Retiring chair of psychiatry honored

Measuring the legacy of a scientist with a 38-year career can take many forms—tallies of awards, peer-reviewed publications or citations of papers. But to grasp his impact as a leader, colleague and mentor, one need look no further than his students.

On July 12, students and colleagues of Benjamin S. Bunney, M.D., the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor of pharmacology and neurobiology, showed that Bunney’s legacy will live on at universities around the world long after his retirement from Yale this year.

Bunney, known to colleagues as Steve, has spent 40 years at Yale, the past 20 as chair of psychiatry. One of the world’s leading authorities on the neurotransmitter dopamine, he has made fundamental contributions to the study of the regulation of dopamine neuronal systems and the effects of antipsychotic drugs on the brain. The July symposium in Bunney’s honor brought together students and colleagues who carry on the themes of his research.

“You can’t mention the dopamine system without mentioning his seminal work,” said Tony Grace, Ph.D., the first graduate student to work in Bunney’s lab and now a professor of neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Bunney’s pioneering experiments, first carried out in the 1970s under the mentorship of George K. Aghajanian, M.D. ’58, FW ’63, the Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry, recorded the extracellular activity of dopamine neurons in the brain for the first time. Bunney’s laboratory then went on to identify them and characterize both their extra- and intracellular functioning. Disruptions of the dopamine system have been linked to schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and drug abuse. Much of Bunney’s career was spent probing the dopamine-schizophrenia link; and his work, combined with the contributions of others, helped lead to a new generation of antipsychotic drugs.

Paul Greengard, Ph.D., the Vincent Astor Professor at Rockefeller University, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his dopamine research, a former professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at Yale and early collaborator with Bunney, led off the day with a discussion of his work. Greengard has shown that dopamine and other neurotransmitters can activate a key protein known as DARPP-32, which in turn influences the functioning of nerve cells.

At the end of the day, Bunney spoke modestly of his own career, calling every symposium speaker “a pioneer in their own area.”

“I’m going to miss being a scientist and I’m going to miss being at Yale enormously,” said Bunney. The audience responded with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. “You can never repay your own mentors enough,” Bunney said, “but you can pass along what you’ve learned to the next generation.”

Three faculty named to IOM in 2007

Three Yale faculty members were named to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in October, bringing the total from the university to 42.

Among the 65 new members inducted this year were Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine; Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology and public health and of investigative medicine; and Mary E. Tinetti, M.D., the Gladys Phillips Crowfoot Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology and public health and of investigative medicine.

Alpern is a nephrologist whose research has focused on the regulation of kidney transport proteins. Before to coming to Yale, Alpern was dean of the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine.

Krumholz, the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, is noted for research aimed at determining optimal clinical strategies and identifying opportunities for improvement in the prevention, treatment and outcome of cardiovascular disease. His research group has pioneered innovative approaches to identifying key success strategies for top-performing health care organizations and translating the knowledge into practice.

Tinetti is the director of the Yale Program on Aging. Her recent work focuses on the effect of multiple diseases on health outcomes and on appropriate decision making in the face of multiple competing diseases. She has been the director of the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at Yale since 1992.

Lyme disease expert to lead ID section

Erol Fikrig, M.D., FW ’91, an expert in vector-borne diseases and a pioneer in the development of a vaccine for Lyme disease, has been named chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine. Last fall he was also named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.

Fikrig, recently named Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine, succeeds Acting Chief Vincent J. Quagliarello, M.D., HS ’81, professor of medicine and clinical director of infectious diseases. Fikrig graduated from Cornell University’s school of medicine and completed his residency in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University Hospital. He came to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow in infectious diseases and immunobiology in 1988. He was appointed assistant professor of medicine in 1992 and professor of medicine a decade later.

Jack A. Elias, M.D., chair and Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine, called Fikrig a “world-class scientist” and one of the “world’s experts” in Lyme disease and West Nile virus. Under Fikrig’s leadership, the section will place greater emphasis on developing a program in emerging diseases, vaccines and biology. This effort will include hiring at least four investigators with strengths in basic science, translational research and clinical research. The goal is to cultivate an interdisciplinary community of scientists who will use information gathered at the bedside to develop models in the laboratory for testing new therapies, including vaccines to prevent insect-borne infectious diseases.

