective Sept. 1. He has developed and implemented innovative techniques to overcome barriers to clinical research in the emergency and acute care setting, including real-time electronic surveillance. Quinn has been the principal investigator of sponsored wound, cardiovascular and neurological trials and currently is the principal investigator for the Stanford hub for the neurological emergencies treatment trials where he also sits on the steering committee for this large NIH/NINDS sponsored project.
Jack Remington, MD
Remington, professor emeritus of medicine, was chosen for the 2010 Mentor Award from the Infectious Disease Society of America. Remington has mentored nearly 70 fellows during his 40-year career at Stanford.
Kristin Staudenmayer, MD
Staudenmayer has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Aug. 1. Her clinical interests involve trauma and surgical critical care, while her research activities are focused on health services.
Shreyas Vasanawala, MD, PhD
Vasanawala, assistant professor of radiology, received the GE Healthcare 2010 Thought Leader Award for innovation in pediatric MRI at the annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in Stockholm in May.
Ian Whitmore, MD
Whitmore, professor of anatomy, has been awarded the Jubilee Medal by the All-Russian Scientific Society of Anatomists, Histologists and Embryologists, the world’s largest anatomical society.
September 2010
Barry, professor of medicine and the school’s senior associate dean for global health, is the recipient of the 2010 Ben Kean Medal. The medal is awarded by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene to a clinician or educator whose dedication to clinical tropical medicine and impact on the training of students, fellows and/or practitioners of tropical medicine is in keeping with the tradition established by Kean, who was a renowned expert at Cornell. The medal is awarded every third year.
Davis, professor of biochemistry and of genetics, has received a two-year, $440,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop innovative technologies to improve the identification and characterization of microbial communities of the human microbiome (all the micro-organisms that reside in the human body). His work will involve the isolation, selection and amplification of single cells in a gel matrix.
Owens, professor of medicine and of health research and policy, will receive the Society for Medical Decision Making’s John M. Eisenberg Award at its annual meeting in Toronto in October.
Samuel So, MD
So, director of Stanford’s Asian Liver Center, attended a ceremony Sept. 17 in Atlanta, where the Asian Liver Center received the 2010 CDC/ATSDR Honor Award in the category of Excellence in Partnering. The award recognizes the liver center’s efforts in mobilizing people and resources to change global public health policies related to hepatitis B.
Bammer has been promoted to associate professor (research) of radiology as of Aug. 1. One of Bammer’s research interests is the development of advanced imaging techniques that can be used for children and for fetuses. He is also a member of Stanford Stroke Center where he is investigating new imaging methods to improve triage and treatment of patients with cerebrovascular diseases.
Jonathan Berek, MD
Berek, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology, has been given the 2010 John C. Fremont Pathfinder Award. The annual award “honors native Nebraskans who have made outstanding contributions to mankind that exemplify the vision and courage of John C. Fremont.” The award was conferred in July at a special ceremony in Fremont, Neb. Berek is also the director of the Women’s Cancer Center of the Stanford Cancer Center.
Lauren Harshman, MD
Harshman has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. Her research focuses on novel therapies and biomarker identification in genitourinary malignancies.
Laurence Katznelson, MD
Katznelson has been promoted to professor of neurosurgery and of medicine, effective Aug. 1. His research interests include the effects of brain injury on pituitary function and the effects of neuroendocrine factors, including growth hormone and glucocorticoids, on neurocognitive function. He also is director of the Stanford Pituitary Center.
Krane, professor of anesthesia and of pediatrics, has been selected as a 2010-11 Mayday Fellow. The fellowship was established by the Mayday Fund, a foundation dedicated to alleviating the incidence, degree and consequence of human physical pain and providing leaders in the field with tools to reach the broader public. Krane will participate in intensive training and five months of coaching in media, policy and leadership.
Pamela Kunz, MD
Kunz has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. She specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies. Her research involves clinical trials and epidemiologic studies, primarily in neuroendocrine and gastroesophageal cancers.
David Lee, MD
Lee has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. His research interests include the development of new therapies for acute myocardial infarction; new treatments for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy; and novel approaches to coronary revascularization and treatments for structural heart disease.
Jafi Lipson, MD
Lipson has been appointed assistant professor of radiology as of Aug. 1. Lipson’s research has focused on the amount of radiation used in CT scans and the associated risk of cancer. She is also examining the use of imaging biomarkers to assess breast cancer treatment response, and medical informatics in breast imaging. Clinically, she specializes in breast screening and diagnostic and interventional procedures.
Malenka, the Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has won this year’s NARSAD Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Cognitive Neuroscience Research. NARSAD, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, is a charitable organization dedicated to research on schizophrenia, depression, biopolar disorders, anxiety disorders and childhood psychiatric disorders including autism and ADHD. Malenka, who also co-directs the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Transitional Neurosciences, will receive the $50,000 prize Oct. 29 at an awards dinner in New York City.
Hari Mallidi, MD
Mallidi has been appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Aug. 1. Clinically, Mallidi focuses on surgery for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; heart and lung transplantation; and mechanical circulatory support for end-stage heart failure. His research uses databases for examining outcomes following cardiac surgery.
V. Mohan Reddy, MD
Reddy has been appointed professor of cardiothoracic surgery and of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. His research and clinical work focuses on fetal heart surgery, neonatal repair of congenital heart defects, surgery of premature and very-low-birth-weight infants, and protecting brain function during heart surgery. Reddy also serves as chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Sakti Srivastava, MD
Srivastava has been appointed associate professor (teaching) of surgery as of Aug. 1. His research focuses on digital anatomy, surgical simulation and innovation in low-cost medical devices.
Daniel Sze, MD, PhD
Sze has been promoted to professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. His research interests include image-guided treatment of tumors using radioactive microspheres, biologics, and chemotherapeutics, and the study of endovascular treatment of aortic dissections and aneurysms.
Melinda Telli, MD
Telli has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. Her research focuses on breast cancer treatment and survivorship. Telli is studying novel treatments for triple-negative breast cancer, as well as ways of preventing heart damage associated with breast cancer treatment.
Robert West, MD, PhD
West has been promoted to associate professor of pathology, effective Aug. 1. His laboratory’s research examines the molecular events that lead to and sustain tumorigenesis, with a focus on breast cancer and soft tissue tumors. He also is co-director of Stanford’s Immunodiagnosis Laboratory.
Joseph Wu, MD, PhD
Wu has been appointed associate professor of medicine and of radiology, effective Sept. 1. Wu studies the biological mechanisms of adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. His lab uses a variety of techniques, including genomics and imaging, to understand how stem cells engraft and function.
Julie Yabu, MD
Yabu has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. Yabu’s research interests are in immune monitoring in kidney transplant patients, with a particular emphasis on the management of sensitized patients.
August 2010
Brunger, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of neurology and neurological sciences, won the inaugural DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for his work in structural biology. Established this year, the award aims to honor the legacy of Warren L. DeLano, who embraced the concept of open-source technology, making his programs and source code freely available to prospective users. The award is given to a scientist for innovative and accessible development or application of computer technology to enhance research in the life sciences at the molecular level. Brunger’s concepts and strategies helped provide the foundation of much of modern structural biology.
Bond has been named the new director of the Office of Emergency Management at Stanford University Medical Center. Most recently, he served as the private sector liaison officer to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and he remains a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Bay Area Disaster Medical Assistance Team. Previously, he was the disaster preparedness manager for Kaiser Permanente’s National Facility Services.
Dash has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of July 1. His research focuses on imaging cell signaling in the heart, with the goal of developing molecular probes to non-invasively detect and track injured heart tissue in real time.
Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD
Diehn has been appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology as of July 1. Diehn’s research focuses on cancer stem cell biology and its implications for therapy, particularly for breast cancer and lung cancer. Clinically, he specializes in treating lung cancer and in radiosurgery.
