Fall 2006 newsletter for graduates, students, faculty and friends of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology metabolic disorders in children. Rosenberg reviewed the roots and accom- plishments of American medicine and medical research in the 20th century, comparing 50 years ago—when he graduated from medical school— the atrium of Building E25 (continues on page 6) (continues on page 13) Eric Norman/Sametz Blackstone Associates L. Barry Hetherington
Fall 2006 newsletter for graduates, students, faculty and friends of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology The Connector A record number of 83 graduates received diplomas at the 32nd HST graduation exercises on June 7 at the Harvard Club in Boston. After the procession of graduates and faculty, HST Associate Director Richard N. Mitchell, MD, PhD gave the assembly a warm welcome and congratulations. He reminded the graduating class of a number of history-making events during their years here, but emphasized the noncontrover- sial and rarest of all events—the Red Sox’ winning the World Series—in commemoration of which he donned a Sox baseball cap with tassel. To commemorate HST’s winning the HMS Society Olympics (see page 16 for story), the pink flamingo appeared under his arm. To further emphasize the serious nature of this academic exercise, Mitchell then treated the assembly to a scholarly yet humorous review of the history of academic attire. HST Directors Martha L. Gray, PhD, and Joseph V. Bonventre, MD, PhD presented the graduation certificates, while characterizing each recipient with his or her most notable experience here. (See the Spring 2006 issue of The Connector for a full list of graduates, degrees received, and future plans.) After lunch, the graduation address was presented by Leon E. Rosenberg, MD, Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Interna- tional Affairs at Princeton University. Rosenberg’s long career included industry, government and academic research, including pioneering investiga- tions into the molecular basis of several inherited metabolic disorders in children. Rosenberg reviewed the roots and accom- plishments of American medicine and medical research in the 20th century, comparing 50 years ago—when he graduated from medical school— Leon E. Rosenberg, flanked by HST Directors Martha L. Gray and Joseph V. Bonventre, was the keynote speaker at the 32nd HST Commencement. (continues on page 6) Rosenberg charges graduates to keep public trust in medical research D irectors’ notes Imagine this: an HST building! It has long been a dream of HST, and soon we will have reached the first milestone. Last fall the Department of Brain and Cogni- tive Sciences moved from building E25 to their new building across campus. They had occupied the second, fourth, and sixth floors of E25. For the past two years, HST has been planning and designing new laboratory spaces that will occupy the second and fourth floors. (Earth and Planetary Sciences will be on the sixth floor.) This new space will become the home for our faculty and PI’s who are currently located in various build- ings across MIT. HST faculty, who are scattered in six different locations at MIT, will now be in one building. This is an important milestone for HST. It is time for us to have a visible presence for medicine and medically relevant research. The enhanced the atrium of Building E25 visibility enabled by the new space reinforces the central role HST plays at MIT in this arena. Furthermore, it will dramatically improve the ease of interactions among faculty, students, staff, industry collaborators, and visitors. HST needs a space in which to incubate and grow the kinds of collaborative activities it has already begun, and now we will have a space where we can invite others to come in and explore everything HST has to offer. Construction has just begun, and we ex- pect it to last for about one year. Dust is flying, construction hats are bobbing, and at times the noise is deafening. But we are all very excited to see HST, at last, under a single roof at MIT. Professors Edelman, Bhatia, Stultz, and Gray will be moving their labs into E25, along with Drs. Poon, Weaver and Bowman. Our MIT Academic (continues on page 13) L. Barry Hetherington Eric Norman/Sametz Blackstone Associates
Transcript
Fall 2006
newsletter for graduates, students, faculty and friends of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
The Connector
A record number of 83 graduates received diplomas at the 32nd HST graduation exercises on June 7 at the Harvard Club in Boston.
After the procession of graduates and faculty, HST Associate Director Richard N. Mitchell, MD, PhD gave the assembly a warm welcome and congratulations. He reminded the graduating class of a number of history-making events during their years here, but emphasized the noncontrover-sial and rarest of all events—the Red Sox’ winning the World Series—in commemoration of which he donned a Sox baseball cap with tassel.
To commemorate HST’s winning the HMS Society Olympics (see page 16 for story), the pink flamingo appeared under his arm. To further emphasize the serious nature of this academic exercise, Mitchell then treated the assembly to a scholarly yet humorous review of the history of academic attire.
HST Directors Martha L. Gray, PhD, and Joseph V. Bonventre, MD, PhD presented the graduation certificates, while characterizing each recipient with his or her most notable experience here. (See the Spring 2006 issue of The Connector for a full list of graduates, degrees received, and future plans.)
After lunch, the graduation address was presented by Leon E. Rosenberg, MD, Professor
in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Interna-tional Affairs at Princeton University. Rosenberg’s long career included industry, government and academic research, including pioneering investiga-tions into the molecular basis of several inherited
metabolic disorders in children.Rosenberg reviewed the roots and accom-
plishments of American medicine and medical research in the 20th century, comparing 50 years ago—when he graduated from medical school—
Leon E. Rosenberg, flanked by HST Directors Martha L. Gray and Joseph V. Bonventre, was the keynote speaker at the 32nd HST Commencement.
(continues on page 6)
Rosenberg charges graduates to keep public trust in medical research
D i r e c t o r s ’notes
Imagine this: an HST building! It has long been a dream of HST, and soon we will have reached the first milestone.
Last fall the Department of Brain and Cogni-tive Sciences moved from building E25 to their new building across campus. They had occupied the second, fourth, and sixth floors of E25. For the past two years, HST has been planning and designing new laboratory spaces that will occupy the second and fourth floors. (Earth and Planetary Sciences will be on the sixth floor.) This new space will become the home for our faculty and PI’s who are currently located in various build-ings across MIT. HST faculty, who are scattered in six different locations at MIT, will now be in one building.
This is an important milestone for HST. It is time for us to have a visible presence for medicine and medically relevant research. The enhanced the atrium of Building E25
visibility enabled by the new space reinforces the central role HST plays at MIT in this arena. Furthermore, it will dramatically improve the ease of interactions among faculty, students, staff, industry collaborators, and visitors. HST needs a space in which to incubate and grow the kinds of collaborative activities it has already begun, and now we will have a space where we can invite others to come in and explore everything HST has to offer.
Construction has just begun, and we ex-pect it to last for about one year. Dust is flying, construction hats are bobbing, and at times the noise is deafening. But we are all very excited to see HST, at last, under a single roof at MIT. Professors Edelman, Bhatia, Stultz, and Gray will be moving their labs into E25, along with Drs. Poon, Weaver and Bowman. Our MIT Academic
(continues on page 13)
L. Barry H
etherington
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hst news
The ConnectorEditor Walter H. Abelmann, MD
Managing Editor/Designer Becky Sun
Editorial Assistant Nina Restuccia
Contact InformationHarvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology77 Massachusetts Ave., E25-519 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307P: (617) 253-4418 F: (617) 253-7498 E: [email protected] http://hst.mit.edu
Editorial BoardPatricia A. CunninghamLisa E. Freed, MD, PhD ’88Sang Kim (MD ’07)Leann Lesperance, PhD ’93, MD ’95Pamela McGillCatherine ModicaKonstantina Stankovic, PhD ’98, MD ’99James C. Weaver, PhDPeter I-Kung Wu (MEMP)
Ex officioJoseph V. Bonventre, MD ’76, PhDMartha L. Gray, PhD ’86
The Connector is a quarterly publication of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. The staff and board of The Connector would like to thank the HST alumni, faculty, staff, and students who contributed to this issue. Please send reports of your recent activities and personal news to the above address or email. Previous issues of The Connector can be found at http://hst.mit.edu.
Volume 20 • Number 4
HST knew the importance of teaching clinical medicine to bioscience and engineering students 25 years ago. Now MIT has come to the same conclusion, and two HST alumni/ae and faculty will lead the way.
As reported in the spring issue of The Con-nector, a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will fund a new educational program called the HST Graduate Education in Medical Sciences, or GEMS. This collaboration between MIT and Harvard teaching hospitals aims to integrate medical knowledge within the training of bioscience graduate students at MIT. The co-directors of GEMS are HST Director Martha L. Gray, PhD ’86, and HST faculty member Elazer R. Edelman, MD ’83, PhD ’84.
PhD students at MIT will be trained to bridge the widening chasm between concept and functional execution with a simultaneous supplementary curriculum, which includes new courses in human pathology and pathophysiology, followed by clinical tutorials and graduate semi-nars dealing with key aspects of interdisciplinary and clinical research. GEMS plans to enroll 10 students a year in this three-year program, which moves parallel to the students’ regular program.
HST leads partnership between MIT and teaching hospitals
Thomas F. Deutsch, PhD, HST af-filiated faculty and Associate Professor of Dermatology at HMS and MGH, died on July 17. He was 74. Deutsch was the faculty director for the HST-MGH Sum-mer Institute for Biomedical Optics (see also page 5). An expert in laser technology, he worked on diagnostic and therapeutic applications of lasers at MGH’s Wellman Center for Photomedicine, which is affili-ated with HST, since 1984.
IN MEMORIAM
Thomas F. Deutsch
Betsy Tarlin departs as HST’s Director of External Relations this fall with a stellar record of con-tributions to HST’s growth. She first came to HST as a fundrais-ing consultant in 1998. Working closely throughout her tenure at HST with Dan Shannon, HST’s Faculty Director of Resource Development, she immediately became intimately involved in HST’s developing relationship with the Martinos family and helped conceptualize HST’s Athinoula A. Marti-nos Center for Biomedical Imaging. After signing on as Director of External Relations, Betsy took responsibility for many aspects of the growth and expansion of HST. She has skillfully created and organized events with and for students, faculty, graduates and industrial leaders during an expan-sive time for HST.
Betsy has enhanced HST’s visibility in many ways: she organized several regional and national conferences, attracting leading scientists and industrial entrepreneurs to the MIT Entre-preneurship Center; she expanded and redefined the annual Forum where student research can now be more widely appreciated; and she significantly enhanced HST graduation activities to make them truly memorable and enjoyable for graduates and their families.
