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Stephan Ariyan, M.D., clinical professor of surgery (plastic), was honored by the Armenian-American Professionals Organization in September at its Third Annual Ball in Teaneck, N.J., for his efforts following the December 1988 earthquake in Armenia. Robert S. Baltimore, M.D., professor of pediatrics and epidemiology, participated in the Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in November at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The consensus panel concluded that children with ADHD often receive an inconsistent level of care from a fragmented system that consumes a large share of health care dollars. Walter F. Boron, M.D., Ph.D., HS ’78-80, professor of cellular and molecular physiology, has been elected president of the American Physiological Society (APS), effective April 1999. The APS, made up of nearly 10,000 professionals in science and medicine, is a nonprofit society devoted to fostering education, scientific research and the dissemination of knowledge in the physiological sciences. Michael J. Caplan, M.D., Ph.D. ’87, professor of cellular and molecular physiology, was presented the 1998 Young Investigator Award by the American Society for Nephrology in October. The award, which recognizes excellence and creativity in nephrologic research, includes a grant to the winner’s laboratory. Dr. Caplan presented a talk at the award ceremonies entitled Playing in Traffic: Sorting of Ion Transport Proteins in Polarized Cells. He is also the recipient of the 1998 Bowditch Young Investigator Award from the American Physiological Society. Michael D. Ezekowitz, M.B.Ch.B., Ph.D., professor of medicine (cardiology), was an invited speaker for the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology in May in San Diego, 11th International Congress Cardiostim 1998 Meeting in June in France, and the XXth Congress of the European Society of Cardiology in August in Vienna. He was also a participant in the Fifth American College of Chest Physicians Antithrombotic Therapy Consensus Conference in June in Tucson, Ariz. Alvan R. Feinstein, M.D., HS ’52-54, Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, received the Oscar B. Hunter Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at its annual meeting last March for his contributions to the field. Past recipients include Jonas E. Salk, M.D., and Albert B. Sabin, M.D., and former Yale faculty members Paul Calabresi, M.D. ’55, and Louis S. Goodman, M.D. Rosemarie L. Fisher, M.D., HS ’74-75, professor of medicine, has been appointed director of graduate medical education (GME) for both the School of Medicine and Yale-New Haven Hospital. The new joint position was created to oversee the medical center’s 68 residency and fellowship programs, which may fall under the aegis of either the hospital or medical school. The medical center currently has 599 residents and 182 fellows participating in training programs. Dr. Fisher, who directed the residency program in the Department of Internal Medicine from 1987 to 1998, also was selected to participate in the fourth class of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women, based at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences. Ralph E. Hoffman, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, was among investigators at 22 U.S. and five international universities to receive a total of 40 prestigious, two-year grants of $50,000 per year from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. The grant will support his research on transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients reporting auditory hallucinations. Margaret K. Hostetter, M.D., has been named professor of pediatrics and chief of the section of pediatric immunology and director of the Yale Child Health Research Center. Dr. Hostetter received her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and was a resident and fellow in infectious diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital. She comes to Yale from the University of Minnesota, where she held the American Legion Heart Research Chair in Pediatrics. Her research focuses on virulence factors in two important pathogens: Streptococcus pneumoniae, the leading cause of death from respiratory infections, and Candida albicans, the predominant cause of fatal fungal infections in patients with compromised immune function. Twelve years ago in Minnesota, Dr. Hostetter co-founded the first clinic specializing in the medical and developmental evaluation of internationally adopted children and has transplanted this model to Yale. Dr. Hostetter holds three R-01 awards from the National Institutes of Health and is a new appointee to the Council of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. Charles A. Janeway Jr., M.D., professor of immunobiology and biology, was presented the Irvington Institute’s Leadership Award for outstanding scientific leadership in immunology in October in New York City. Dr. Janeway also recently completed a one-year term as president of the American Association of Immunologists. Michael Kashgarian, M.D. ’58, HS ’59-63, professor of pathology and biology, was lauded by the Gesellshaft für Nephrologie (the German Society of Nephrology) for his outstanding contributions to the fields of renal pathology