Bingwei Lu, PhD
Lu has been promoted to associate professor of pathology, as of Aug. 1. His research aims to advance the understanding how neural stem cells balance their self-renewal and differentiation and how deregulation of this process can result in brain tumors. His studies also include the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Upinder Singh, MD
Singh has been promoted to associate professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, as of Aug. 1. She studies the pathogenesis of the parasite, Entamoeba histolytica, using a combination of genetic and genomic approaches to identify the molecular mechanisms that the organism uses to invade its human host. She also studies the epidemiological trends of amoebic infection with the goal of identifying a molecular signature for parasites that correlates with their invasive potential.
Wolfgang Winkelmayer, MD, ScD
Winkelmayer has been appointed associate professor of medicine as of July 1. Most of his research focuses on comparing the effectiveness and safety of existing or evolving treatment strategies in patients with kidney disease, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
Wing Wong, PhD
Wong, professor of health research and policy and of statistics, has been elected a member of Academica Sinica, the national academy of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It supports research activities in disciplines including mathematical, physical, life and social sciences.
July 2010
Basu, attending physician in radiology, was selected to be one of the 13 members of the 2010-2011White House Fellows program out of a field of more than 1,000 applicants. Established in 1964, the program aims to give promising American leaders “first hand, high-level experience with the workings of the federal government, and to increase their sense of participation in national affairs.” Basu recently accepted a faculty appointment in the Department of Radiology, where he will continue to work to enhance outpatient imaging operations and patient-care quality as well as conduct research pertaining to health-care costs, access and quality.
Garcia, assistant dean of minority affairs, director of admissions and director of the Center of Excellence in Diversity in Medical Education, is one of three recipients of the California Wellness Foundation’s 2010 Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award, for which he received a $25,000 prize for his “commitment to increasing California’s health care workforce and its diversity.” The group’s website credits Garcia with pioneering a “nationally recognized higher education admissions procedure that looks at ‘distance traveled’ by students in order to increase diversity in medical and health professional schools.” Garcia is also associate director of the Primary Care Associate Program, which trains physician assistants.
Maldonado, professor of pediatrics, chief of pediatric infectious diseases and medical director of infection control at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, has been elected to the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics, beginning July 1. This is the committee that makes infectious disease policy decisions for the national academy, and is responsible for development of the AAP “Red Book,” the academy’s infectious disease national guidelines. The committee also serves as a liaison to other national academies, including the United States Public Health Service Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Maxence Nachury, PhD
Nachury, assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, has been named a 2010 Searle Scholar. Awardees receive $100,000 per year for three years to support their research. The program is designed to support 15 outstanding individuals in the first or second year of their first appointment at the assistant professor level in a tenure-track position each year. Nachury’s research focuses on understanding the structure and function of the primary cilium.
Minnie Sarwal, MD, PhD
Sarwal, professor of pediatrics and a nephrologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, has been awarded the TTS-Roche Award for Outstanding Achievement in Transplantation Science (Clinical). She will receive the honor at the XXIII International Congress of The Transplantation Society in August. Sarwal does research on the molecular and immunological basis of transplant dysfunction and acceptance.
Iris Schrijver, MD
Schrijver, associate professor of pathology, has become president-elect of the Association for Molecular Pathology for 2010-11 and will be president in 2011-12. The AMP is an international medical professional association representing approximately 1,800 physicians, doctoral scientists and medical technologists who perform laboratory testing based on knowledge derived from molecular biology, genetics and genomics. Her research aims to optimize genetic testing taking into account differences among racial and ethnic groups, to improve our understanding of genotype-phenotype correlations, and to advance developments towards increasingly personalized molecular medicine.
Daniel Spielman, PhD
Spielman has been appointed professor of radiology, effective July 1. His research interests include the study of magnetic resonance imaging and in vivo spectroscopy, with the aim of developing new techniques that use metabolites such as lactate and choline to create images that will enhance cancer diagnosis, monitoring of cancer treatment and prediction of response to cancer therapy. He is also conducting basic research into a variety of neurologic conditions including brain development in pediatric patients and neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer’s disease, alcoholism and aging.
Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Wysocka, assistant professor of developmental biology and of chemical and systems biology, received the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Stem Cell Research on June 17 at the organization’s annual meeting in San Francisco. The award recognizes exceptional achievement by an investigator in the early part of his or her independent career in stem cell research. Wysocka’s research focuses on understanding how chromatin modifications affect stem cell biology. She is a recipient of SEED and New Faculty Awards from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which she credits with directing her work toward stem cells.
June 2010
Longhurst has been appointed chief medical information officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. In his CMIO capacity, he will lead clinical information strategy and adoption; serve on the hospital’s information services executive committee; look at ways to extend the hospital’s digital data to patients and families to improve the continuum of care; and conduct studies on the impact of health information technology in a clinical setting.
Rohatgi, assistant professor of medicine, was named on June 17 a 2010 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. The program, which provides recipients with $240,000 over four years, was established 25 years ago by the Pew Charitable Trusts to encourage scientists to take calculated risks, expand their research and explore unanticipated leads. His research focuses on primary cilium, a tiny, slender, projecting body found on most of our cells that plays a central role in their communicating with each other. His goal is to create a detailed biochemical portrait of these cilia using techniques based in chemistry, imaging and biochemical reconstitution.
Brunet, assistant professor of genetics, and Krishna Shenoy, PhD, associate professor of electrical engineering, are the winners of the third annual postdoctoral mentoring award, given by the Stanford University Postdoctoral Association. The award is the first to recognize excellence in postdoctoral mentoring across the university, and it carries a cash prize of $2,500 for each winner. Seventy nominations were received in two rounds. In addition to the two winners, James Spudich, PhD, professor of biochemistry, and Andrew Hoffman, MD, professor of medicine, were recognized with honorable mentions.
Arvin, the Lucile Salter Packard Professor in Pediatrics and professor of microbiology & immunology, was awarded the 2010 Biomedical Research Leadership Award from the California Society for Biomedical Research. Arvin started the Stanford-Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Vaccine Program in 1997 and also serves as the university’s vice provost and dean of research. The award was presented at CSBR’s annual dinner on May 20 in Los Angeles.
Brown, professor of biochemistry, is the recipient of the 2010 Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Award in recognition of his pioneering work in the development of microarrays, and the diverse applications of this technology in genetic research. The ABRF is an international society dedicated to advancing core and research biotechnology laboratories through research, communication and education.
Pfeffer, professor of biochemistry, has been elected president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She will serve a two-year term from July 2010-June 2012.
Peter Koltai, MD
Koltai, professor and chief of pediatric otolaryngology, was installed as the new president of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology, during the ASPO’s annual meeting last month in Las Vegas. Also during this meeting, otolaryngology resident garani nadaraja, MD, received the William P. Potsic Basic Science Award for best basic science paper, “Gentamicin entry into sensory hair cells is dependent on mechanotransductionchannels and tip-link integrity,” with co-author alan cheng, MD, assistant professor of otolaryngology.
Kerry-Ann Stewart
Stewart, a second-year medical student, is the recipient of a 2010 Minority Scholars Award presented by the American Medical Association. Stewart, who hopes to become a neurosurgeon, is one of 13 medical students in the country to receive a $10,000 scholarship in recognition of scholastic achievement and commitment to improving minority health.
Jennifer Parker
Parker, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Systems Biology and an MD/PhD student, has been elected region-1 director and representative to the executive committee of the Student National Medical Association Board of Directors. The SNMA is the nation’s oldest and largest independent student-run organization focused on the needs and concerns of medical students of color. This is Parker’s fourth term as a national board member.