In 2000, Betsy organized the formal celebra-tion of the opening of the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center. She enhanced alumni relations by traveling to major cities where HST graduates were concentrated. Following up on that success, she provided support for increasing communica-tions with alumni/ae over the past four years. Her leadership encouraged graduates to play a major
role in shaping and implement-ing HST’s 35th Anniversary Celebration in September 2005, a great success. Most recently, she spearheaded the formation of the HST Alumni/ae Association and organized its first meeting.
In 2001, recognizing the need for ever-increasing funds for student research support, Betsy led the development of the Irving M. London Society. This important Fund is now drawing
contributions from larger numbers of graduates, faculty, friends and advisors each year. In our ongoing efforts to enhance the profile of HST both within our two parent universities and in the community at large, Betsy played a major role in developing both the Advisory Board and Advisory Council; the members of these groups have taken active roles in developing HST initiatives and contribute generously not only with their time and wisdom but also with their financial resources. Fi-nally, Betsy worked hard to “brand” HST through developing a consistent and attractive graphic presence for the organization. The look of our publications and website has been transformed, and we now have a contemporary logo to raise HST’s profile at home and abroad.
We thank you, Betsy, for your dedication, hard work and creative approach to conveying HST’s uniqueness to an expanding audience.
— Daniel C. Shannon
Note: Betsy Tarlin has served as the HST alumni contact for many years. In the future, if you have a question about alumni issues or general admin-istrative policies, please contact Pamela McGill, at [email protected] or 617-253-1554.
Best wishes to Betsy Tarlin
The Connector 3
New MEMP Track Looks to SpaceThe National Space Biomedical Research
Institute is funding a graduate training program in Space Life Sciences as a new track within MEMP. This interdisciplinary program includes training in biomedical sciences, aerospace engineering and space medicine. The combination of science and engineering coursework, medical training, mentoring, seminars, and thesis research will provide students with a wide range of experiences that will open a broad range of possible career opportunities.
Laurence R. Young, ScD, Professor of HST and the Apollo Program Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, will serve as its director. Young recently won a research award from The Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, which is part of the School of Engineering at MIT, for improving the design of safety helmets.
New Academic Administrator Joins HST Traci Anderson joined HST on July 31 as
the Division’s Academic Programs Administrator. She will oversee many of the registration issues formerly handled by Ron Smith, who retired at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. She will also be the administrative contact person for the Biomedi-
cal Enterprise Program. Anderson was formerly the Assistant Registrar at the Harvard School of Public Health, and most recently served as the Master’s Pro-gram Administrator at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received her degree from Colgate Univer-
sity in 1992 with a major in mathematics and a minor in women’s studies.
“We are very excited about the combination of experience, skills and energy that Traci brings to HST,” said Julie Greenberg, Director of Education and Academic Affairs at HST.
Andrews Elected VP of Clinical Investigation Society
HST affiliated faculty Nancy C. Andrews, MD, PhD, the Leland Fikes Professor of Pediat-rics at HMS and CHB, Associate Dean for Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies at HMS, and a Howard Hughes investigator, was elected vice president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in April.
Alumni Receive ISMRM AwardsDaniel K Sodickson, PhD ’94, MD
’96, Assistant Professor of Radiology, Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology at HMS and BIDMC, received the Gold Medal of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance
hst newsin Medicine (ISMRM) “for pioneering scientific contributions to magnetic resonance in medicine and biology.” Sodickson and co-recipient Klaas Preussman developed parallel imaging techniques in MRI, which have revolutionized the technology and capabilities of modern MRI scanners.
Fa-Hsuan Lin, PhD ’04, Instructor in Radiology at HMS and MGH, is the winner of the ISMRM Rabi Young Investigator Award for excellence in the general area of parallel MRI.
Early Career AwardsHST faculty members Ali Khademhos-
seini, PhD and Shiladitya Sengupta, PhD have each received a two-year Coulter Foundation Early Career Award. Khademhosseini’s focus is microscale bottom-up cardiac tissue engineering; Sengupta’s is multivalent hybrid-nanocells for spatiotemporal ablation of neovasculature and solid tumors.
Three HST alumni are among 13 recipients of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Physi-cian-Scientist Early Career Awards: Atul J. Butte, PhD ’04, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Stanford University of Medicine; Vamsi K. Mootha, MD ’98, Assistant Professor of Systems Biology at HMS and MGH; and Ste-lios M. Smirnakis, MD ’97, PhD, Instructor of Neurology at HMS and MGH.
White Receives AAOS Diversity AwardHST affiliated faculty Augustus A. White
III, MD, PhD was honored at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) this spring in Chicago. He received the 2006 Diversity Award for his commitment to culturally competent care and for promoting di-versity in orthopedics. He is the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Professor of Medical Education at HMS and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at HMS and BIDMC. He was Master of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society at HMS until this July.
MEMP Student Wins Optical AwardMEMP student Euiheon Chung received an
award from the Optical Society of America, which is funded by NSF, for his poster on “Super-resolution Wide-field Imaging: Objective-launched Wave To-tal Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy.” The poster was presented at the Biomedical Optics Program of the Optical Society of America.
London Already a Leader in 1938In the September/October issue of Harvard
Magazine, HST Founding Director Irving Lon-don, MD (Harvard ’39) was featured as a force behind a movement to bring Jewish students to Harvard. In 1938, in response to Kristallnacht, Harvard and Radcliffe students initiated aid to young refugees from the Nazis. They formed the Committee to Aid German Student Refugees, and London, who was the president of Avukah,
served as secretary-treasurer. This effort eventually brought 14 students from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to the US.
HST and Tufts Enter in MD AgreementA few MEMP students each year become
so interested in medicine that they want to earn an MD as well as their PhD. The problem was that the number of such students that HMS could accommodate with advanced standing was limited to two or three per year. Other medical schools would occasionally accept these students as well, but the numbers are small and are often dependent on available slots.
Recently, Tufts Medical School has agreed to consider up to three MEMP students per year who have completed the first two years of the HST MD curriculum for transfer. A MEMP Advanced Standing Admissions Committee was established to evaluate candidates for transfer to either HMS or Tufts. PhD students wishing to enter an MD program can apply to this commit-tee during the first month of the academic year. Contact Patty Cunningham, Manager of the HST Office at HMS, for more information.
MD Students Honored for ResearchSuzana M. Zorca (MD ’08) and Felipe Jain
(MD ’07) received first place in their respective sections at the First Annual Medical Student, Resident and Fellow Research Symposium of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Zorca presented her platelet carbohydrate research in the Basic Sci-ence section, and Jain won for his clinical research on Parkinson’s disease.
Fan Liang (MD ’09) and Tian Zhang (MD ’09) won two of the four Alexandra J. Miliotis Fellowships that were awarded to HMS students this summer. Liang’s research focuses on single chromosome amplification. Zhang studies small molecule inhibitors of JAK2 (v617F) in a murine model of polycythemia vera.
Alpert Prize for FolkmanThe Warren Alpert Foundation has awarded
the 18th annual foundation prize to Judah Folk-man, MD, HST affiliated faculty and the Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Surgery at HMS and CHB, for discovering that tumors require angiogenesis and for championing the concept of anti-angiogenic therapies. The award carries a $150,000 prize.
Singapore Institute Honors SureshHST affiliated faculty Subra Suresh, ScD,
the Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT and Head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been named the first Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor by the National Insti-tute of Singapore “for his pioneering contributions in material science and engineering, mechanical engineering, and biological engineering.”
Traci Anderson
4 Fall 2006
hst news
HST welcomes the Advisory Council members who have joined during the past two years. Established in 2000-01 and chaired by Josh Tolkoff, the Council’s purpose is to help HST achieve its strategic goals by helping to establish mecha-nisms for enhancing the impact of its activities, raising funds and developing new relationships with both private and public organizations.
New members join Advisory Council
Richard Anders, JD is a partner at Still River Funds, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Waltham, Mass. A long-time entrepreneur, Anders has worked as Managing Director at Rubin/Anders Scientific, a science consultancy; CEO and publisher of New Media Publications, which publishes Boston Software News and New York Software News; and co-founder and president of Jurisoft Inc., a widely known and well-respected publisher of software for legal professionals. Anders received his under-graduate degree in mathematics from Harvard College and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Thomas R. Beck., MD is President and Chief Operating Officer of Dyax Corporation, a biotherapeutics company in Cambridge, Mass. Beck joined Dyax in June 2005 as Executive Vice President, of Business and Product Development, and became President and Chief Operating Officer in December 2005. Prior to Dyax, Beck was the Director of Global Research and Development for UCB Pharma, a global phar-maceutical company (1998-2004). He served six years as Chairman and CEO for CytoMed, Inc., a privately held drug discovery company. Beck has been President of Enzytech, a privately held drug delivery company, and has held several positions in Clinical and Business Development at Smith Kline Beecham. He received a BS from Yale University and his MD from Cornell University.
Sandra Bodner has been Vice Presi-dent of Public and Professional Relations at Lehman Millet, Inc. in Boston for the past seven years. She is responsible for developing communications programs that help accelerate the adoption of new medical tests and technolo-gies. Prior to working in medical marketing, she worked in Los Angeles as a public relations con-sultant, director of publicity for the paperback division of Random House Inc., and director of media relations for Hill Holliday.
Dean Calcagni, MD, Director of Medical and Life Sciences Applications at Foster-Miller, recently assumed his current
position after serving as Deputy Director of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), part of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). As a board certified anesthesiologist, Calcagni maintained a clinical practice part-time at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and was an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the Uni-formed Services University of the Health Sciences. Calcagni is a Distinguished Military Graduate of MIT with a BS in biology; he received his MD from the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Paul Citron is the former Vice Presi-dent of Technology Policy and Academic Relations at Medtronic. Citron joined Medtronic in 1972 and worked in various posi-tions until he retired in 2003. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003, was elected Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in January 1993, has twice won the American College of Cardiology Governor’s Award for Excellence, and was inducted as a Fellow of the Medtronic Bakken Society in 1980. In 1980 he was presented with Medtronic’s “Invention of Distinction” award for his role as the co-inventor of a pacing lead. Citron received a BS in electrical engineering from Drexel University in 1969 and an MS in electrical engineering from the Univer-sity of Minnesota in 1972.