and physiology. He was made an honorary member of the society at its meeting in September. He is the second Yale faculty member to receive this honor; Robert W. Berliner, M.D., received the award in 1986. Ilona S. Kickbusch, Ph.D., has joined the faculty of Epidemiology and Public Health as professor of public health and head of the division of international health. She succeeds Lowell Levin, M.P.H. ’60, who retired in June. Dr. Kickbusch comes to Yale from the World Health Organization, where for the past four years she was director of the Division of Health Promotion, Education and Communication. She began her work at WHO as a consultant in 1980 and previously held a Yale appointment as lecturer in public health, in 1985. Her research interests focus on the effects of globalization of health, global health governance and strategies for health promotion. John A. Kirchner, M.D., professor emeritus of otolaryngology, was conferred an honorary membership in the European Laryngological Society in Rome in September. Dr. Kirchner is the first American member of the organization. Kathryn E. McGoldrick, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and medical director of ambulatory surgery, was elected in June to a two-year term as president of the Connecticut State Society of Anesthesiologists. She also was recently elected vice president of the board of trustees of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology in Park Ridge, Ill., and was appointed chair of the American Society of Anesthesiologists subcommittee on ambulatory and geriatric anesthesia. Irvin M. Modlin, M.D., Ph.D., professor of surgery, was awarded the Huntarian Professorship in Surgery in September by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. This award, named for John Hunter, provides a fellowship and the delivery of the Huntarian lecture at the College. John Hunter was the original great surgical scientist and doyen of the scientific evolution of the discipline. Three years ago, Dr. Modlin was awarded the Arris and Gale Lecture by the Royal College. In the 250-year period that these lectures have been given, only six individuals have received both. Linda Z. Mowad, R.N., director of the Cancer Information Service for New England at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been chosen to receive the American Cancer Society’s National Divisional Award, the prestigious St. George Medal. Joseph M. Piepmeier, M.D., HS ’76-82, professor of neurosurgery and vice chair for clinical affairs, has been selected as editor-in-chief of the Journal of NeuroOncology. His five-year term began in January. Shachar Tauber, M.D., director of the Yale School of Medicine’s new Laser Vision Correction Service and assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology and visual science, was invited to teach laser skills at the Global Chinese Ophthalmology Congress in August to a special symposium of 150 refractive surgeons in Beijing. Joseph B. Warshaw, M.D., deputy dean for clinical affairs and chair of the Department of Pediatrics, received special recognition for lifetime career accomplishment from ConnectiCare Inc., as part of the health insurer’s 1998 Children’s Health and Well-Being Awards program. Bruce E. Wexler, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, participated in the consensus development conference on rehabilitation of persons with traumatic brain injury in October at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. William D. White, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology and public health (health policy and administration) and head of the Health Management Program, was awarded the National Institute for Health Care Management’s Fifth Annual Research Award in November for a paper he co-authored,Medicaid Dependent Hospitals and Their Patients: How Have They Fared? Dr. White joined the faculty this year. Previously he taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research focuses on the impact of managed care on health care markets. Other areas of research include the design of payment systems for health care services and the regulation of health care professionals.
Two from faculty join Institute of Medicine Eric J. Nestler, M.D. ’83, Ph.D. ’82, HS ’83-87, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Neurobiology, and Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D., professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention, have been elected to the Institute of Medicine. Both were chosen for their major contributions to health and medicine and for the significant amount of volunteer time they devote on committees engaged in a broad range of studies on health policy issues. Dr. Nestler, who directs the division of molecular psychiatry and Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities in the Department of Psychiatry, has conducted groundbreaking studies in the biology of addiction, unraveling the function of certain genes in the mesolimbic dopamine system. Dr. Shaywitz and her husband, pediatric neurologist Bennett A. Shaywitz, M.D., lead a team that has conducted groundbreaking studies in the neurobiology of reading and dyslexia, identifying the neural circuitry of reading, its functional disruption in dyslexia, and gender differences in brain organization for reading.