Matthew Callaghan, MD
Callaghan, a biodesign fellow, was recognized in Popular Science’s 2010 Invention Awards for his development of a ventilator that costs a fraction of the conventional model. Callaghan’s device runs on a 12-volt battery for six to 12 hours at a time and is smaller than a toolbox, so it can be easily deployed wherever needed, particularly during disasters.
May 2010
Tan has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of May 1. Much of her research relates to issues pertaining to clinical kidney transplantation. Tan is interested in studying renal senescence and kidney transplants, chronic allograft nephropathy; living donor safety and response to uninephrectomy; and biomarkers for post-transplant monitoring.
Herschlag, professor of biochemistry, chemistry and chemical engineering, has been awarded the 2010 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology William C. Rose Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to biochemical and molecular biological research and a demonstrated commitment to the training of younger scientists. He presented an award lecture titled, “How enzymes work,” in April at the 2010 annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
Lembke has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of May 1. She is interested in psychiatry, with a focus on psychopharmacology.
William Fearon, MD
Fearon has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of May 1. His general research interest is in coronary physiology. In particular, Fearon is investigating invasive methods for evaluating the coronary microcirculation.
Greenberg, the Joseph D. Grant Professor and senior associate dean for research, has been elected a fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology. Fellows are chosen annually through a selective, peer-reviewed process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. Greenberg is an authority on vaccine research and development, and past president of the American Society of Virology.
Gloria Hwang, MD
Hwang has been appointed assistant professor of radiology, as of May 1. She is interested in interventional oncology, pancreatic interventions and image-guided gene therapy.
Manpreet Singh, MD, MS
Singh has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of May 1. Her research interests include the phenomenology, neurobiology, pharmacology and genetic aspects of bipolar disorder in children. Singh is particularly interested in risk factors for the development of bipolar disorder and associated morbidities, and early intervention strategies to delay the onset and progression of symptoms.
Crivello, computer systems manager for the Pathology Department, is one of the university's three Amy J. Blue Award winners for 2010. The awards honor staff members who are exceptionally dedicated, supportive of colleagues and passionate about their work. Crivello's co-workers describe him as the go-to guy for the department's 200 faculty, students, postdoctoral research fellows and staff when a hard drive crashes, a computer freezes or data disappears. Read the full story about Crivello here. The award comes with a $3,000 prize and an "A" parking permit for next year. Crivello and the other two winners will be honored at a reception May 18.
Nusse, professor and chair of developmental biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Nusse studies the activity of a class of proteins that determine cell fate during embryogenesis. His lab developed a way to purify the active proteins and then established that they are modified by fatty acids. Nusse was one of five Stanford faculty elected to the NAS this year.
Loo has been appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, as of April 1. He is interested in radiation treatment of lung cancer and head and neck cancer, and serves as the thoracic radiation oncology program leader.
Harris has been appointed associate professor of neurosurgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of April 1. She is interested in traumatic brain injury, with a focus on epidemiology and outcomes.
Karla Kirkegaard, PhD; Michael Levitt, PhD; and Thomas Sudhof, MD
Three medical school faculty members were recently selected as fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They were among nine Stanford faculty members selected as fellows this year. Kirkegaard, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, has research interests that involve basic genetics, biochemistry and cell biology. Among her current work is an investigation of how microbes and host cells function as they interact with each other. Levitt, professor and associate chair of structural biology, is known for his work in computational biology. He pioneered the use of all-atom potential energy and Cartesian minimization to enable simulations of molecular dynamics. Sudhof, the Avram Goldstein Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, explores how synapses in the brain are formed as well as how the transfer of information is triggered at a synapse.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD, and Jeffrey Gould, MD, MPH
Butte and Gould were recognized for their research contributions May 3 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Vancouver. Butte, assistant professor of pediatric cancer biology, received the 2010 Young Investigator Award, which consistently identifies rising stars in children’s health research. A pioneer in the field of translational bioinformatics, Butte uses computers to find patterns in large public repositories of biological data. Gould, professor of neonatology and the Robert L. Hess Professor in Pediatrics, received the Douglas K. Richardson Award for Perinatal and Pediatric Health Care Research in recognition of his lifetime achievements as a clinical investigator. An internationally known neonatologist and epidemiologist, Gould has made important contributions to the use of data for improving perinatal outcomes. The awards were presented by the Society for Pediatric Research.
April 2010
Alizadeh, instructor of medical oncology, is the recipient of a Career Development Award, presented by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The award is given to physicians who are within their firstto third year of a full-time, primary faculty appointment in a clinical department at an academic medical institution. Alizadeh will use the grant to establish an independent clinical cancer research program. His research examines the initiation, maintenance and progression of lymphoid tumors and their response to immunochemotherapy, with the objective of improving current treatment strategies. The award will be presented in June during the ASCO’s annual meeting in Chicago. Alizadeh also was recently selected for a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Special Fellow in Clinical Research award.
Heller has been promoted to professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery) and, by courtesy, of molecular and cellular physiology, as of April 1. Heller studies how pluripotent stem cells within the inner ear and other stem cells might be coaxed into growing into mature hair cells — sound-sensing cells located in the cochlea. His lab is focusing on ways to develop cell- or drug-based therapies for inner ear disorders.
Russell Pachynski, MD
Pachynski, instructor in medical oncology, is the recipient of a 2010 Minority Scholar in Cancer Research award from the American Association for Cancer Research. The award is intended to enhance the education and training of minority researchers and increase the recognition of minorities involved in cancer research. Pachynski’s research focuses on leukocyte chemoattractant chemerin as a novel immunotherapeutic agent. He accepted the award during the AACR’s 101st annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Ricci has been promoted to professor otolaryngology (head and neck surgery) and, by courtesy, of molecular and cellular physiology, as of April 1. His research interests focus on hair cell biophysics. Ricci’s lab usesadvanced electrophysiologic, imaging, molecular and pharmacologic techniques to probe mechanisms of mechanotransduction and synaptic transmission at the auditory periphery.
Abraham Verghese, MD
Verghese, professor of medicine and senior associate chair for the theory and practice of medicine program, is the winner of the American Book Sellers Association’s 2010 Indies Choice Book Award for adult fiction for his novel, Cutting for Stone. Owners and staff of independent bookstores made the selection. He will be honored at the BookExpos America in New York, May 25-27.
Neuroradiology program
The American Board of Radiology has ranked the medical school’s Neuroradiology Fellowship Program first out of 77 accredited neuroradiology programs throughout the United States. The program accepts three applicants annually for a two-year position. It is co-directed by associate professor Huy Do, MD, and radiology professor and neuroradiology section chief Scott Atlas, MD, and supported by eight additional neuroradiology section faculty members. A letter from the ABR in March noted Stanford trainees’ exceptional performance over the past five years on qualification examinations.
Newsome, professor of neurobiology, has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the Karl Spencer Lashley Award, presented by the American Philosophical Association. The APA was the United States' first learned society and has been awarding medals and prizes for outstanding achievement in the sciences, humanities, arts, professions and public service since 1790. The Karl Spencer Lashley Award was established in 1957 by Lashley, a distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist. Newsome, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, received the award for research in the neural basis of visual motion perception. His lab’s long-term goal is to understand the neuronal processes that mediate visual perception and decision-making.
Sikic, professor of medicine in the Division of Oncology, has been honored with a 2010 Statesman Award, presented by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The award recognizes ASCO members for their extraordinary volunteer service, dedication and commitment. Recipients of this award have given 20 years of volunteer service. Sikic’s lab studies mechanisms of drug resistance and predictive therapeutic biomarkers; his clinical research team develops new cancer therapies. A leading expert in the pharmacology of anticancer drugs, he also serves as associate director of the Stanford Cancer Center. ASCO is the largest professional society representing physicians who treat people with cancer. Sikic will be honored in June at the society’s 46th annual meeting in Chicago.