Arthur J. Hiller is Marketing and Business Strategy Consultant at Life Sci-ences. In his most recent position as Senior Vice President of Cardiovascular Sales and Marketing for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he led the Integrilin sales and marketing team and new product marketing for the Millennium pipeline. Prior to joining Millennium, Hiller worked for Merck & Co.’s human health division as vice president, worldwide human health marketing. Hiller holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in business policy from Columbia University.
William Holodnak is Founder and President of J. Robert Scott, an executive search firm. In addition to managing the firm since its inception in 1986, Holodnak conducts senior-level search assignments in a variety of fields. During his career he has been a member of the professional audit staff of Pricewater-houseCooper’s Boston office (he holds a CPA certificate in Massachusetts), and manager of the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. He has an MBA from Boston University, a graduate degree in medieval history from Johns Hopkins, and an undergraduate degree from Canisius College in New York. Currently, he serves on the board of Veritude, a temporary employment agency and is a trustee of the Berklee College of Music.
Brian Pereira, MD is President of Advanced Magnetics, a position he’s held since November 2005. He has been President and CEO of New England Health Care Foundation at Tufts-New England Medical Center and has held various other positions at Tufts-New England Medical Center since 1993. A nationally recognized kidney expert, Pereira has served on the editorial board of 12 scientific journals, and serves as a director of the National Kidney Foundation and others institutions. He is a graduate of St. John’s Medical College and has an MBA from the Kellogg Busi-ness School at Northwestern University.
Scott Sarazen is a strategic consultant who is currently advising several clients in support of biopharmaceutical business development initia-tives. Prior to this role, he headed up Corporate Development at Straumann USA, a leading provider in the fields of implant dentistry and dental tissue regeneration. Sarazen has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a master’s in management from Lesley University.
Natacha DePaola, PhD ’91 is Profes-sor and Department Head of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. DePaola’s research focuses on bio-physical regulation of mammalian cell function with special interest in the role of the cellular mechanical environment in early atherosclerosis and applications to cell and tissue engineering. She holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Venezuela, a MS from MIT, and a PhD from HST. She completed postdoctoral training at Columbia University and held her first faculty position at Northwestern University.
The Connector 5
hst news
The annual HST spring dinner seminar, held May 9 at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, featured Eve E. Slater, MD, a member of the Board of Director of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass.
In the introduction, HST affiliated faculty Arnold N. Weinberg, MD said that Slater was a
pioneer, as she was the first female chief resident in the Department of Medicine at MGH.
Slater spoke to the gathering of HST faculty, students, staff and guests on “Ari-adne auf Naxos for HST Graduates.” This opera, by Richard Strauss,
begins when two groups of musicians—a bur-lesque group and an opera company—are thrown into confusion when both are asked by the Major-domo to perform at the same time. In the opera it-self, the story revolves around Ariadne abandoned
by Theseus on the island of Naxos, but who finds consolation in the arms of Bacchus.
Using one of her favorite media as a basis for comparison, Slater said the interweaving of comedy and opera was similar to the interface of medicine and technology in HST. The opera is also about disparate people who learn to get along, much like how medicine and technology must work together. She further pushed the analogy to her own life, where she has combined her passions for music and medicine into a satisfying career. She also noted that she has always been a big fan of HST, as her sister Cecilia graduated from the HST MD program in 1981.
In addition to her position in industry, Slater is Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at Co-lumbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is a former assistant secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
After the keynote speech, first-year MD students presented their prize for winning the 2006 Society Olympics—the coveted pink fla-mingo—to Patty Cunningham, Manager of the HST Office at HMS, for display in her office.
The HST dinner seminar series is sup-ported by generous funds from the Kieckhefer Foundation.
More than 75 HST alumni, faculty, advisors, and students gathered on August 17 at the officialkick-off event for the newly formed HST Alumni Association. Joseph Madsen, MD, ’81, President, led a discussion on how the Association can provide services to benefit alumni and the HSTcommunity. Goals include providing career development resources for both students and alumni and promoting alumni/student interaction. The Officers are working with HST IT personnel to improve the Alumni website and directory. Watch The Connector for reqular updates. Among those at the reception, held at the venerable Boston institution Legal Seafoods,were (from left) David Cohen, Jonathan Teich, Mark Goldberg, and Elazer Ederman.
An Alumni Association Is Born
L. Barry H
etherington
Summer students are immersed in lab and HST life
Since 2003, HST has sponsored the Sum-mer Institute, an opportunity for outstanding undergraduates who are considering biomedical engineering or science careers to experience life at HST.
Initially there was one track in biomedical optics at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine. Following the success of the first track, HST began offering a second track in bioinformatics in the summer of 2005.
Students come from institutions all over the country. About half are women, and par-ticipants include underrepresented minorities, first-generation college students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In an effort to provide a well-rounded ex-perience, the program has several components. Students, who are usually rising juniors or seniors, attend an intensive, graduate-level course in their track. Under the guidance of Mya Poe, PhD, Director of Technical Communications, and the lab mentor, students prepare research proposals and present their proposed project to their peers for comment. Then they go to the lab, working on the proposed project for the next nine weeks. Every year, two or three students publish their work while others present their research at the Biomedical Engineering Society fall conference.
In addition to all this work, HST makes sure students have some fun, too. They live together at New House, on the Charles River. They share a meal once a week, and midsummer, they join HST students, staff and faculty for ice cream and for a chance to learn more about the PhD programs and how to apply to them.
A few years out, Summer scholars are in graduate school, medical school, or sometimes in the same lab they worked in as undergraduates while at the Summer Institute.
— Sarah Griffith
6 Fall 2006
HST has given us the education—along with the passion—and has shown us how incredible medi-cine, teaching and research can be when they are inspired by the desire to serve.
— Alisa Morss
hst graduation
Alisa Morss, PhD ’06 was chosen to give the stu-dent address at the HST graduation. Below is an abridged version of her address: “HST Inspires a Life of Service.”
It goes without saying that HST has taught us to be outstanding physicians, scientists, and engineers—and more often than not, some com-bination of two or three of those. But one aspect of HST that can be overlooked is commitment to service. While the service component is not em-phasized outright in HST—there are no classes or laboratories specifically dedicated to service—we all learned to lead lives of service from the ex-amples of our professors, staff and peers.
Medicine is perhaps the clearest service area. Yet even along this path, it seems easy to lose that focus. In my own limited Clinical Medicine expe-rience, it was frightening how quickly the patient on the operating table was lost in my fascination with the mechanics of open-heart surgery, or how easy it was to interrupt a patient’s long list of symptoms to chase down lab test results. It was our preceptor, Dr. Valerie Stelluto, who consistently brought us back to medicine as service to the patient. She chatted with each patient we saw and demonstrated a rare and exuberant empathy in her demeanor, making her patients feel truly cared for. HST, through doctors like Valerie, inspires us to pursue careers of medicine as service.
Throughout our HST education, we have been lucky to be taught by world-renowned professors who show phenomenal dedication to teaching. From Rick Mitchell’s pathology fire hose to Jeffrey Drazen’s bowties to Elazer Edelman’s pressure-volume loops, HST profes-sors and their courses have transformed us into truly interdisciplinary physician-scientist-engi-neers. But there is so much more to teaching than imparting knowledge. At HST, teaching is a service to students focused on creation of an environment in which each student’s learning is maximized.
and now. He urged graduates not to “drop the baton” of medical science leadership.
“We must deal with a number of troubles that now face our research enterprise and threaten its continuity,” Rosenberg said.
“These troubles include an erratic or stagnant NIH budget, a pharmaceutical R&D effort plagued by decreasing productivity and neglect of diseases found in the developing world, a scientific workforce embarrassed by rare but egregious examples of conflict of in-
terest, scientific misconduct and lapses in the performance and reporting of clinical research, a growing schism between science and religion, and the partisan politicization of scientific matters including the dangerous disregard for expert scientific advice.”
In closing, he gave the graduates the charge of keeping the public trust in medical research by rededicating themselves to excellence.
“Rededication to the highest standards of personal behavior, to science’s high-minded cultural norms, and to laboring in the public’s
(continued from page 1)
Graduation
For many of us, our research is inherently service-oriented as we search for discoveries in biology and medicine that can improve healthcare. But many of our discoveries are years or decades away from implementation—is there a way that research can be service-oriented today? HST has taught us that it can.
In an HST dinner seminar, Dr. Bruce Walker described his innovative research to fight AIDS in Africa. And just this past year at the HST Forum, Dr. David Ho explained how it was impossible for him to stand outside of the global public health crisis in his own AIDS research. And in my HST experience, I discovered that service research can drive laboratory research and vice versa.
I decided to do a project on the diabetes epi-demic in native populations and how this might affect their cardiovascular health. Yet despite the relation between the service project topic and my laboratory research on the effects of elevated glu-cose on the vasculature, the two seemed disparate and often conflicting as the project and the thesis competed for my time. It was only at my thesis de-fense that the two finally converged. Towards the end of the defense, a particularly tough committee member asked about implications of my research for people without overt diabetes. My answer to his question—that non-Caucasian populations experience more extreme glucose fluctuations and additionally have significantly higher rates of
cardiovascular disease—came directly from what I had learned through the service project. It was one of those rare, golden moments in life when everything seems to come together. HST, through encouraging diverse thought and introducing us to innovators like Bruce Walker and David Ho, inspires us to pursue careers of integrated research as service.
I recently finished reading the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard-trained physician and anthropologist who dedicates his life to improv-ing healthcare in some of the poorest places in the world. Paul Farmer’s story can be daunting. Realistically, few among us could live his life of 20-hour days, commutes from Russia to Peru to Haiti to Boston, and then come home at the end of the day to sleep in a church basement. But as a colleague of Farmer’s said, “Paul is a model of what should be done. He is not a model of how it has to be done.”
