Leading cell biologist to head department

Yale professor receives Albany prize

Kavli Prize for a Yale neuroscientist

NOTES

Notes

James Rothman

Joan Steitz

Leading cell biologist to head department

James E. Rothman, Ph.D. ’71, one of the world’s leading cell biologists, has been named chair of the Department of Cell Biology and the Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences. Rothman will also launch the new Center for High-Throughput Cell Biology at Yale’s West Campus, formerly the site of Bayer HealthCare.

Rothman came to Yale from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical Biology and director of the Columbia Genome Center. Under Rothman’s leadership Yale’s Department of Cell Biology will be significantly expanded and will be co-located at the West Campus along with its present location at the main campus of the School of Medicine.

At the Yale Center for High-Throughput Cell Biology, Rothman will lead multidisciplinary teams of scientists to develop tools and techniques to rapidly decipher the cellular functions of the 25,000 known protein-coding genes in the human genome, providing fresh insights into disease and identifying new molecular targets for therapy. For more than two decades, Rothman has performed seminal research on membrane trafficking.

Rothman graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1971 with a degree in physics. His research interests were inspired by cell biologist and Nobel laureate George E. Palade, M.D., who founded Yale’s Department of Cell Biology.

Rothman earned a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard Medical School in 1976. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Harvey F. Lodish, Ph.D., a preeminent biochemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1978, Rothman moved to the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford School of Medicine as an assistant professor. He continued his research at Princeton University from 1988 until 1991, when he became the founding chair of the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and vice chair of the Sloan-Kettering Institute.

Rothman succeeds cell biologist and immunologist Ira S. Mellman, Ph.D., who was chair and Sterling Professor of Cell Biology at the School of Medicine until 2007, when he joined the biotechnology company Genentech as vice president for oncology research. James D. Jamieson, M.D., professor of cell biology and director of the medical school’s M.D./Ph.D. program, served as interim chair of the department.

Yale professor receives Albany prize

Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, is one of the first two women scientists to receive the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, America’s top award in medicine. She shared the award with Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Ph.D., FW ’77, Sc.D.H. ’91, the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. The two will share the $500,000 award. Now in its eighth year, the prize is the largest in medicine in the United States and the second largest in the world outside of the Nobel Prize.

Steitz is best known for her pioneering work in RNA. She discovered and defined the function of small ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) in pre-messenger RNA—the earliest product of DNA transcription—and was the first to learn that these cellular complexes (snRNPs) play a key role in processing messenger RNA by excising noncoding regions and splicing together the resulting segments. Her breakthroughs into the previously mysterious splicing process have clarified the science behind the formation of proteins and other biological processes, including the intricate changes that occur as the immune system and brain develop.

Steitz earned her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1967. After completing postdoctoral work in Cambridge, England, she joined the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale as an assistant professor and later became an associate and full professor, as well as chair of the department.

Pasko Rakic

Kavli Prize for a Yale neuroscientist

Pasko Rakic, M.D., Ph.D., chair and the Doris McConnell Duberg Professor of Neurobiology, professor of neurology and director of the Kavli Institute of Neuroscience at Yale, was named one of the inaugural recipients of the Kavli Prize, given for the first time this year. The 2008 laureates were selected for groundbreaking research that has significantly advanced understanding of the unusual properties of matter on an ultra-small scale, the basic circuitry of the human brain and the nature of quasars. Rakic, one of seven scientists to receive the $1 million prize, was honored for a pioneering series of anatomical studies carried out over the past three decades that revealed how neurons in the developing cerebral cortex are generated and how they assemble themselves into interconnected circuits that direct higher-order sensory and motor functions. The seven winners will receive a scroll, a medal and a share of the overall prize for each area.

Notes

Jack Elias

Andrew Hamilton

Diane Krause

Harlan Krumholz

Michael Snyder

Mary Tinettii

Seven faculty members of the School of Medicine were elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. They are Jack A. Elias, M.D., Waldemar von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine; Andrew D. Hamilton, Ph.D., provost of the university and the Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry; Diane S. Krause, M.D., Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and cell biology; Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology and public health and investigative medicine; Nancy H. Ruddle, Ph.D., the John Rodman Paul Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and professor of immunobiology; Michael P. Snyder, Ph.D., the Lewis B. Cullman Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry; and Mary E. Tinetti, M.D., the Gladys Phillips Crofoot Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology (chronic diseases) and investigative medicine.

Amy Arnsten

Amy F.T. Arnsten, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology, was selected by NARSAD in April to receive its prestigious Distinguished Investigator Award. NARSAD will provide a one-year grant of $100,000 to advance her research on schizophrenia. Arnsten’s past work on prefrontal cortex and executive function has contributed to the development of new treatments for attention deficit disorder.

In April two faculty members were awarded 2008 Young Investigator Awards from NARSAD, the world’s leading charity dedicated to funding research on psychiatric disorders. They are among 220 early-career scientists in the United States and 11 other countries who will receive funds this year from NARSAD to advance their research on mental illnesses. Each will receive $60,000 over the next two years. Savita G. Bhakta, M.B.B.S., plans to gain a better understanding of how cannabinoids (chemical compounds found in marijuana) induce schizophrenia-like behavioral and cognitive effects in healthy people and exacerbate symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Fei Wang, Ph.D., will use multimodal MRI technology to study adolescents with bipolar disorder. The study will identify abnormalities in the structural integrity of connections in brain circuitry serving the emotional processing that are implicated in the illness, as well as associated disruptions in circuitry function.