Longaker, the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor, and Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, professor of surgery, were honored at the American Association of Plastic Surgeons at its annual meeting in San Antonio. Longaker was named the first recipient of the Basic Science/Translational Researcher of the Year Award. He was also chosen to deliver the Joseph E. Murray Lecture, which is presented biennially by an invited guest of the president of the association. Gurtner received the James Barrett Brown Award, which is presented annually for the best plastic-surgery-related paper published during the previous calendar year. The paper titled, "Using genetically modified microvascular free flaps to deliver local cancer immunotherapy with minimal systemic toxicity,” was published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Gurtner is the first recipient to receive this award two years in a row.
Goldstein, professor of medicine at the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and director of the Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, is the recipient of the VA’s 2010 Under Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research — the highest honor for a VA health services researcher. For more than 18 years, she has brought scientific distinction to the VA through her contributions to health services research, and has clearly met the three major criteria for this award by: improving our understanding of factors that affect the health of veterans and improving the quality of their care, contributing to the future of VA health services research by inspiring and training the next generation of investigators, and enhancing the visibility of VA research through national recognition within the research community. The award, to be presented April 22, highlights Goldstein’s research on geriatrics, hypertension management and clinical decisions and guidelines.
March 2010
Greenberg, the Joseph D. Grant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and of Microbiology & Immunology and senior associate dean for research, is a recipient of the American Liver Foundation’s Salute to Excellence Award, which honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to technology and medical innovation. Greenberg was honored at a celebratory event in San Francisco on March 13.
King, professor of health research policy and of medicine, has been elected president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the scientific organization that promotes studying the interactions of behavior, physiological and biochemical states, and morbidity and mortality. SBM provides an international network for science, education, practice, and policy development related to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation. King’s research is focused on the applications of social cognitive theory and similar behavioral and ecological approaches to achieve large-scale change in disease prevention and health promotion areas of relevance to adults, especially women, and mid-life and older adults.
Rasgon, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is the recipient of the 2010 Lila A. Wallis Award presented by the American Medical Women’s Association. The award is given to an individual to recognize lifetime achievements, accomplishments, motivation, mentorship, energy and enthusiasm for women’s health. Rasgon is director of the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Program and the Women’s Wellness Program in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. She also founded the Research in the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Program, which focuses on the interaction between reproductive hormones and brain function.
James Fann, MD
Fann has been promoted to professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of March 1. His research interests include cardiac surgery simulation, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, coronary artery bypass surgery, cardiac valve disease and thoracic aortic disease.
Jorg Goronzy, MD, PhD
Goronzy has been appointed professor of medicine, as of March 1. His research focuses on molecular pathways regulating the function of T lymphocytes in protective and pathologic immune responses.
Geoffrey Kerchner, MD, PhD
Kerchner has been appointed assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of March 1. He studies the use of ultra-high field MRI and other advanced neuroimaging technologies to reveal how Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related neurodegenerative illnesses affect the microscopic structure and circuitry of the brain, with the intent of creating new strategies for early diagnosis. Kerchner also supervises the participation of patients in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease.
Kathryn Stevens, MD
Stevens was promoted to associate professor of radiology, as of March 1. She is interested in sport medicine, particularly the imaging of sports injuries and ultrasound-guided therapy; clinical applications of new MRI pulse sequences; and imaging and guided therapy in rheumatology.
February 2010
Bundorf has been promoted to associate professor of health research and policy, as of Feb. 1. She is interested in health-care financing and delivery. Bundorf’s research focuses on health insurance markets, including the determinants and effects of individual and purchaser choices, the effects of regulation in insurance markets, the interaction of public and private systems of health insurance and incentives for insurers to improve health-care quality.
Fisher, professor of neurology and director of Stanford Hospital’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, is the recipient of the 2010 Pierre Gloor Award. The award is presented annually by the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society for outstanding current contributions to clinical neurophysiology research and is the organization’s highest distinction. It was presented to Fisher during a ceremony at the ACNS’ annual meeting in San Diego on Feb. 6.
Goodman has been promoted to associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology, as of Feb. 1. She studies the molecular events that give rise to the sensation of touch and temperature, using C. elegans worms as a model system.
Shelli Kesler, PhD
Kesler has been appointed assistant professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Dec. 1. She is interested in the assessment and treatment of cognitive deficits related to medical problems, particularly cancer. Her research also involves neuropsychology, neuroimaging and genetics, as well as the measurement and enhancement of neuroplasticity mechanisms through targeted interventions.
V. Mohan Reddy, MD
Reddy has been appointed associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery and of pediatrics, as of Jan. 1. His research and clinical work focuses on fetal heart surgery, surgery of premature and very low birth weight neonates and cerebral protection during heart surgery. Reddy also serves as chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Jianghong Rao, PhD
Rao has been appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective July 1. His lab’s focus is to design, synthesize and evaluate novel molecular probes for imaging or manipulating targeted biomolecules in normal and diseased states. He is also interested in developing biosensors, new strategies for early biomarker detection in biological samples and methods of high throughput drug screening and drug delivery.
Rosen has been promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of Jan. 1. He is interested in improving processes and outcomes of mental health care, especially for people suffering from post-traumatic stress. Rosen’s primary focus is evaluating VA care for veterans with psychiatric disorders. He is also interested in using telemedicine technologies to improve care for psychiatric and substance use disorders, as wells as evaluating mental health services in response to disasters and terrorism.
Carroll has been appointed assistant professor of anesthesia, as of Jan. 1. He studies the factors that cause prolonged post-surgical pain and prolonged opioid use.
Mirna Mustapha-Chaib, PhD
Mustapha-Chaib has been appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology, as of Feb. 1. She is interested in the genetics of hearing loss.
Jayakar Nayak, MD, PhD
Nayak has been appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology, as of Jan. 1. He joins the department as a surgeon-scientist focusing in rhinology. Nayak has begun a research program exploring means of regenerating nasal and sinus mucosal and the immunology of rhinosinusitis.
Sandhya Kharbanda, MD
Kharbanda has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Jan. 1. Kharbanda’s research focuses on stem cell transplant protocols for patients with sickle cell disease and on stem cell therapies for treatment of autoimmune type-1 diabetes.
Sharon Geaghan, MD
Geaghan, associate professor of pathology and pediatrics, was chosen to be chair-elect for the pediatric maternal fetal division of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry for 2010-11 and will serve as chair in 2012-14. Founded in 1948, the society has over 9,000 members and is headquartered in Washington, DC.
Tom Hartl, PhD, and Sabrina Spencer, PhD
Hartl and Spencer, who are postdoctoral scholars, were awarded Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellowships. Hartl, whose sponsor is Matthew Scott, PhD, professor of developmental biology and genetics and bioengineering, is studying proteins called insulin-like growth factors: molecules that are essential for normal growth during development. Spencer is studying the cellular decision to proliferate or to remain in a non-dividing state; her sponsor is Tobias Meyer, PhD, the Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Cell Biology. The three-year, $140,000 fellowship goes to outstanding young scientists who are doing basic and translational cancer research in the labs of leading senior investigators. There were nine other recipients of the 2010 awards.
January 2010
Link, an oncologist who treats children with cancer at the Bass Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, has been elected president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He will take office as president-elect at ASCO’s annual meeting in June, and will serve a one-year term from June 2011 to June 2012. He will also continue his appointments at Packard Children’s and the School of Medicine, where he is the Lydia J. Lee Professor in Pediatric Cancer. He conducts research on the biology and management of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Hodgkin’s disease in children and the treatment of sarcomas of bone and soft tissue.
McAdams has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, as of Dec. 1. His research interests include rotator cuff tears, throwing injuries of the shoulder and elbow and arthroscopic wrist ligament repair. McAdams also serves as program director in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery as well as team physician for the San Francisco 49ers.