HST has given us the education—along with the passion—and has shown us by example how truly incredible medicine, teaching and research can be when they are inspired by the desire to serve. It has been an honor to be part of this program and this community, and now it is our honor to go out into the world and spread the word of HST, to serve the new communities that we join, and to lead by example as physicians, scientists and engineers.
Class speaker emphasizes the need to serve
interest, must be as important to each of you as the scientific questions you pose, and the methods you use to go about answering them,” he said.
Following Rosenberg’s speech, Alisa Morss, PhD ’06 gave the student address on living a life of service and as leaders in medicine and science (see above).
Near the conclusion of the ceremony, several faculty and students were presented awards in recognition of their outstanding teaching, men-torship, service to the Division, or excellence in scholarship (see p. 7 for full list).
The Connector 7
Nader Amir Nassif, MD ’06 gave one of the three students addresses at the HMS graduation. Below is an excerpt from that speech.
As we started medical school, we all felt like Dorothy—who just woke up to find herself in the wonderful world of Oz. However, instead of a bunch of annoying little munchkins standing around looking at her, we sat in a big lecture hall with countless portraits of old white men staring at us. In fact, some of them are sitting behind me right now; they’re staring again and probably thinking: “I can’t believe he called me old!”
Dean Lowenstein, the Mayor of Munchkin-land—I mean the Dean of Medical Education at that time—looked at us on our first day and assured us that Harvard didn’t make a mistake in accepting us and that we were actually worthy enough to be here and that over the next four years we were going to travel on a wonderful journey.
In medical school we were indoctrinated into the life of the physician. We studied, re-viewed, partied and slept in class … a lot, all for the low low price of $123 per day. (Dean Martin, my check is in the mail, I promise!) But we also learned the art of medicine. We offered compas-sion and experienced empathy. We thought criti-cally and strived to tackle the problems that we faced in the classroom, in the clinical setting, and the laboratory. We grew to realize that we were well on our way to finding our heart and our brain.
During our clinical years, we practiced the skills that it took to become a physician, but most of all we came to understand what it meant to have someone trust us implicitly. Initially, our strength came from our short white coats, that hid our
Irving M. London Teaching AwardCollin M. Stultz, MD, PhD
For outstanding teaching of HST 201/202: Introduction to Clinical Medicine. One student wrote, “Collin’s hard work to teach the fundamentals to many of these stu-dents was above and beyond the normal expectations of faculty.”
Thomas A. McMahon Mentoring AwardAndrew H. Lichtman, MD, PhD
For outstanding mentoring in HST 175: Cellular and Molecular Immunology. A student wrote. “With his guidance, I will be graduating this year with several pa-pers, and most importantly, a refreshed and revitalized love of science and belief in medicine.”
John J. Rosowski, PhDFor outstanding mentoring in HST 714J: Acoustics of Speech and Hearing, and HST 720: Physiology of the Ear. A student wrote, “He devotes much time and energy to making the program better: from teaching HST courses to giving volunteer lectures and acting as a mentor to entire classes of speech and hearing students.”
Directors’ AwardDaniel C. Shannon, MD
For more than 30 years of service to HST. He had served as Director of the Respi-ratory Pathophysiology course, chaired the MD admissions committee, and will continue to serve as Director of Resource Development.
Helen Carr Peake Research PrizeDavid E. O’Gorman, PhD (SHBT) ’06
honorable mentions Radha Kalluri, PhD (SHBT) ’06
Jocelyn E. Songer, PhD (SHBT) ’06
Directors Martha Gray and Joseph Bonventre (in caps and gowns) stand with recipients of HST awards: (from left) Collin Stultz, John Rosowski and Andrew Lichtman.
The Yellow Brick Road: how medical school is like Oz
insecurities. We soon realized that each one of us had the compassion, heart and skills that we were striving for, but what we lacked was the belief in ourselves that we could and actually do make a difference in another person’s life.
We are eternally indebted to the friends we made here at HMS. These lifelong friends have made these past few years some of the most memorable of our lives. We traveled together down the yellow brick road, ever so slowly, from these innocent first-years who didn’t know which part of the stethoscope goes in their ears, to today, where the future orthopedic surgeons among us still don’t know how to use a stethoscope.
Everyone here played a role in who we are today. They were “the wizard behind the curtain,” and these people deserve our gratitude, respect and recognition.
So, Dean Lowenstein was right! From the time we entered HMS, we have grown, matured, got married, started families and sadly lost more hair, we remained essentially the same people we were before, with some minor exceptions: We are a few pounds heavier, much much poorer, but now realize that we have always had courage, brain and a heart all along. We sit here ready to tackle residency, whether we like it or not!
Everyone here played a role in who we are today. They were “the wizard behind the curtain.”
Michael Charles Slama, MSÉcole Superieure D’ÉlectricitéElec. Eng. and Computer Sci.
Rebecca Rose WoodburySmith CollegeEngineering
David A. Harmin, PhDWesleyan UniversityMusic and Physics
Amir Goren, MBATel Aviv UniversityIndustrial EngineeringMost Recent Position: General Manager, Media 100, Optibase
Rehan Abbas Khan, MBAUniversity of WisconsinEconomicsMRP: Global Sr. Brand Manager, Hormone Replace-ment Therapy Portfolio, Novartis Pharmaceuticals AG
Stephen Harold Christian KrausYale UniversityPolitical ScienceMRP: Director, Ironwood Equity Fund
Michael Robert MagnaniUniv. of California–San DiegoMicrobiologyMRP: Associate Consultant, ZS Associates
Brian L. K. MillerGoshen CollegeChemistry; BusinessMRP: Sr. Scientific Systems Analyst, Eli Lilly and Company
Brian J. NewkirkBowdoin CollegeGovernmentMRP: Legislative Asst., Office of Congressman Jim Cooper
Daniel Spensley Rippy, MBAMacalester CollegePolitical Science; SpanishMRP: Sr. Dir., New Business Dev., DFB Pharmaceuticals
Sameer Ahmed SabirUniversity College LondonImmunologyMRP: Director, Cinnabar Consulting Ltd.
Lizhe Sun, MBACapital University of MedicineClinical SurgeryMRP: CEO, Global Infomedia
Julie Keunhee YooMITComp. Science and Eng.MRP: Sales Engineer, Endeca Technologies
Vivian Victoria Li*MITMechanical Engineering
Giovanni Talei Franzesi*MITMechanical Engineering
* Spring 2006 matriculant
Biomedical Informatics
Master’s Program
Biomedical Enterprise
Master’s Program
MEng in Biomedical Engineering
Clinical Investigator Training Program
Jeremy Slade Abramson, MDMount Sinai School of MedicineHematology/Oncology
Miguel Alonso Alonso, MDUniversity of Santiago de CompostelaNeurology
Rajendra D. Badgaiyan, MDGandhi Medical CollegePsychiatry
Rupal Satish Bhatt, MD, PhDCornell Univ. Weill Medical CollegeHematology/Oncology
Allison Leigh Cohen, MDUniv. of Conn. School of MedicineEndocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
Aaron M. Cypess, MD, PhDCornell Univ. Weill Medical CollegeEndocrinology
Ogo Ifeatu Egbuna, MDUniversity of NigeriaNephrology
Elizabeth Anne Hoge, MDCase Western Reserve University School of MedicinePsychiatry
Sihong Huang, MDBoston University School of MedicinePediatric Infectious Diseases
Steven Jay Isakoff, MD, PhDNYU School of MedicineOncology
Katherine Anne Janeway, MDHarvard Medical SchoolHematology/Oncology
Edward J. Cheal, PhD ’86Robert F. Higgins, MDPedro Huertas, MD ’93, PhDNorman C. Payson*The Philippe FoundationMartin R. Prince, MD ’85, PhD ’88Joshua Tolkoff*
Founder
John AbeleCatherine F. Corrigan, PhD ’96*Dr. Peter C. FarrellDavid MusketJohn F. Romanelli, MD ’87Daniel C. Shannon, MD*Swee Lian Tan, MD ’88, PhD and
Jonathan L. Weil, PhD
Friend
Walter H. Abelmann, MD*Michael T. Bailin, MD ’84*Jeffrey T. BarnesJoseph V. Bonventre, MD ’76, PhD*H. Frederick Bowman, PhDBrave Maritime Corporation, Inc.Ching-Yen Joseph Chang, MD ’89*Dennis W. Choi, MD, PhD ’78Natacha DePaola, PhD ’91*Peter Feinstein*Martha L. Gray, PhD ’86*Scott D. Greenwald, PhD ’90Samuel S. Hahn, MD ’93John J. Halperin, MD ’75Harley A. Haynes, MD*William M. Kettyle, MDRichard J. Kitz, MDVivian S. Lee, MD ’92, PhD Joseph R. Madsen, MD ’81David F. Pincus, MD ’81Robert H. Rubin, MD*Pamela A. Taylor, MD ’82*Richard J. Thomas*Jack Tsao, MD ’97, DPhil*
Sponsor
Claudia M. Alleyne, MD ’81Marie-José Bélanger, PhD ’00*Howard Bernstein, MD ’89, PhD* George Q. Daley, MD ’91, PhD*Dennis M. Freeman, PhD*Young-Jo Kim, MD ’94, PhDMichael J. Koren, MD ’85Joshua Marc Korn (MEMP