Notes

Richard Belitsky

Four medical school faculty members have been named to endowed chairs. Richard Belitsky, M.D., deputy dean for education, has been named the Harold W. Jockers Associate Professor of Medical Education. Belitsky served as the director of graduate education in the Department of Psychiatry from 1996 to 1997 and as the department’s director of education from 1997 to 2006. He has earned numerous professional honors at Yale, including the Charles W. Bohmfalk Teaching Prize and the Francis Gilman Blake Award. James S. Duncan, Ph.D., was named the Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Biomedical Engineering in September. Duncan is the associate chair and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering as well as the vice chair for bioimaging sciences research in diagnostic radiology. Erol Fikrig, M.D., an expert in such vector-borne diseases as Lyme disease, human granulocytic ehrlichiosis and West Nile virus, has been named Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (See “Lyme disease expert to lead ID section”). Sally Shaywitz, M.D., has been named the Audrey Ratner Professor in Learning Development. Shaywitz is the co-director of the newly formed Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity and the Yale Center for Learning, Reading and Attention. Her research pioneered the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging in investigating reading disorders.

James S. Duncan

Henry J. Binder, M.D., professor of medicine and of cellular and molecular physiology, received the 2007 Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterological Association in May. This award recognizes individuals who have made lifelong efforts to mentor trainees in gastroenterology. Binder established the Gastrointestinal Research Training Program at Yale and is the program’s director.

Robert Dubrow, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology and director of the Office of International Training at Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, has been named associate dean for academic affairs at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. In this newly created position, Dubrow will oversee and coordinate the educational curriculum, chair the education committee and help develop an office of public health practice to offer M.P.H. students practice experience and internships around the world.

Linda C. Mayes

Linda C. Mayes, M.D., the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry in the Child Study Center and professor of pediatrics and psychology, has been named Special Advisor to the Dean as of July 1. Mayes will be responsible for the oversight of scientific integrity in research conducted at the School of Medicine and for the investigation of any allegations of scientific misconduct. In addition, the special advisor often acts as a mediator when there are substantive faculty issues regarding authorship. Mayes will also function as the dean’s representative in hearing grievances by faculty and students regarding appointments, promotions and terminations.

Mayes joined the faculty of the Yale Child Study Center in 1985. Her work focuses on the stress-response and emotional regulatory mechanisms in children and adolescents at both biological and psychosocial risk. Mayes chairs the directorial team of the Anna Freud Centre in London and of the Anna Freud Centre program within the Child Study Center at Yale.

Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, has been appointed to a three-year term on the Institute of Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board. The board makes recommendations on ways to improve food quality and safety to prevent diet-related diseases and promote public health.

Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, has been elected to serve as president of the Fertility Preservation Special Interest Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. His term began in October.

David M. Rothstein, M.D., associate professor of medicine, has been elected a councilor-at-large of the American Society of Transplantation, an international organization of more than 2,700 transplant physicians, surgeons and allied health professionals dedicated to advancing the field of transplantation through research, education, advocacy and organ donation.

Derek K. Toomre

Derek K. Toomre, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell biology, has received a $2.5 million five-year New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health. Toomre will use the funding to develop a new generation of total internal reflection fluorescence microscopes to analyze trafficking and signaling at the cell cortex, a structure inside the cell membrane involved in the cell’s mechanical support and movement. Toomre’s group will apply this technology to understand the trafficking pathways that regulate insulin-stimulated delivery of glucose transporters to the cell surface—a process disrupted in type 2 diabetes.

Kyle Vanderlick

Kyle Vanderlick, Ph.D., has been appointed dean of the Yale Faculty of Engineering and named the Thomas E. Golden Professor of Engineering. Vanderlick, formerly professor and chair of chemical engineering at Princeton University, started at Yale on January 1.

Her research has led to fundamental insights in areas ranging from metallic adhesion in micro/nanoscale devices to the action of antimicrobial peptides on cell membranes. In 2002 she was awarded both the Princeton Engineering Council Teaching Award and the Princeton President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Vanderlick succeeds Paul A. Fleury, Ph.D., the Frederick W. Beinecke Professor of Engineering and Applied Physics and professor of physics. Fleury will remain the director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering.


			Originally published in Yale Medicine, Winter 2008. Copyright © 2008 Yale University School of Medicine. All rights reserved.