Menon has been promoted to professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Jan. 1. His research interests include cognitive neuroscience, cognitive development, psychiatric neuroscience, functional brain imaging, dynamical basis of brain function and nonlinear dynamics of neural systems. Menon also serves as director of the Stanford Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory.
Robert Norris, MD
Norris has been promoted to professor of surgery, as of Dec. 1. He serves as chief of the division of emergency medicine. Norris’ research interests include environmental toxinology, with special emphasis on envenomations (particularly snake venom poisoning, airway management techniques and tactical medicine).
Sam So, MD
So, the Lui Hac Minh Professor, is the recipient of the Outstanding American by Choice award presented by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for his work to eradicate hepatitis B and liver cancer through. The award recognizes naturalized citizens who have made significant contributions to both their community and their adopted country. So serves as director of Stanford’s Asian Liver Center, the first nonprofit organization in the United States that addresses the high incidence of hepatitis B and liver cancer in Asians and Asian Americans.
Paul Heidenreich, MD
Heidenreich, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine, was chosen by the American Heart Association as having one of the 10 most important cardiovascular medicine research papers of 2009. His paper was titled, “Hospital performance recognition with the ‘Get With The Guidelines Program’ and mortality for acute myocardial infarction and heart failure.” Heidenrich is interested in interventions to improve the quality of care for heart disease patients; the use of echocardiography to predict prognosis; the cost-effectiveness of new cardiovascular technologies; and outcomes research using existing clinical and administrative data.
Cohen, the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor, is the recipient of the Double Helix Medal for scientific research presented by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and education institution. He accepted the award with Herbert Boyer, PhD. Together they discovered recombinant DNA, launching the biotechnology revolution and leading to new forms of human insulin for diabetes, growth hormones, cancer treatments and more. The discovery was the basis for Boyer’s founding of Genentech in 1976. The medals were presented during the CSHL’s fourth annual awards dinner in November.
Harter has been appointed associate professor (teaching) of surgery, as of Dec. 1. He is interested in medical education, particularly the role of simulation in the education of medical students and residents, as well as the use of the Internet for distance learning in health-care professions. Harter also serves as director of the Stanford/Kaiser emergency medicine residency program.
Koong has been promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology, as of Dec. 1. His lab studies the relationship between hypoxia and ER stress and tumorigenesis.
Napel, professor of radiology, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in Washington, DC. His research interests are in developing diagnostic and therapy-planning applications and strategies for the acquisition, visualization and interpretation of multi-dimensional medical imaging data.
Ramasamy Paulmurugan, PhD
Paulmurugan has been appointed assistant professor of radiology, as of Dec. 1. His research seeks to develop in vivo imaging strategies that can be used to study signal transduction at different stages of its network, starting from the extracellular stimulus along the path until the nucleus.
December 2009
Berra, clinical director of the Stanford Heart Network and research nurse at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, was honored with the 2009 Excellence in Clinical Practice Award from the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Nursing. This award, sponsored by the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association, is for CVN council members who have exhibited excellence in the clinical practice of cardiovascular nursing and have been actively involved with the AHA for at least five years. Berra received the award during the CVN Annual Council Dinner at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2009 in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 17.
Miller, the Thelma and Henry Doelger Professor in Cardiovascular Surgery, also was honored by the American Heart Association at its annual meeting in November, receiving the Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award, one of the AHA’s highest honors. He was chosen for his 30-year record of training, mentoring and enriching the career development of emerging cardiovascular surgeons and researchers. He also is director of Stanford’s Cardiovascular Surgical Physiology Research Laboratories.
Butte, assistant professor of pediatric cancer biology and of medicine, is the recipient of a leadership award presented by the American Medical Informatics Association. He was honored for outstanding volunteer leadership and service to the AMIA, which is a member-supported association of leaders advancing biomedical and health informatics in the United States. He serves as associate director of the informatics program at the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research.
November 2009
Mignot, the Craig Reynolds and the Respironics Sleep and Respiratory Research Foundation Professor, has been appointed director of the newly created Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine and chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. The goal of the SCSSM will be to engage the broad Stanford community in research, education and patient care in sleep medicine. Also the director of the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy, Mignot has conducted numerous studies of sleep disorders, most notably narcolepsy and is credited with the discovery of the cause of narcolepsy.
Herschlag, professor of biochemistry, has been chosen as the 2010 recipient of the William C. Rose Award presented by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to biochemical and molecular biological research and a demonstrated commitment to the training of younger scientists. Herschlag’s research is aimed at understanding the chemical and physical behavior underlying biological macromolecules and systems, as these behaviors define the capabilities and limitations of biology. He will receive a plaque and $3,000, in addition to giving a lecture at the 2010 ASBMB meeting next April in Anaheim.
Cheung has been promoted to professor of medicine at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of Nov. 1. He serves as director of the GI & hepatology fellowship at Stanford, as well as chief of hepatology at the VAPAHCS. In collaboration with basic scientists, he is interested in using molecular biology approaches to study clinical samples from chronic hepatitis C patients and investigate the host-virus interaction. Cheung is also investigating the model of care for hepatitis C among infected veterans, as well as interaction between hepatitis C infection and alcoholic cirrhosis.
Manish Butte, MD, PhD
Butte has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, as of Nov. 1. His lab aims to address fundamental and therapeutic questions in immunology by developing and using tools from soft lithography and advanced microscopy to visualize and manipulate cells. The primary focus is understanding the molecular controls that balance T cell activation versus tolerance.
Brian Feldman, MD, PhD
Feldman has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, as of Nov. 1. The goal of his research is to understand on both a molecular and systemic level how hormones regulate stem cell fate decisions and the role these pathways play in both physiology and disease. Feldman uses molecular biology and in vivo models to elucidate mechanisms of regulating cell fate determination by the endocrine system.
Ting-Ting Huang, PhD
Huang has been promoted to associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Nov. 1. She studies the role of oxygen free radicals in oxidative tissue damage and degeneration. Her research tools include transgenic and knockout mice and tissue culture cells for in vitro gene expression.
Craig Levin, PhD
Levin has been promoted to professor of radiology, effective Dec. 1. His research interests involve the development of novel instrumentation and software algorithms for in vivo imaging of molecular signals in humans and small laboratory animals. The ultimate goal is to introduce these new imaging tools into studies of molecular mechanisms and treatments of disease within living subjects. Levin also serves as co-director of the Stanford Center for Innovation in In Vivo Imaging.
Fan Yang, PhD
Yang has been appointed assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery and of bioengineering, as of Nov. 1. Her research seeks to understand how microenvironmental cues regulate stem cell fate, and to develop novel biomaterials and stem-cell-based therapeutics for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Yang is particularly interested in developing better therapies for treating musculoskeletal diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Philip Pizzo, MD
Pizzo, dean of the School of Medicine, is the new chair of the board of directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the country’s health through the leadership of academic centers. Pizzo’s term began Oct. 1. The group has 105 institutions as members. Steven Wartman, MD, PhD, AAHC president and CEO, said Pizzo brings to the position “impressive insight into all aspects of academic medicine and health care."
Christopher Dawes
Dawes, president and CEO of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, has been elected chair of the board of trustees for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions and the National Association of Children’s Hospitals. Founded in 1968, NACHRI is an association of 220 children’s hospitals and related institutions devoted to improving the health and well-being of children and families. NACH is NACHRI’s public policy affiliate. Dawes has served as a board member and executive committee member for NACHRI and is currently on the board of the California Hospital Association.