student)Stanley N. LapidusUdaya K. Liyanage, MD ’99
Irving M. London, MD*Mathai Mammen, MD ’98*Abraham Nick Morse, MD ’93David C. Page, MD ’84Susan F. Steinberg, MD ’76 and
Elliot J. Riegelhaupt, MDDwight R. Robinson, MD*Ivan C. Rokos, MD ’92Carl E. Rosow, MD, PhDFrederick J. Schoen, MD, PhDKang Zhang, MD ’95* Supporter
Scott I. Berkenblit, MD ’96, PhD ’96Jonathan G. Bliss, PhD ’91Stephen B. Calderwood, MD ’75*Hovig V. Chitilian, MD ’00Gilbert Chu, MD, PhD ’80Elisabeth J. Cohen, MD ’75*Jeffrey B. Cooper, PhDLawrence I. Deckelbaum, MD ’79Michael A. Fifer, MD ’78Dan J. Fintel, MD ’79Gilad Gordon, MD ’83*Harvey Greisman, MD ’98Roger J. Hajjar, MD ’90*Michael N. Helmus, PhDJohn M. Higgins ’04Norman A. Jacobs*Albert Icksang Ko, MD ’91Judy Lieberman, MD ’81, PhDRobert C. McKinstry, III, MD,
PhD ’01*Stephen J. Pfister, MD ’76David A. Roth, MD ’87Elaine L. Shiang, MD*Anthony F. Shields, MD ’79, PhD*Barry P. Sleckman, MD ’89Charles W. Stearns, PhD ’90*Steven M. Stufflebeam, MD ’94Betsy Tarlin and Marcos
Rosenbaum*George R. Wodicka, PhD ’89
Contributor
Mark Albers, MD ’95Craig A. Alter, MD ’87Marcia T. BatesCamille L. Bedrosian, MD ’83*Ronald D. Berger, MD ’87*Paul S. Bernstein, MD, PhD ’88*Michelle D. Bishop, MDJerrold L. Boxerman, MD ’96,
PhD ’95 Gilbert Brodsky, MD ’77*Stephen K. Burley, MD ’87Thomas N. Byrne, MDMartin C. Carey, MD, DSc*
Sharon B. Chang, MD ’00*Bart Chernow, MD*Naomi C. Chesler, PhD ’96 and
Daniel Alan Sidney, PhD ’97Andreu CorsAlan D. D’Andrea, MD ’83 and
PhD ’98Chrysoula Dosiou, MD ’97*Eli R. Farhi, MD ’82*Harold A. Fernandez, MD ’93Toren Finkel, MD ’86Thomas J. Flotte, MDLawrence Frame, MD ’75Lisa E. Freed, MD, PhD ’88*Lee Gehrke, PhD*Oren Grad, MD ’84*Leonard Groopman, MD ’81John J. Guinan, Jr., PhDTheresa A. Hadlock, MD ’94Jin S. Hahn, MD ’82J. Elizabeth HarrisCharles Hatem, MDJohn F. Hiehle, Jr., MD ’87*Lewis Holmes, MDDavid Huang, MD ’93, PhD ’93*Donald E. Ingber, MD, PhD*Nelson Y.-S. Kiang, PhD*Henry Klapholz, MD*Isaac S. Kohane, MD, PhDZvi Ladin, PhD ’85Elaine Lee, PhD ’95*Hon-Chi Lee, MD ’81, PhDRebecca J. Leong, MD ’88Nancy Uan-Tsin Lin, MD ’99*Alexander Ling, Jr., MD ’81*Ming Lu, MD ’99, PhDFrederick Mansfield, MD ’76*Zhi-Hong Mao, PhD ’05Richard Neal Mitchell, MD, PhD*Tara Moore, PhD ’01Mark E. Mullins, MD ’97Ira S. Nash, MD ’84*Robert S. Negrin, MD ’84Jennifer M. Puck, MD ’75 and
Robert L. Nussbaum, MD ’75*Annabelle A. Okada, MD ’88*Stephen T. Onesti, MD ’86Stephen W. Powelson, MD ’77Ellis L. Reinherz, MD ’75Evan R. Reiter, MD ’93John C. Samuelson, MD ’84, PhDNeal R. Satten, MD ’75Bo E. H. Saxberg, MD ’88, PhD*Jeremiah Scharf, MD ’01Robert D. Sege, MD ’88, PhDJeffrey E. Sell, MD ’80
Charles N. Serhan, PhDArnold Seto, MD ’01David A. Shaywitz, MD ’99, PhDChristine Tsien Silvers, MD ’01, PhDStelios M. Smirnakis, MD ’97, PhDEliot R. Spindel, MD ’82, PhDDavid M. Steinhaus, MD ’77 and
Mrs. Meredith SteinhausEric H. Stern, MD ’76*Kenneth N. Stevens, ScD*Alan H. Stolpen, MD ’88Jenny Ying Xin Sun, MD ’03Cynthia Sung, PhD ’89Pia Susman-Pollack, MD ’81Jeffrey P. Sutton, MD, PhD*Drs. Herbert & Celia White TaborJon P. VerHalen, MD ’02Seung-Schik Yoo, PhD ’00Steven H. Zeisel, MD ’75, PhD*Thomas E. Zewert, MD ’97Jerrold Zindler*
Matching Gifts
AstraZenecaGeneral Electric FoundationMerck Company FoundationMerck Partnership for Giving
Designated Gifts
The following contributors provided support of $100 or more for specific purposes within the Division.
AmgenATV Capital Management, IncElaine Block-VictorH. Frederick Bowman, PhDDeborah Burstein, PhD ’86Cambridge Science FoundationJohn Chuo, MDJoseph A. Ciffolillo*Cooley’s Anemia Foundation, Inc.David and Lucile Packard
FoundationPaul EdelmanEdward H. Mank FoundationPeter C. FarrellFidelity Charitable Gift FundStan N. FinkelsteinMarilyn GehrkeGenetix PharmaceuticalsGeorge VanHoe Charitable TrustDavid Goodman, MD ’93Guidant FoundationMichael H. L. HeckerHoward Hughes Medical Institute
the london societyThe Irving M. London Society was launched in the fall of 2000 to honor the founder of HST and to provide a new way for members of the HST family to contribute unrestricted financial support for the Division. The response to the Society has been outstanding. It is with great appreciation that we recognize the following contributions of $100 or more to the Society, made between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006. Charter members of the Society are indicated by an asterisk.
Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier (IRIS)
Farish A. Jenkins, Jr., PhD*Juvenile Diabetes FoundationRichard J. Kitz, MDJames KlingensteinLawrence A. KrakauerJan and Ruby KrouwerBonny M. LeeMarc Haas FoundationRoger G. Mark, MD, PhDThanassis MartinosMusculoskeletal Transplant
FoundationNew England FoundationOxford Bio Science IV
CorporationPhilippe FoundationRobert L. Y. Sah, MD, ScDSundar SubramaniamEmily A. SunJames B. Tananbaum, MDHarris and Lee ThompsonAnthony WilliamsDr. Lizhao ZhangSuzanne Whitman / Jewish
Community Foundation
Student Giving Fund
This program gives graduating students a chance to support HST while formally honoring an individual who has had a positive impact on them during their time at HST.
Neil A. Hattangadi, MD ’06 In honor of Ms. Patricia
Cunningham and Professor Richard Mitchell
Alisa Sharon Morss, PhD ’06 In honor of Professor Richard
MitchellAmish A. Shah, MD ’06 In honor of Mr. Divya BolarJocelyn Evelyn Songer, PhD ’06 In honor of Ms. Catherine
Modica
We regret if we inadvertently omitted any names from this list. If you note any omissions or corrections, please contact Pamela McGill, at [email protected] or (617) 253-1554.
10 Fall 2006
faculty profile
Sangeeta Bhatia, PhD ’97, MD ’99, who grew up in Lexington, Mass., and went to school on the East Coast, was lured back
to HST last spring. Her story is one of how en-couragement from parents and mentors can shape and change one’s life.
Her parents, who fled to India in 1947 from what is now Pakistan and immigrated to the US in 1966, brought up their daughter “to be the best, period.”
Bhatia recalled, “I was good in math and science in high school, and my dad said, ‘You should think about engineering.’ To which I replied ‘what’s that?’”
Since she loved her tenth grade biology class, her father brought her to see the lab of MIT Professor Padamaker Lele, a pioneer in biomedical engineering. She was hooked.
Bhatia’s original career plan was to study en-gineering in college, work for a year in a company, and then get a master’s degree. However, while working in the lab of Brown University Profes-sor Patrick Aebischer, a pioneer in biomaterials, physician-scientist Moses Goddard planted a seed for the future by asking her, “Why aren’t you getting a PhD?”
Bhatia followed her initial plan, received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1990, and worked for a year at ICI Pharmaceuticals, where she “realized very soon that anybody there who had a job that I wanted had a PhD.” Re-membering Goddard’s words, she started graduate school at MIT in 1991.
Although initially not accepted by MEMP, she matriculated into this program in 1992, where she met husband-to-be Jagesh Shah on day one. Some highlights of Bhatia’s MEMP years were “meeting Jag and other colleagues like Chris Chen (now at the University of Pennsylvania), pre-clini-cal classes, seeing my first patient, and publishing my first research paper.”
She said, “My peers set the bar for the rest of my career—collegial, brilliant, and the same set of intellectual values.”
Bhatia carried out her PhD research with HST Professors Mehmet Toner and Martin Yarmush at MGH. She exploited microfabrica-tion technology to generate precisely controlled
co-cultures of hepatocytes and nonparenchymal cells and was among the first at MIT to use mi-crotechnology in biology. The “micropatterned” liver cells provide a novel platform for basic studies of how signaling between neighboring cells can modulate physiological and pathophysiological processes, and also inform cell-based liver replace-ment therapies. Bhatia received the PhD in 1997, and then became a postdoc at the MGH while also working towards the MD at HMS. Although she continued to consider a career in industry and did some work at Pfizer on organogenesis, it didn’t really suit her.
“I had become spoiled by the intellec-tual density of the academic environment, smart people and world-class resources,” she said. “Every time I would spend much time at a company, I would feel claustrophobic.”
Bhatia first considered academia when Toner
suggested that she apply for faculty positions. She did, and soon got a job offer from the University of California–San Diego. A year out of grad school, Bhatia became Assistant Professor of Bioengineer-ing and Assistant Adjunct Professor of Medicine at UCSD. Bhatia and Shah spent six years in La Jolla, where their daughter, Anjali, was born in 2003. While at UCSD, Bhatia established herself as a highly innovative and versatile leader in the field of biomedical engineering and was awarded tenure in 2002.
