Awards & Recognition: September 2015

Bradley Bernstein. Image: Maria NemchukBradley Bernstein, HMS professor of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is one of three recipients of the 2015 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, given by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Bernstein, who is also an institute member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, is being honored for his investigations into how the structural organization or packaging of DNA within cells influences gene function. The packaging provides an additional layer of epigenetic regulation that controls cellular differentiation and, when disrupted, contributes to cancer development. His work has important implications for the development of precision therapies that address epigenetic defects in tumors.

The Paul Marks Prize is given every other year to up to three investigators, age 45 or younger, who are making significant contributions to understanding cancer or improving cancer treatments through basic or clinical research.

Bernstein and his co-recipients, Howard Chang of Stanford University and Daniel Durocher of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada, will receive their awards and speak about their research at a scientific symposium on Dec. 3.


Beth StevensBeth Stevens, HMS assistant professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital, has been named a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. She is among 24 individuals honored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for “pushing the boundaries of their fields.”

Fellows receive $625,000 paid out in installments over five years and are not evaluated or required to produce reports or products, making it a no-strings-attached award.

Stevens was selected for revealing that glial cells are key actors in the brain and are responsible for removing, or pruning, synaptic cells during brain development. Her work—at the interface between the nervous and immune systems—is helping transform how neurologic disorders like autism, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia are viewed. Steven’s current investigations are looking at synapse loss—a hallmark of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s—and trying to understand why it occurs.


Two fourth-year HMS students, Diana Wohler and Sara Martin, were selected to participate in the 2015 Pisacano Scholars Leadership Program. This is the first time in fifteen years two students from the same institution have received this award.

Diana WohlerDiana Wohler is a fourth-year medical student at HMS and has a passion for primary care. She serves as a leader in the Family Medicine Interest Group, the director of Patient Education at Crimson Care Collaborative’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center site and the senior director at Crimson Care Collaborative Cambridge Health Alliance site, which she co-founded as Harvard’s first student-run family medicine clinic after her third year at HMS.

Last year, Wohler served as the family medicine committee chair on the student leadership committee of the HMS Center for Primary Care.

Wohler said, “The Center for Primary Care at HMS was a huge draw for me to attend [HMS] in the first place, and the opportunities, resources and support I received to pursue family medicine and advocacy for family-medicine education were inspiring.”

Currently, Wohler works as a co-leader of the student leadership committee, overseeing the leadership development of 21 medical and dental students. In the future, Wohler said she hopes “to create high-quality, team-based, interprofessional education in primary care and family medicine.”

Sara MartinSara Martin, a fourth-year medical student at HMS was awarded the Linnane Scholarship for Leadership and was named a Primary Care Master’s Scholar. After her first year at HMS, Martin traveled to Zimbabwe on behalf of Partners in Health to test the organization’s program management guide. In her third year, Martin was granted the prestigious Dean’s Community Service Award.

Throughout her time at HMS, Martin has been involved with Primary Health Care International, helping write grants and creating a leadership program for students interested in global health. She has also served as a co-leader of Harvard’s Family Medicine Interest Group and as a program manager for the Starr Center, which is an affiliate of Cambridge Health Alliance.

Martin was also a member of the student leadership committee at the HMS Center for Primary Care, which she credits for inspiring her to pursue family medicine.

“The Center for Primary Care was absolutely instrumental in developing my interest in family medicine. They have provided me with leadership development and numerous opportunities to put my passions into action,” Martin said.

In her future practice, Martin said she hopes “to be an active participant in health policy and clinical family medicine or to be a part of a project that is working towards equal access to high quality care.”

Founded by the American Board of Family Practice in 1991, the Pisacano Leadership Foundation recognizes individuals who demonstrate excellence and leadership in the family medicine field. The Pisacano Award is only given to five to eight students each year, and Wohler and Martin are now included in a cohort of 25 current Pisacano Leadership Scholars across the nation.


David Boas. Image: SPIE, the international society for optics and photonicsBrain researcher David Boas, HMS professor of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been named as the recipient of the 2016 Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award from SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. He will be presented with the award at the SPIE Photonics West conference in February.

Boas is director of the Optics Division of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Mass General and editor-in-chief of the journal Neurophotonics.

Boas’ contributions have had a significant impact on the development and application of optical spectroscopic and correlation methods to measure oxygen and blood flow, respectively. In a citation, the awards committee commended Boas for developing novel high-impact biomedical optical technologies, following through with application studies and fostering the widespread adoption of these technologies.

His expertise in utilizing microscopic measurements of brain activity to form a microscopic model of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has proved to have predictive power and will help improve the quantitative interpretation of measurements of human brain activity and physiology, the awards committee noted.

The Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award is presented annually by SPIE in recognition of outstanding lifetime contributions to the field of biomedical optics through the development of innovative high-impact technologies.


Stephen Elledge. Image: Emmanuel OrdingStephen J. Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at HMS, and professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is a co-recipient, with Evelyn Witkin of Rutgers University, of the 2015 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.

The award, widely considered to be among the most respected in biomedicine, will be presented on Friday, Sept. 18, in New York City.

Elledge and Witkin are being honored for their seminal discoveries that have illuminated the DNA damage response, a cellular pathway that senses when DNA is altered and sets in a motion a series of responses to protect the cell. This pathway is critical to a better understanding of many diseases and conditions, such as cancer.


Michael MorleyMichael Morley, HMS assistant professor of ophthalmology at Mass. Eye and Ear, was selected for the Fulbright Specialist Program. He will collaborate with doctors at Khon Kaen University medical school on a project to improve the quality and availability of eye care in Thailand.

The Fulbright Specialist Program was created to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program and provides short-term academic opportunities (two to six weeks) to U.S. faculty and professionals in support of curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post-secondary academic institutions around the world.