Sanjeev Dutta, MD
Dutta has been promoted to associate professor surgery and of pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of Oct. 1. His research examines issues relating to laparoendoscopic and robotic surgery; surgical innovation and emerging technologies; and surgical education and simulation-based training. He is director of the Stanford surgical skills curriculum, as well as surgical director of the intestinal rehabilitation program at Packard Children’s Hospital.
Ronald Dalman, MD
Dalman, professor and chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery, has been elected president of the Western Vascular Society, effective September 2011. The WVS was organized in 1986 by a group of university vascular surgeons from the western United States and is home to vascular surgeons who practice the broad spectrum of vascular surgery in both community and university settings. In addition to also serving as program director of the medical school’s vascular surgery residency program and director of the vascular center at Stanford Hospital & Clinics, he conducts research on the biological and mechanical basis of aneurysmal degeneration of the aorta.
Uta Francke, MD
Francke has been selected as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Founded in 1964, the EMBO promotes excellence in molecular life sciences by recognizing leading researchers and fostering talented scientists as well as disseminating information about the field. Francke’s research has ranged from identification and gene mapping of both mouse and human chromosomes to the discovery of genes involved in heritable disorders and studies of their functions and of disease-causing mechanisms. To understand the functional consequences of microdeletions that cause defined clinical syndromes, her laboratory has created mouse models for Williams-Beuren syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome.
Alan Garber, MD, PhD
Garber, the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor, is the recipient of the Society for Medical Decision Making’s career achievement award. Presented in October at the SMDM’s annual conference, the award recognizes senior investigators who have made significant contributions to the field of medical decision making. Garber’s work focuses on methods for improving health-care delivery and financing. He is the founding director of both the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford.
David Magnus, PhD
Magnus has been promoted to professor (teaching) of pediatrics, and, by courtesy, of medicine, as of Oct. 1. He serves as director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. His research interests include genetic testing, gene therapy, stem cell research and cloning and egg procurement, organ transplantation and end-of-life issues in both adults and children.
Merritt Maduke, PhD
Maduke has been promoted to associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology, as of Oct. 1. The goal of her research is to determine the molecular mechanisms of chloride-selective ion channels and transporters. To approach this subject, her lab uses a unique combination of biophysical methods to probe protein structure and dynamics together with electrophysiological analysis to directly measure function.
John Morton, MD
Morton, associate professor of surgery, has been appointed chief of the section of minimally invasive and metabolic surgery in the Department of Surgery. In his six years on the faculty, he has led the development of a program in minimally invasive and metabolic surgery, which focuses, in particular, on the clinical practice of bariatric surgery and its metabolic consequences, as well as its implications for policy and procedure in this country.
Rajat Rohatgi, MD, PhD
Rohatgi, assistant professor of oncology, is the recipient of a 2009 V Scholar grant presented by the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a cancer research fundraising organization. The $200,00 two-year grants are designed to identify, retain and further the careers of young investigators. Rohatgi received the Martin D. Abeloff Scholar Award, which is given to the highest rated V Scholar. His research is focused on dissecting the role of the tumor suppressor sufu in hedgehog-driven cancers.
Irvin Yalom, MD
Yalom, emeritus professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, will be this year’s guest at the Austrian event, “Eine STADT. Ein BUCH” (One city. One book). Every year 100,000 copies of a chosen title are printed and given free-of-charge to the citizens of Vienna. On Nov. 12, the organizers will begin handing out Yalom’s book When Nietzsche Wept.
October 2009
Deisseroth received the Society for Neuroscience’s Young Investigator Award on Oct. 19 during the society’s annual meeting in Chicago. Established in 1983 and supported by AstraZeneca, the award includes $15,000 and recognizes the achievements of young neuroscientists who have received an advanced degree within the past 10 years.
Deisseroth, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of bioengineering and a member of Bio-X, has pioneered optogenetics, the use of light-activated proteins. This approach allows brain-cell firing to be controlled with millisecond precision, providing a better understanding of normal brain circuits and brain diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, and allowing researchers to establish a causal relationship between defined neuron activity and complex behaviors.
Shatz, professor of neurobiology and of biology and director of Bio-X, has been named winner of the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 39,000 researchers and clinicians studying the brain and nervous system.
This award, established in 2000 to recognize individuals with outstanding career achievements in neuroscience who have also actively promoted the professional advancement of women in neuroscience, includes a prize of $5,000. Sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi Aventis, it was presented on Oct. 17 during the Society’s annual meeting in Chicago.
Shatz has investigated the ways that connections in the adult nervous system are established during early development. Her work has also added a new dimension to interactions between the nervous and immune systems that may underlie psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. She has published a number of studies delineating the role of specific immune molecules, once thought to be largely unexpressed in the brain, in neuronal physiology and animal behavior. She is past president of the society as well as an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Tina Cowan, PhD, and Athena Cherry, PhD
Cowan, associate professor of pathology, and by courtesy, pediatrics (medical genetics) and Cherry, associate professor of pathology and pediatrics (medical genetics), were elected into leadership roles at the American Board of Medical Genetics. Cowan was elected vice president of the American Board of Medical Genetics for 2010 and will be president in 2011, while Cherry was elected secretary for a term of two years (2010 and 2011). The ABMG is the certifying agency for approximately 2,000 professionals in the field of human genetics, as well as the accreditation agency for the approximately 44 training programs in this field in the United States.
Christine Wijman, MD, and Stephanie Harman, MD
Wijman and Harman are the recipients of clinical awards given by Stanford Hospital & Clinics at its board of directors meeting in September. Wijman, associate professor of neurology and neurosciences, received the Denise O’Leary Award for Clinical Excellence. She is interested in evaluating the causes and optimal treatment of brain hemorrhages, the use of hypothermia for the treatment of stroke and brain injury, predicting outcome in comatose survivors after cardiac arrest, studying the process of brain swelling and secondary injury after brain hemorrhage and prognostication of critically ill neurologic patients. She also directs the Stanford Neurocritical Care Program.
Harman, instructor in medicine, received the Isaac Stein Award for Compassion in Medicine. She serves as director ofinpatient palliative care service, which offers pain relief, emotional and ethical support for patients diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and their families.
Gambhir, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research, is this year’s recipient of the Radiology Society of North America’s annual Outstanding Researcher Award. Recognized as a leader in the field of molecular imaging, Gambhir has more than 20 patents pending or granted, is the author of more than 325 peer-reviewed journal articles, is the co-editor of a best-selling book in the field of nuclear medicine and has trained more than 150 residents, fellows, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students. He is currently working to advance the merger of in vitro and in vivo diagnostics using novel nanotechnology for earlier disease detection and individualized patient management. When he moved to Stanford in 2003 to direct the molecular imaging program and to lead nuclear medicine research, Gambhir brought more than 35 scientists with him from UCLA. He has since grown the program at Stanford to more than 150 scientists. The award will be presented on Nov. 20 at RSNA’s annual meeting in Chicago.
Swetter has been promoted to professor of dermatology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and at Stanford, as of Sept. 1. Her research interests include secondary prevention of melanoma, including enhanced skin cancer screening targeting high-risk groups, chemoprevention in individuals with atypical mole syndrome, and research focused on increasing professional and public education to improve melanoma awareness. Swetter has directed the Pigmented Lesion and Cutaneous Melanoma Clinic at Stanford and the VA since 1996 and is the co-director of the Stanford Multidisciplinary Melanoma Clinic.
Whittemore, professor of health research and policy, has been awarded the Saul Rosenberg Research Award from the Northern California Cancer Center. Her research focuses on population-based epidemiologic studies of the causes of prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. She served as the director of epidemiology from 1987 to 1999 at the center, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Rosenberg was one of the founders of the center and its first executive director. Whittemore will accept the award Nov. 4 in San Francisco.