Bhatia returned to HST in 2005 as an associ-ate professor with appointments in the Depart-ment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and in Department of Medicine at the BWH. Shah also returned to HST/HMS as Assistant Professor of Systems Biology, therein solving the “two-body” problem so common in dual-career marriages. Currently, Bhatia runs the
Sangeeta Bhatia with husband, Jagesh Shah, and daughter, Anjali
photo courtesy of Sangeeta Bhatia
Inspired & InspiringSangeeta the protégée has become Professor Bhatia the mentor
by Lisa E. Freed, MD, PhD ’88
The Connector 11
Lab for Multi-scale Regenerative Technologies (lmrt.mit.edu), which is home to seven postdocs, five grad students, numerous undergrads, and two technical staff. Bhatia’s research focuses on the integration of micro- and nanotechnology with living systems.
To study how the fate and function of he-patocytes depends on their microenvironment, Bhatia and colleagues use microstructured 2-D and 3-D cell and tissue models to control and study the role of the cellular microenvironment. To study fundamental aspects of stem cell biol-ogy, they use cellular arrays and biological mi-cro-electro-mechanical systems (BioMEMS) that combine biological species with electrical and mechanical components to form novel platforms for remote manipulation. To develop “intelli-gent” systems for tumor therapy and molecular detection, they are designing nanoparticles to perform complex tasks such as homing in to a tumor, chemical sensing, enhanced imaging, and triggering the release of a therapeutic drug. Her collaborators include David E. Cohen (on various hepatology projects), Philip Sharp (on an siRNA delivery to glioblastoma project), and Robert Langer and Ralph Weissleder (as part of the new Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence).
Bhatia’s research has attracted media at-tention. She was featured in MIT’s Technology Review magazine (“A Better Toxicity Test,” Mar/Apr 2006) and in MIT’s Tech Talk (“MIT Method Allows 3-D Study of Cell Tissue Orga-nization,” Apr. 26, 2006).
Her research has also given rise to a new course. Last spring, Bhatia and MIT Profes-sor Mya Poe launched HST 186: Frontiers in
(Bio)medical Engineering and Physics, a course that seeks to “provide a framework for mapping research topics at the intersection of medicine and engineering/physics in the Harvard-MIT community.” Lectures consider “what’s hot, and why” in each area, and writing workshops help students answer the questions such as “how do I turn my interests into a thesis?”, “how can I identify a research project that is novel?”, “what makes a successful fellowship proposal?”, and “how do I give and respond to peer reviews?”.
Bhatia’s mentorship goes beyond her lab and the classroom. She is co-founder of KEYs, an outreach organization for middle school girls, and her MIT lab currently serves as a host lab for the program. She is also the MIT faculty advisor to the Society for Women Engineers, and having recently published a study on the disproportionate attrition of undergraduate women from engineering majors, is working with the BMES to start a Committee on Diversity in Biomedical Engineering.
Bhatia’s current goals are “to continue to learn, to do innovative research that has high impact, and to bring biomedical engineering alive for students.” Her past accomplishments that she is most proud of include the people she has helped train, building the lab from scratch, getting some key papers published, and working to increase the representation of women in sci-ence and engineering.
“And having a life!” she added.Although it’s not easy, Bhatia is proud
that she is able—most of the time—to have a balanced life.
“I try to be really vigilant about protecting my time and not feeling apologetic when I can’t
do something.” she said. “If I had infinite time, I would probably say yes to everything because I am a passionate, curious person. But I don’t have infinite time. So, I just try to pick the most important meetings and define priorities.”
Bhatia sees the positive aspects of her pres-ent position as “the incredible privilege and freedom to satisfy your curiosity and impact the world.” However, she also thinks that “the current funding climate adds pressure to what can already feel like a pressure-cooker,” and that MIT needs to work to coordinate activities at the interface of biomedical science and engineering and to transform its ‘culture’.
But one of the great aspects of MIT is how it tries to help its employees balance work and family, an ideal which she sees daily. Bhatia parks in the Stata Building, where there is a childcare center.
“I think it’s great that the daycare center is in the middle of the campus,” she said. “I love getting off the elevator every morning and seeing people with their children. It’s a tangible reminder of how MIT collects the best and brightest from around the world and is a glimpse at the real soul of our institution.”
As a successful woman in academia, young people often asked her for advice on combining a career with parenthood. To them she says: “Have a supportive partner, accept that you can’t do everything yourself, and don’t judge yourself by other people’s metrics.”
When she and Shah moved back to the East Coast, they chose to settle in Lexington, near her parents. It’s a good thing that they are nearby; a second daughter, Karina, was born on October 15.
Five HST alumni/ae were recog-nized on HMS Class Day in June for their contributions to the clinical education of the Class of 2006:
• Jennifer Lin, MD ’03, Derma-tology at Harvard Combined Programs
• Wei Lin, MD ’04, Medicine at MGH
• Ugw uji Maduekwe, MD ’04, Surgery at MGH
• Subroto Paul, MD ’99, Surgery at BWH
• Jeremiah Scharf, MD ’01, Neu-rology at Harvard Combined Programs
men•tor |‘men,tôr| : an experienced and trusted adviser (ref. Oxford American Dictionary)
Good mentors are the key to most people’s success. At every turn, the abundance of professionals in medicine, academia and industry within the Harvard-MIT community pres-ents an opportunity to solicit advice. However, bringing mentors and students together in an informal setting is often difficult, given the mentors’ busy schedules and the students’ rigorous academic load.
Over the past six years the BioMatrix mentoring community has aimed at bridging these gaps by bringing professionals from many backgrounds together with students to permit an open exchange of advice and ideas. Last year, BioMatrix held a number of monthly dinners aimed at discussing topics such as “My Circuitous Path or How did I end up where I am today?” and “Classic Dilemmas: Family Now or Family Later.” In addition, BioMatrix held a number of more intimate meetings in which a small number of students meet with a specific mentor and discuss questions and concerns. This year promises to provide even more interactions between the mentors and mentees. For more information about BioMatrix, please visit the website at http://biomatrix.mit.edu.
BioMatrix has been generously supported by HST, Anthony Williams (Harvard ’68), the Taplin Fund, the MIT Deans for Undergraduate Education and Student Life, the MIT Graduate Students Office, and the d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education.
— Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, for the BioMatrix Executive Board
MD Class of ’06thanks mentors
BioMatrix: a mentoring community
12 Fall 2006
research newsA New Experimental Treatment of Fulminant Hepatic Failure
Martin Yarmush, MD, PhD is senior au-thor and Mehmet Toner, PhD ’89 is co-author of “Treatment of Fulminant Hepatic Failure in Rats Using a Bioartificial Liver Device Contain-ing Porcine Hepatocytes Producing Interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist.” Inasmuch as Fulminant Hepatic Failure (FHF) has been recognized to be an inflammatory disease, associated with elevated serum levels of cytokines, this study explored blockade of interleukin-1 (IL-1) as a therapeutic modality by transfecting porcine hepatocytes with an adenoviral vector encoding human IL-1 recep-tor antagonist (AdIL-1Ra), which then secreted human IL-1Ra. These transfected hepatocytes were then used in a bioartificial liver device to treat FHF in a rat model. This treatment ef-fected significant reduction in plasma levels of hepatic enzymes and cytokines and improved the survival of animals. (M Shinoda et al., Tissue Eng 2006;12:1313-23 [ePub ahead of print].)
Yarmush is an HST faculty member and the Helen Andrews Benedict Professor of Surgery at HMS and MGH. Toner is a Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Professor of Com-puter Science and Engineering at MIT.
Bias In Peer ReviewRaymond J. Gibbons, MD ’76, Professor of
Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, is co-author of a study on blinded peer review and abstract acceptance. All abstracts reviewed for the annual Scientific Seminars of the American Heart Association from 2000 and 2001 included the authors’ names and institutions (open review), whereas this information was concealed from the 2002-2004 abstracts (blind review). The analyses revealed “evidence of bias in the open review of abstracts, favoring authors from the United States, English-speaking countries outside the United States, and prestigious academic institutions. Moreover, blinded review at least partially reduced reviewer bias.” (JS Ross et al., JAMA 2006; 295: 1675-80.)
Effective Therapy For A Mouse Model of Alport Syndrome
Raghu Kalluri, PhD, HST affiliated faculty and Associate Professor of Medicine at HMS and BIDMC, is senior author of how bone marrow-derived stem cells can repair basement membrane collagen defects and reverse genetic kidney disease.
Alport Syndrome is a progressive, hereditary disease of the glomerular basement membranes, dominant X-linked, affecting young adults and leading to end-stage renal failure in early adulthood. The only therapy to date is lifelong hemodialysis or renal transplantation. Kalluri and associates transplanted wild-type bone marrow
into a murine model of Alport Syndrome and documented a reversal of the disease. Improve-ment of kidney histology was associated with significant reduction in proteinuria. These find-ings warrant trials of bone marrow-derived stem cells as a strategy of therapy in patients with Alport Syndrome. (H Sugimoto et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006; 103:7321-6.)
Secure Personal Health Record SystemHST faculty member Issac S. Kohane MD,
PhD is senior author of “GenePING: secure, scal-able management of personal genomic data.” In the expectation that within a few years full genome expression profiling and genotyping will become widely available, the authors present GenePING, a personal health record system that permits secure storage of large, genome-sized datasets, as well as efficient sharing and retrieval of individual data points. This system is available online at ping.chip.org/genepinghtml. (B Adida and IS Kohane, BMC Genomics 2006: 7:93.)
Kohane is the Lawrence J. Henderson Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Tech-nology and of Pediatrics at HMS and CHB. He is Director of the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics Training Program and Director of the Countway Medical Library at HMS.