Henry Cabin

Henry S. Cabin, M.D., professor of medicine (cardiology), has been named medical director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) Heart and Vascular Center. Cabin will be responsible for day-to-day operations associated with the cardiovascular service line, including inpatient services, and diagnostic and interventional catheterization laboratories. In addition, Cabin will participate on an executive council and work collaboratively with other multidisciplinary physician leaders in medicine, radiology and surgery to build a comprehensive cardiac and vascular center. Since 1994, Cabin has been associate section chief of cardiology at YNHH and associate chair, Department of Internal Medicine.

David Cone

David C. Cone, M.D., associate professor of surgery (emergency medicine) and of epidemiology, has been appointed editor in chief of Academic Emergency Medicine, the journal of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine.

Stephen C. Edberg, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital microbiology laboratory, has been awarded the American Society for Microbiology’s BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology. This award honors a clinical microbiologist for outstanding research accomplishments leading to or forming the foundation of important applications in clinical microbiology. Edberg’s contributions to clinical microbiology range from basic science, through applications and technology transfer, to critical analysis of current microbiologic findings and principles as applied within the context of public health problems. His research has resulted in more than 180 publications.

Richard Edelson

Richard L. Edelson, M.D., director of Yale Cancer Center, has been named the inaugural Aaron B. and Marguerite Lerner Professor of Dermatology. Edelson has made fundamental contributions to the study of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a disease caused by malignant T lymphocytes that affects the skin. He identified and characterized this cancer and his research group played a central role in deciphering the basic biologic properties of CTCL cells, both in delineating the pathogenesis of the malignancy and in developing effective therapies for it. Along with his research team, Edelson devised and implemented the first FDA-approved selective immunotherapy for any cancer, a treatment now referred to as transimmunization. This treatment has been administered worldwide to patients with CTCL and has proven to be a safe and clinically effective cellular “vaccine” for CTCL patients. Since 2003 Edelson has been director of Yale Cancer Center. In January he announced he would step down once a successor is appointed.

Christine Jacobs-Wagner

Christine Jacobs-Wagner, Ph.D., the Maxine Singer Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, has been designated a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. She is one of 17 Yale scientists who now hold the prestigious appointment. Jacobs-Wagner is one of the world’s leading experts on the internal cellular workings of bacteria. Her descriptions of the inner mechanisms of bacteria have led to an appreciation of the survival strategies of these ancient organisms and new insights into how to study modern human illnesses.

Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D., received the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award from the University of Chicago in May. The Howard Taylor Ricketts Award is given in memory of Ricketts, the scientist for whom the Rickettsia genus of microorganisms is named. The award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution in a field of the medical sciences.

Curtis L. Patton, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the School of Public Health, was one of 13 people to receive a Seton Elm/Ivy Award this spring. Patton was honored for bringing previously unrecognized African-Americans to public light. Yale’s recognition of Edward A. Bouchet, a distinguished New Havener, Yale College’s first African-American graduate and the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. anywhere in the nation, is due in part to Patton. He also celebrated the work and legacy of Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Creed, M.D., another distinguished New Havener and the first African-American graduate of Yale University. In 2007, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Creed’s graduation from the School of Medicine, Patton and his colleagues organized a series of events culminating in the dedication of a new memorial to Creed at the Grove Street Cemetery.

Joel L. Rosenbaum, Ph.D., professor of cellular and molecular biology, received an honorary degree from the University of Siena in Italy, in May. Rosenbaum has been studying the ultra-structure of the intraflagellar transport (IFT) process at the University of Siena with his colleagues there. IFT was discovered in the Rosenbaum laboratory in 1992 and was shown to be responsible for the formation and maintenance of almost all cilia and flagella. Analysis of the genes underlying the IFT process have led to new insights into the role of cilia and flagella in polycystic kidney disease and other human diseases.

Brian Smith

Brian R. Smith, M.D., professor and chair of laboratory medicine, has been elected president of the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists, the major academic society for laboratory medicine.

Edward L. Snyder, M.D., professor and associate chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, has been voted president-elect of the National Marrow Donor Program. He will begin his two-year term in January.

Scott A. Strobel, Ph.D., professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, has been awarded the Schering-Plough Research Institute Award. The award is given by the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to recognize outstanding scientific contributions made by young researchers early in their careers. Strobel gave the award lecture, “Three Views of RNA Catalysis: Ribozymes, Ribosomes and Riboswitches,” at the society’s annual meeting in San Diego in April.

Ronald Vender

Ronald J. Vender, M.D., ’77, HS ’80, FW ’82, a nationally recognized gastroenterologist who specializes in therapeutic endoscopy and inflammatory bowel disease, started on June 1 as chief medical officer (CMO) for Yale Medical Group (YMG) and associate dean for clinical affairs at the School of Medicine. He reports to David J. Leffell, M.D., chief executive officer of YMG and deputy dean for clinical affairs. Vender, a clinical professor of medicine, built a clinical practice in the New Haven area and has held leadership and teaching roles at Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Hospital of Saint Raphael and Milford Hospital. He chaired the National Affairs Committee of the American College of Gastroenterology and currently serves on the board of trustees. He has published numerous research papers with colleagues on the Yale faculty. One of the appeals of his new position is the chance to return to his alma mater and work with colleagues he’s known since he was a student. “There are a number of people with whom I was a resident who are on the faculty. Some of my teachers and mentors are still here,” Vender says. “I am being very warmly and generously received by my colleagues and former mentors. I feel that I am coming back to a place I never left.”