Seung Kim, MD, PhD
Kim has been promoted to professor of developmental biology, and by courtesy, of medicine, as of Sept. 1. His lab focuses on the developmental biology of the pancreas, a vital organ with endocrine and exocrine functions in the vertebrate digestive tract. The goal of his research is to identify and understand the pathways that govern organogenesis of the pancreas, a vital organ with endocrine and exocrine functions. Kim also serves as director of the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program.
Peter Hwang, MD
Hwang has been promoted to professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, as of Sept. 1. Much of his work focuses on rhinology and sinus surgery. Hwang also serves as director of the Stanford Sinus Center, which offers medical and surgical care for all types of problems involving the nose and paranasal sinuses.
September 2009
Robert Shafer, MD
Shafer, associate professor of infectious diseases, has been selected to serve as a member of the AIDS Discovery and Development of Therapeutics Study Section, Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. Members are selected on the basis of their competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of several research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other achievements and honors. Shafer's research focuses on the mechanisms and consequences of HIV evolution with an emphasis on HIV drug resistance.
Gary Glover, PhD
Glover, professor of radiology, is the recipient of the 2009 Outstanding Teacher Award presented by the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. His talk at the 17th annual ISMRM meeting in Honolulu in April received the highest scores of any talk in those courses. Recipients of these awards are determined by the scores given by attendees. Glover's work is devoted to the advancement of imaging sciences for applications in diagnostic radiology.
Teddy Hsu, PhD
The School of Medicine was one of 10 local organizations to receive a grant from the Avon Foundation for Women. The grants, which totaled nearly $2.4 million, go toward breast cancer research. The medical school plans to use the grant for a research project led by Hsu,assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, to characterize a novel protein in breast cancer cells that are associated with poor survival. Characterizing this protein receptor will provide a class of possible targets for new treatments for the disease.
Philip Pizzo, MD
Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, is one of three leaders selected to join the University of Rochester’s Board of Trustees. He earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1970. Pizzo shares this honor with John Bruning, the retired president and CEO of Corning Tropel Corp., and Daniel Wegman, the CEO of the Rochester-based supermarket business Wegmans Food Markets Inc.
Christina Chao and Malavika Prabhu
Medical students Chao and Prabhu have been selected as scholars for the 2009-10 Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars program. Under the program, U.S. graduate students—mostly third-year medical, public health, dental and veterinary students—are paired with foreign counterparts to conduct clinical research abroad under the tutelage of NIH-funded universities or other research institutions working on infectious or chronic diseases. Chao will work in Lima, Peru, at Hospital de Niño, while Prabhu will work in Moshi, Tanzania, at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center.
Steven Lin
Lin, a fourth-year medical student, is the recipient of a 2009 Pisacano Scholarship presented by the board of directors of the Pisacano Leadership Foundation Inc. The scholarships, valued up to $28,000 each, are awarded to students attending U.S. medical schools who demonstrate a strong commitment to the specialty of family medicine. Lin has done extensive work with Stanford’s Asian Liver Center, as well as with the Department of Public Health and the California State Assembly, where he helped create public and provider awareness about the importance of routine hepatitis B testing and vaccination, and worked to ensure access to treatment for chronically infected individuals, especially for those who are unable to pay. The foundation was created in 1990 by the American Board of Family Medicine in tribute to the founder and first executive director of the ABFM, Nicholas J. Pisacano, MD.
August 2009
Kirkegaard, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, has been selected to serve as chair of the virology study section at the National Institutes of Health. Her laboratory studies the biochemistry, cell biology and genetics of RNA viral propagation.
Jason Bartos
Bartos, a fourth-year medical student, is one of 10 recipients of a “Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship” from the American Medical Association. The scholarships provide assistance to medical students based on academic achievement and financial need. Bartos has conducted research projects on diverse topics including chronic rejection of heart transplants, signaling mechanisms in neurons and the efficacy of CT-guided lung biopsies. He has designed and coordinated research projects at the Pacific Free Clinic in San Jose, while also providing patient care at the clinic.
Barth, professor and chief of radiology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, received the Outstanding Alumni Award in recognition of exceptional professional achievement from UCSF’s Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging. Barth serves as associate chair of radiology at Stanford, and his contributions include initiating a program of intensive cross-training to promote a broader range of clinical expertise among the faculty and serving as a major force in establishing an electronic network to support the new digital electronic system that will replace X-ray films with computer images. He received the award in June.
Timothy Dawson, MD, and Ian Carroll, MD
Dawson and Carroll, both clinical instructors of anesthesia, are among the first physicians in the U.S. certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine, a new independent medical specialty board. The ABAM has begun to certify addiction medicine physicians from several specialties, including emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, preventive medicine, psychiatry, neurology and surgery.
Frandics Chan, MD, PhD
Chan has been promoted to associate professor of radiology, as of Aug. 1. He is interested in congenital heart disease and radiology, as well as diagnostic radiology.
Yasser El-Sayed, MD
El-Sayed has been promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, as of Aug. 1. His research interests focus on high-risk obstetrics: preterm labor, pre-eclampsia, medical and surgical complications of pregnancy, and prenatal diagnosis and therapy. El-Sayed serves as associate chief of maternal-fetal medicine.
Paul Fisher, MD
Fisher has been promoted to professor of neurology and neurological sciences and of pediatrics, and, by courtesy, of neurosurgery, as of Aug. 1. His research explores the epidemiology, natural history and disease patterns of brain tumors in childhood, as well as prospective clinical trials for treating these neoplasms. Research interests also include neurologic effects of cancer and its therapies, and childhood headaches. Fisher is also chief of the division of child neurology.
Nicholas Giori, MD,
Giori has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of Aug. 1. He is interested in orthopaedic surgery, osteoarthritis and medical device development.
Madelyn Kahana, MD
Kahana has been appointed professor (teaching) of pediatrics and of anesthesia, effective Sept. 1. She is interested in critical care medicine.
Kristin Jensen, MD
Jensen, has been appointed assistant professor of pathology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University Medical Center, as of Aug. 1. She is interested in anatomic pathology, pathology and cytopathology. Jensen also serves as associate director of cytopathology at VAPAHCS.
Robert Merritt, MD
Merritt has been appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, as of July 1. He joins Stanford from Massachusetts General Hospital where he completed his cardiothoracic surgery residency. Merritt is interested in minimal-access surgery for gastroesophageal reflux disease, VATS lobectomy for lung cancer and tracheal surgery. He also plans to conduct outcomes research in patients undergoing thoracic surgical procedures.
Darius Moshfeghi, MD
Moshfeghi has been promoted to associate professor of ophthalmology, as of Aug. 1. He leads the Stanford University Network for Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity, which uses RetCam II cameras to provide remote screening of retinopathy of prematurity at outlying neonatal intensive care units.
Reteesh Pai, MD
Pai has been appointed assistant professor of pathology as of June 30. Pai’s research interests include cytopathology as well as pancreato-biliary and gastrointestinal pathology.
Manjula Tamura, MD, MPH
Tamura has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Aug. 1. The focus of her research is the management and outcomes of chronic kidney disease in the elderly. Current studies are aimed at understanding how chronic kidney disease and dialysis affect functional outcomes in elderly patients, such as cognitive impairment and disability.
Hua Tang, PhD
Tang has been appointed associate professor of genetics, effective Sept. 1. She is interested in various aspects of human genetics and genomics, including statistical and population genetics, mapping of disease susceptibility loci and inference of the evolutionary histories of human populations.
Christoph Lee, MD
Lee, a radiology resident, has been named one of 29 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars for 2010-12, a highly prestigious and competitive two-year fellowship in health policy. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks to improve the health and health care of all Americans.
John Ronald, PhD
Ronald, a postdoctoral scholar in the Multimodality Molecular Imaging Lab, has received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellowship, for his proposal, "Multimodality cell trafficking imaging using optical bioluminescent imaging, positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging."