AAAS elects seven fellows from ranks of faculty Seven medical school faculty members were elected to the rank of fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in September. They include Vincent A. Andriole, M.D ’57, professor of medicine; Joseph E. Craft, M.D., professor of medicine; Richard L. Edelson, M.D. ’70, professor of dermatology and in the Cancer Center; Maurice J. Mahoney, M.D., professor of genetics, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology; Stephen E. Malawista, M.D., professor of medicine; I. George Miller Jr., M.D., John F. Enders Professor of Pediatrics, Epidemiology, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; Edward L. Snyder, M.D., professor of laboratory medicine. The awards were presented in January during the AAAS Fellows Forum at the association’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
Faculty honored with endowed professorships Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., internationally renowned for her contributions to the field of molecular genetics, has been named Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry by vote of the Yale Corporation. Dr. Steitz’s studies have defined the roles of small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles in RNA processing in mammals. She has focused her research on the structure and function of these cellular complexes, which play a key role in some of the most basic biological processes that convert information in the DNA to the active protein molecules of the living cell. She discovered the important roles that cellular particles known as small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, or snurps, play in the activity of cells. In addition to providing new understandings of the mechanics of gene expression, Dr. Steitz’s research also has implications for improved diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases, particularly rheumatic diseases that occur when a person’s own antibodies attack snurps. A member of the Yale faculty since 1970 and chair of her department, Dr. Steitz has led the molecular genetics program in the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine and is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Prior to her Yale appointment, she did postdoctoral work at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where she worked with Nobel laureate Francis Crick. She earned her B.S. in chemistry from Antioch College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University, where she worked with another Nobel laureate, James D. Watson. Drs. Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of DNA, the genetic material of living organisms. Dr. Steitz was appointed a full professor at Yale in 1978 and became the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in 1992. At Yale, she established a laboratory dedicated to the study of RNA structure and function. Dr. Steitz’s achievements have earned her many honors, including the National Medal of Science and the Christopher Columbus Discovery Award in Biomedical Research. She was the first woman to win the Warren Triennial Prize, which is often described as the “Nobel Prize predictor” because so many of its recipients have gone on to win the latter award, and was also the first woman to be presented Israel’s Weizmann Women & Science Award. Steitz is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Paul B. Sigler, M.D., Ph.D., a specialist on the chemical mechanisms in cell regulatory processes, has been named the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry by vote of the Yale Corporation. Dr. Sigler is engaged in the study of two cell regulatory processes, controlled gene expression and transmembrane signaling. Specifically, he has investigated the interactions of proteins and nucleic acids and how genetic code is transcribed through selective binding of regulatory proteins to target DNA sequences. In addition, he recently led a team that received national attention for visualizing in atomic detail (three-dimensional computerized “snapshots”) how two female sex hormones, progesterone and estrogen, bind to their receptors. The team was also the first to solve the structure of progesterone bound to the human receptor. In his research, Dr. Sigler uses X-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structure of molecules and how they link together. His work has also revealed for the first time how genes in cells throughout the body respond to a large family of hormones that include the adrenal and sex steroids, vitamin D, thyroid hormone and retinoic acid, which is crucial in embryonic development. Among his current projects is an analysis of the structure and function of chaperonin-assisted protein folding. Dr. Sigler, who is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, joined the Yale faculty in 1989. Prior to coming to Yale, he was a professor of molecular and theoretical biology, biophysics and biochemistry for 21 years at the University of Chicago. A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Sigler earned his medical degree from Columbia University in 1959 and was an intern and resident in medicine at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1968 from the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where he was a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow. Dr. Sigler is
the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship,
a U.S. Public Health Service Research Career Development Award
and a Merit Award from the National Institute of General Medical
Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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