Evidence of Misspent Youth: Early Exposure To Noise Ages Inner Ear
Sharon G. Kujawa, PhD and M. Charles Liberman, PhD are authors of a study compar-ing early noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) with age-related hearing loss (AHL) in CBA/CaJ mice. This experimental study was stimulated by clinical observations suggesting that ears dam-aged by noise age differently from others. In an expanded mouse model, NIHL and AHL animals were followed for up to 124 weeks and compared to controls. Two weeks after exposure to noise, young animals showed significant shifts in hear-ing threshold, whereas older animals did not. However, after longer periods, previously exposed mice demonstrated AHL and histopathology, indicative of substantial deterioration of cochlear neural responses compared to controls. It was concluded that early exposure to noise renders the inner ear significantly more vulnerable to aging. (SG Kujawa and ML Liberman, J Neurosci 2006; 26: 2115-23.)
Kujawa is an HST affiliated faculty and Associate Professor of Otology and Laryngology, HMS and MEEI. Liberman is Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Professor of Otology and Laryngology at HMS and MEEI. He also directs the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory at MEEI.
Role of Prion Protein In NeurogenesisAffiliated HST faculty Jeffrey D. Macklis,
MD ’84 is senior author of “Prion protein (PrPc)
positively regulates neural precursor proliferation during developmental and adult mammalian neurogenesis.” PrPc is known as the protein that, when misfolded, is the cause of a number of neuro-degenerative diseases, including mad-cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Here, Macklis and associates demonstrate that PrPc increases proliferation of neural precursor cells in vitro as well as in mice, whereas in knockout mice this production of new cells was delayed. Additional PrPc increased the rate of production of new cells. This represents a significant contri-bution to our understanding of developmental and adult neurogenesis and its pathophysiology. (AD Steele et al. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 2006; 103: 3416-21.)
Macklis is Associate Professor of Surgery at HMS and MGH, and Head of the Nervous System Diseases Program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute,
Hearing Loss Due To Perforated Ear DrumSaumil N. Merchant, MD, John J. Ro-
sowski, PhD and Susan E. Voss, PhD ’98 are senior author and co-authors, respectively, of a study of the determinants of conductive hearing loss by perforations of the tympanic membrane in 62 ears from 56 patients. They found that this loss of hearing is frequency-dependent. The largest losses occurred at the lowest frequencies of sound. Losses increased with the size of perfora-tion and did not vary appreciably with location of the perforation. (RP Mehta et al., Otol Neurotol 2006; 27:136-43.)
Merchant is an affiliated HST faculty member and Associate Professor of Otology and Laryngology at HMS and MEEI. Rosowski is Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and of Otology and Laryngology at HMS and MEEI. Voss is Assistant Professor of Engineering at Smith College and Lecturer in the Department of Otol-ogy and Laryngology at HMS.
Myocardial Injury Secondary to StrokeA. Gregory Sorensen, MD is senior au-
thor, and Lee H. Schwamm, MD is co-author of “Neuro-anatomic correlates of stroke-related myocardial injury.” This study addressed the neuro-anatomic basis of stroke-related myocardial injury, which was implied by significant elevation of serum cardiac troponin T (cTnT) in 50 of 738 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke within three days of onset of symptoms. These 50 patients, along with 50 matched controls, were studied with diffusion-weighted images. Brain regions that were associated with cTnT elevation included the right posterior, superior, and medial insula and the right inferior parietal lobule. Infarc-tion in specific brain regions, including the right posterior, superior, and medial insula and the right inferior parietal lobula were associated with
The Connector 13
research newselevated cTnT, indicative of myocardial injury. (Hay et al., Neurology 2006; 66:1296-7.)
Sorensen is Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and of Radiology at HMS and MGH, and Associate Director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH and HST. Schwamm is an HST faculty member, Associate Professor of Neurology at HMS and MGH, and Assistant Director of the Clinical Research Center at MIT.
The Role of Cellular Biomechanics in Pathophysiology of Disease
HST affiliated faculty Subra Suresh, ScD, the Ford Professor of Engineering and Head of the Department of Material Science and Engineering at MIT, is first author of a study of connections between single-cell biomechanics and human dis-eases such as malaria and gastrointestinal cancer.
Red blood cells (RBCs) infected with malaria parasites become stiffer and tend to obstruct small capillaries. Applying an atomic force microscope and optical tweezers to obtain continuous force-displacement curves, the shear modulus of RBCs was found to increase up to 10-fold. It was then possible to explore biomechanical conditions that affect this modulus and their relationships to the course of disease. This report also presents experi-ments on elastic response and energy dissipation under tensile loading of epithelial pancreatic cancer cells in control of force or displacement. Under difference conditions, the elastic modulus was found to be increased or decreased. It was postulated that decreased stiffness of neoplastic cells may facilitate travel through capillaries and hence metastatic spread. (Acta Biomater 2005; 1: 15-30.)
Virtual Sectioning of Intact Joint TissueR. Rox Anderson, MD ’84 is co-author
of a pilot study of virtual biopsies of the joint tissues using near-infrared, reflectance confocal microscopy, a technique which permits serial, high-resolution optical sectioning through intact tissue without using exogenous fluorescent stains. This method was used to examine meniscus, articular cartilage, epiphyseal plate, bone, muscle and tendon in mice, rats and pigs. It permit-ted immediate, non-destructive, serial “virtual” sectioning through intact tissues, and thus is a potential adjunct to current imaging techniques in orthopedics. (V Campo-Ruiz, et al., Microsc Res Tech 2006 [ePub ahead of print].)
Anderson is Professor of Health Science and Technology and of Dermatology at HMS and
IN ERRATAIn the Summer 2006 issue, we misspelled Ryuji Suzuki’s name as Ryuii. The Connector regrets this error.
MGH. He is also Director of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at MGH.
Reward-Motivated Memory FormationJohn J. Gabrieli, PhD, the Grover Herman
Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Associate Director of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, is senior author of a study on reward-motivated learning and how mesolimbic activation precedes memory formation. This study examined motivated learning, i.e., the desire to gain knowledge, and the supportive neural systems by means of fMRI in 12 healthy adults, 18 to 35 years old. In a monetary incentive encoding task, cues signaled a high- or low-value financial reward for memorizing a scene. At 24 hours postscan, subjects were significantly more likely to remem-ber scenes that followed cues for high-value rather than low-value rewards. High-value award cues activated the ventral tegmental area, nucleus ac-cumbens and hippocampus. Greater activation in these regions predicted superior memory perfor-mance. It was concluded that reward motivation promotes formation via dopamine release in the hippocampus prior to learning. (RA Adcock et al., Neuron 2006; 50: 507-17.)
Gender Gap in PatentingFiona E. Murray, PhD, HST affiliated fac-
ulty and Associate Professor of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, is co-author of a study in gender differences in patenting in the academic life sciences. Murray and colleagues analyzed the longitudinal data on the careers of a random sample of 4,227 life scientists in US academic institutions over a 30-year period. Additionally, they interviewed life scientists at one university. They found that women faculty members patent at about 40 percent of the rate of men. This gen-der gap showed evidence of improvement over the years, but remains large. (WW Ding et al., Science
2000; 313:655-667.)
MRI Imaging Illuminates Memory Deficits of Schizophrenia
MD-PhD student Martin Zalesak is co-author of “The neural basis of relational memory deficits in schizophrenia.” In 20 patients with schizophrenia and 17 control subjects, behavioral performance and brain activity were assessed dur-ing the discrimination of previously seen as well as novel pairs of visual stimuli. Whole-brain and re-gion-of-interest (hippocampus) analyses revealed that in schizophrenic patients activation of the pre-supplementary motor area and the prefrontal cortex was normal, but there was a significant decrease in recruitment of the right parietal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex when discriminating novel pairs derived from a sequence of stimuli. The deficit was associated with decreased activation of the right parietal cortex and the left hippocampus.Thus, schizophrenia may be characterized by a specific deficit of relational memory, which is associated with impaired function of the parietal cortex and the hippocampus. (D Ongur, et al., Arch Gen Psychiatry 2006; 63: 356-65.)
Diagnosis by Gene Expression Ratio Raphael Bueno, MD ’86 is senior author
of “Differential diagnosis of solitary lung nodules with gene expression ratios.” Gene expression ratios were used to discriminate among a train-ing set of 145 samples comprised of normal lung tissue, small cell lung cancer, squamous cell lung cancer, and pulmonary carcinoid. A ratio-based test with 73 genes classified these samples with an accuracy of 90 percent. Application of this test to another sample (n=122) was accurate in 88 percent. Application to fine-needle aspiration specimens yielded a similar high degree of accu-racy. (GJ Gordon, et al., Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2006, 132: 621-7.)
Office will also be moving down to the second floor, which we believe will begin to connect to our student lounge on the third floor and enhance our visibility in E25.
In 1999, HST—as an organization—was to a large extent virtual; it is now increasingly physical. In the past HST’s community was defined almost solely by its students; it is now defined by its faculty, alumni, advisors and students. HST’s mission had been centered on education; now we are embracing a more balanced education/research agenda, which is critical to our future.
The renovation will bring many im-provements and enhancements to E25, including replacing laboratory air supply and exhaust, new electrical generator, updated teldata, and required building code upgrades. It will also provide acid neutralization for lab waste, and separate and upgrade the building’s emergency power and fire alarm systems.
This is the beginning of many changes. We are excited about this tangible progress for HST, as this renovation is the beginning of many changes yet to come.
— Martha and Joe
(continued from page 1)
Building E25
14 Fall 2006
alumna profile
As humans, when asked who we are, we may describe physical characteristics, but we mainly talk about our thoughts, ideas,
memories, and feelings. These brain functions give us an identity and make us who we are. What happens when we lose these functions to a disease like Alzheimer’s? Karen Hsiao Ashe has spent her life thinking about the nature of identity and the disease that steals it.
Ashe, the oldest of four, grew up in Minne-sota, about eight miles from where she currently lives. By age three, she knew she wanted to be a scientist, a dream she carries out on a daily basis as a researcher and professor at the University of Minnesota. As a young girl, she pursued sports, piano, and math and science avidly—and was considered a bit odd by those who felt girls should love dolls and dresses.
A mentor at her high school, Saint Paul Academy and Summit School, who admired her
work ethic and interest in science, suggested she apply to Harvard College, as well as other places. With two suitcases in hand, she made her first trip to Boston and arrived on the Yard, where she graduated magna cum laude in chemistry and physics only three years later.