Relman to review anthrax case
David Relman, MD, professor of infectious diseases and geographic medicine and of microbiology and immunology, has been named vice chair of a group of 15 scientists chosen to conduct an in-depth, 18-month review of the scientific approaches used during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of the 2001 anthrax mailings.
In those incidents, the bacterial pathogen responsible for causing anthrax was sent through the mail to several individuals, killing five and sickening 17 others.
The first meeting of the FBI-sponsored, National Academies of Science committee was held July 30-31 in Washington, D.C. The experts will review how the FBI analyzed the anthrax in the letters, comparing it with thousands of samples obtained from different sources in the early stages of the investigation.
Skeptics have questioned the FBI’s findings in the case, which is, technically, still open. The primary suspect, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases scientist Bruce Ivins, PhD, committed suicide last year after agents had intensified their investigation into his activities.
The NAS committee will limit its study to assessing the accuracy, reliability and appropriateness of the scientific procedures used by the FBI and their conclusions, but will offer no assessment of Ivins’ guilt or innocence.
Hanlee Ji, MD
Hanlee Ji, MD, assistant professor of oncology, has been selected as one of 14 recipients of the 2009 Clinical Scientist Development Award presented by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for his proposed study, “Effects on post-reperfusion prognostic genetics of chromosome arm 18q aberrations in colorectal cancer.” The award provides start-up funding for physician-scientists establishing their own research teams and enables them to reserve 75 percent of their professional time for clinical research.
Alan Garber, MD, PhD
Alan Garber, MD, PhD, the Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor, has been selected as the Rock Carling Fellow for 2009 by the Nuffield Trust, a British nonprofit organization that seeks to promote independent analysis and informed debate on health-care policy. As part of the fellowship, the trust has invited Garber, the founding director of both the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, to deliver a lecture, which will be the basis for its publishing a monograph. Garber plans to study incentives for care integration in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, drawing also on experience in the United States.
Clarence Braddock, MD, MPH
Clarence Braddock, MD, MPH, has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of July 1. His research interests include medical ethics education, as well as physician-patient communication and informed decision-making. He is also associate dean for medical education, medical director of quality for Stanford Hospital & Clinics and director of clinical ethics at the Center for Biomedical Ethics.
Rachel Manber, PhD
Rachel Manber, PhD, has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of July 1. She does research on comorbid insomnia and depression, the phenomenology and treatment of insomnia, the treatment of depression during pregnancy and post- partum and the effects of female gonadal hormones on sleep. She also directs the Insomnia & Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the Stanford Sleep Center.
Richard Shaw, MD
Richard Shaw, MD, has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as of July 1. His research interests include psychological issues in medically ill children, treatment adherence, transplant psychiatry, pediatric oncology and forensic psychiatry.
Chuong Hoang, MD
Chuong Hoang, MD, has been appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, as of July 1. He is interested in cancer biology and plans to establish a thoracic oncology laboratory to continue his genomics research in lung cancer, aimed at identifying molecular mechanisms of metastasis.
July 2009
Humphreys to be drug policy advisor for Obama
Keith Humphreys, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, is embarking on a new role this month�that of senior policy advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, D.C.
Humphreys, who has been part of the Stanford faculty since 1996, has long augmented his research into interventions for substance abuse and psychiatric disorders with an interest in public policy. In 2001, he took a short sabbatical at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, where he worked with congressional staffers and federal agencies to promote what he called "useful policies in and around addiction and mental illness." He has also spent the last five years traveling to the Middle East regularly, training psychiatrists and helping to rebuild Iraq's mental health-care system.
In his new position, Humphreys will provide scientific input to the Obama administration and work to keep addiction treatment at the forefront of the health-care reform debate. "It was very flattering that they asked me to join the team and valued my scientific work," Humphreys said.
Although he has been traveling back and forth between California and Washington for a month, Humphreys began full-time at his new appointment on July 6. He is taking a temporary leave of absence from Stanford for the duration of the job, and will soon be joined in Washington by his wife and twin 2-year-old sons, "who can both say Obama," he said.
Robbins briefs senators on cardiovascular advances
Robert Robbins, MD, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and professor of cardiothoracic surgery, spoke to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee July 9 about advances in cardiovascular science.
In a closed lunch meeting, Robbins briefed the senators on topics ranging from the treatment of coronary artery and heart diseases to the use of stem cells to treat congestive heart failure. He also took the opportunity to thank them for the boost in National Institutes of Health funding through the recent stimulus package, and urged them to continue providing resources for biomedical research.
"Most of the advances in cardiac care that I talked about would never have been possible without NIH funding," Robbins said.
The speech was part of a weekly series of briefings for the senators. Robbins was invited by North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, who chairs the committee. After the talk, Robbins was joined by his co-presenter, cardiologist Lori Mosca, MD, PhD, of Columbia University Medical Center. The two took questions from the 25 or so assembled senators, who included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Majority Whip Richard Durbin and California Sen. Barbara Boxer.
"They take their coats off, roll up their sleeves and they�re very relaxed and very interactive," Robbins said. "The experience was fantastic."
Alan Cheng, MD
Alan Cheng, MD, assistant professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), has been awarded a $40,000 research career development grant from the American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, also known as the Triological Society. Cheng�s lab is working to identify signals that maintain the stem cell population and the stem cell niche in the mammalian inner ear.
Sandra Horning, MD
Sandra Horning, MD, professor of medicine (oncology and blood and marrow transplantation), received a distinguished alumni award from the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, the highest honor the school bestows upon its graduates. Horning, who earned a bachelor�s and medical degree from UI, was honored for her advocacy for evidence-based cancer care and policies and practices, which have helped to reduce the burden of cancer on patients and their families. She has led investigations for pivotal clinical trials that validated current lymphoma treatment and helped establish the standards of care for patients with virtually all lymphoma subtypes.
Kwon-Sik Park, PhD
Kwon-Sik Park, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in pediatrics, was selected as a Parker B. Francis Fellow, sponsored by the Francis Family Foundation in Kansas City, Mo. He will receive $156,000 over a three-year time period.
Jacqueline Baras Shreibati
Jacqueline Baras Shreibati, a medical student, won the Student Poster Award for her poster, �MRI availability and low back pain care for Medicare patients� at the annual meeting in June of AcademyHealth, a professional society for health services researchers and health policy analysts. The study abstract was also named one of the four best abstracts submitted by students. Shreibati, who has also received a master�s degree from Stanford for health service research, is completing her final year of medical school and has worked closely with Laurence Baker, PhD, professor of health research and policy.
David Stevenson, MD
David Stevenson, MD, the Harold K. Faber Professor of Pediatrics, senior associate dean for academic affairs and vice dean, received the Alwin C. Rambar-James B.D. Mark Award for Excellence in Patient Care at the medical school�s June 13 commencement. The award, established in 1984, honors a Stanford physician who excels in patient care as exemplified by his or her ability to meld competence with compassion, and who also works productively with all members of the health-care team.
Krisa Van Meurs, MD
Krisa Van Meurs, MD, professor of pediatrics (neonatology) at Lucile Packard Children�s Hospital, has been appointed associate chair for clinical research in pediatrics. Her research interests include persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, hypoxic respiratory failure, inhaled nitric oxide therapy, ECMO, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, neonatal clinical trials and the use of aEEG and NIRS to detect brain injury.
Sherry Wren, MD
Sherry Wren, MD, professor of surgery and associate dean for academic affairs, has been selected as the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine Alum of the Year for 2009 in recognition of her excellence in education and accomplishments as a community advocate and international humanitarian. Wren, who has spent her summers working with Doctors Without Borders in Africa, is also chief of surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. The award will be presented at the reunion in September celebrating the school�s 100-year anniversary.
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