While a first-year medical student in the HST MD program, she became interested in the work of Hans Lucas Teuber, a psychologist at MIT who was one of the first scientists to study not just the brain, but the mind—the higher functions that give us a sense of identity, our consciousness, and our powers of reason. She found his work so fascinating that after her second year at HMS, she embarked on an unplanned PhD at MIT through what was then known as the Depart-ment of Psychology, now Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Her studies began at the beginning of life, in developmental neuroanatomy of the visual system in hamsters. She received her PhD in 1981
and finished her MD in 1982, at a time when the molecular biology revolution was beginning.
Ashe remembers her years in Cambridge fondly, especially an HST mentor who helped her find the fellowship that supported her throughout her studies. Alzheimer’s became a main focus of her research because of her early exposure to the ideas of Hans Teuber: that one should focus not just on the structural abnormalities, as most researchers did, but also study the functional abnormalities. The identity questions inspired by a disease that steals higher cognitive functions of memory, feelings, and reasoning—but not basic motor functions—intrigued her then.
“I do believe you’re still the same person,” she said. “Alzheimer’s or not.”
After several years at the University of California–San Francisco studying prions as a post-doc, Ashe returned to Minnesota. In order to pursue her explorations of behavior at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, she needed a model, preferably a mouse model. As an untenured professor, she began the slow cycles of breeding and testing mice genetically engineered to contain human DNA with a dementia-causing mutation.
At about the time her two young sons were five and seven, and the mice were still growing, Ashe came up for tenure. Because her experiments took two to three years to do, she hadn’t published, and she only earned a lukewarm recommendation for tenure from her peers and mentors. The dean of the medical school met with her to ask how he could better present her case. Ashe did have a paper in press, and she spoke with passion about her belief that the mouse she was developing had great potential for research. Based on his belief in her long-term effort, she was awarded tenure, something she doesn’t think would have hap-pened on either coast, where immediate results are highly valued.
The dean’s belief in her has paid off. In 1996, she published the results of the TG 2576 mouse. It is now the most widely used mouse model for Alzheimer’s research. Ashe also made the decision to make breeding pairs freely available to scien-tists in nonprofit institutions. This decision has
(continues on page 15)
photos by John Noltner/copyright C
enter for Mem
ory Research and
Karen Hsiao Ashe holds a TG 2576 mouse, which is helping unravel the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease.
Of Mice and a WomanKaren Hsiao Ashe is in full pursuit of the cure for Alzheimer’s, while enjoying all that life has to offer.
by Sarah Griffith
The Connector 15
alumni news1970s
Stan N Finkelstein, MD ’75, Senior Research Scientist at HST and MIT’s Engineer-ing Systems Division, recently assumed the directorship of Harvard’s MD-MBA Combined Program.
Raymond D. Gibbons, MD ’76, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo College of Medicine, is President of the American Health Association for 2006-07, having been a volunteer for the organiza-tion for 20 years.
In May David Ho, MD ’78 received an honorary degree from Bates College in recognition of his research on AIDS.
1980s
David Cohen, MD ’87, PhD and his wife, Erica, announce the happy arrival of Eliza Helen Cohen, born June 14. Eliza joins her siblings, Samantha and Alexander. Cohen is Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology at HMS and BWH.
Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD ’89 has re-signed his position as Administrator of the Federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid, a role he has held since March 2004. Prior to that, he was Com-missioner of the Food and Drug Administration since 2002. He is expected to accept an appoint-ment at the American Enterprise Institute.
To quote an editorial from The New York Times of September 8: “He will be missed. As a pragmatic expert embedded in a fiercely ideologi-cal administration, he brought uncommon intel-ligence, good humor and dispassionate judgement to politically charged issues.”
1990s
George Q. Daley, MD ’91, PhD is one of three senior investigators of the newly formed Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). After more than two years of extensive reviews, the HSCI received approval to attempt to create disease-specific embryonic stem cell lines. Due to federal restrictions, this work will be supported entirely with private funds.
An HST affiliated faculty, Daley is Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at HMS, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at HMS and CHB. His research focuses on blood and bone marrow diseases, and he will develop—by means of nuclear trans-fer—embryonic stem cells from patients with blood diseases.
Tueng T. Shen, MD ’94, PhD is the Lions Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Direc-tor, Refractive Surgery Center, at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Her research focuses on corneal tissue engineering for the treatment of corneal blindness. She enjoys spending her free time with her husband, Jan, and daughters Pearl, (6) and Fay (4).
Anthony C. Forster, MD ’96, PhD is As-sistant Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on protein syn-thesis and its engineering, application of purified systems and chemical synthesis.
Sangeeta N. Bhatia PhD ’97, MD ’99, As-sociate Professor of HST and EECS at MIT, has been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
2000s
James S. Eadie, MD ’00 is Vice Chairman of Emergency Medicine at Wilford Hall Medi-cal Center in San Antonio. In the Winter 2006 issue of the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin, he reported on his recent experiences as an Air Force Emergency Physician in Iraq (pp 24-31). This article gives an excellent perspective on the challenges of military medicine and his remark-able accomplishments. Eadie returned in time for the birth of his son, Garrett.
David A. Berry, MD ’06 has won the young alumnus spot on the MIT Corporation. He started his five-year term in September. Last year Berry won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for his research on a new protein that improves the outcome for stroke patients. He works as a Principal at Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, Mass.
HST’s MD Class of 2006 received half of the degrees with honors at the HMS graduation.
magna cum laude
David DudzinskiNeil HattangadiMichael Pacold
cum laude
Bobak AzamianRobert Den
Saria HassanVivek IyerNing Lin
Nader Nassif
HONOR ROLLenabled research to proceed around the world at a much faster rate.
In addition to developing the mouse, she has made many of the top discoveries in Alzheimer’s research, including the top two described in the July 2006 issue of Nature Medicine. She found a protein assembly, Aβ*, that is proven to cause memory loss and is believed to be the main cause of Alzheimer’s disease. This research increases the possibility of developing a vaccination against the disease. Along with colleagues in her lab, she also found that severe memory loss in laboratory mice can be improved by eliminating another type of protein, known as tau.
Her sons are now 17 and 20, and five years ago she gave birth to a little girl. Her older son attends Tufts University and is studying interna-tional relations. Her 17 year old is a senior at the same high school she attended; he’s hoping to attend MIT to study engineering. Her husband, James Ashe, MD, is a neurologist at the Minneap-olis VA Medical Center. Ashe currently holds the
Edmund Wallace and Anne Marie Tulloch Chairs in Neurology and Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota Medical School and is also the direc-tor of the Aging and Alzheimer Research Labora-tory and of the Center for Memory Research and Care, a nonprofit medical foundation. Although Ashe no longer teaches in a classroom setting, she actively mentors the graduate students in her lab, even paving the way for one of her lab technicians to go on to graduate school.
Ashe believes that living in the Midwest has allowed her to balance home life with her lab work. The communities there have strong, established family values. Because the cost of living is lower, families have more disposable income to spend on help with their households and children. Aca-demic institutions are more forgiving of the time it takes to do good work, she said.
Ashe enjoys her life. She spends time with her family, plays the piano, bikes in the summer, skis in winter, and accomplishes meaningful work. She is a stellar example of someone who is sorting through life’s options in a most successful way.
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Karen Ashe
16 Fall 2006
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‘Greatest society on earth’ wins HMS OlympicsOn May 5, the HST MD Class of 2009 did
what few of its predecessors have done before: bring home the pink flamingo and first place in the HMS Society Olympics.
The day-long affair, in which the four New Pathway societies (Castle, Cannon, Holmes and Peabody) and HST compete in a wide spectrum of events, is a high point on the HMS calendar. This was the 17th year for the Olympics, and HST’s first victory since 1997.
With the circus theme of “The Greatest Society on Earth,” the HST team included an enthusiastic cast of clowns, jesters, and mimes, along with the requisite ringleader, bearded ladies, two-headed woman, gorilla, banana, lion and lion tamer, popcorn, gymnast, strongmen and jugglers.
HST’s elaborate and festive procession in-volved a caravan (decorated U-Haul), strongman-led miniature cars filled with clowns, jesters and balloons (Mini Coopers), and entertaining acts (such as the “death-defying” gymnastic stunts). Each character was in a full costume, complete with face paint, wigs, many props and a fair share of tights. The finale was an energy-filled dance that delighted the judges and hundreds of specta-tors—including many visiting members of HST’s MD Class of 2010—on the HMS quad.
Other highlights included first place in just under half of all events, including the blood drive (100 percent participation), sock drive (720 pairs for Boston Healthcare for the Homeless), student council survey (100 percent participation), t-shirt design, banner design (a 12-foot clown stomping out the competition), and tug-of-war. The HST team won second place in the procession, dodge-
The HST MD Class 0f 2009 celebrate after winning this year’s HMS Society Olympics.
Nelson M
oussazadeh (MD
’09)
ball, relay race and the chili cookoff/pie-eating contest. Other events included an intricately cho-reographed dance, limbo contest and a rap. All said, HST had 114 points vs. 100 for the runners-up, thereby defeating the defending champion Holmes (“Department of Holmesland Security”).
In the weeks leading up to the event, each person contributed talents of many stripes, donations of charity money and blood, and un-believable dedication. Over the course of many sleepless nights (learning was just ever-so-mildly-compromised), we all came to the realization that we are immensely lucky to be part of such a special group of people. This—and a year notable for its
remarkable cohesiveness and camaraderie—was celebrated in our enjoyment of the day and in the team’s all-out show of sportsmanship and society spirit.
“This was absolutely the best-led, best-or-ganized, and most spirited HST class I’ve ever seen,” said Mike Folkert (MD ’09). “The other societies will be talking about this for years, and future HST classes are going to really have to work to reach the bar that our captains set.”
According to Patty Cunningham, “Next task for this class: curing cancer.”
— Nelson Moussazadeh (MD ’09), co-captain of HST’s 2006 Olympic Team.
