Awards & Recognitions: January 2015

Roland Baron, head of the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine and HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, has begun his term as the president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), the world’s leading scientific organization for bone health research. Baron’s term as president of ASBMR runs through October 2015.

Baron’s current research focuses on osteoclast and osteoblast biology, the transcriptional regulation of cell lineage determination and the regulation of bone homeostasis.

Baron is the founder and past editor-in-chief of Bone, a leading journal in the field.


Shalender Bhasin, Robert Neer, Anne Klibanski and Douglas Ross have been selected as recipients of the Endocrine Society’s 2015 Laureate Awards.

The awards recognize the highest achievements in the field of endocrinology, including groundbreaking research and innovations in clinical care. The Endocrine Society will present $101,000 in awards to 14 winners at ENDO 2015, the Society’s 97th Annual Meeting and Expo in San Diego, March 5-8.

  • Shalender BhasinOutstanding Clinical Investigator Award. This annual award honors an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has contributed significantly to understanding of the pathogenesis, pathophysiology and therapy of endocrine diseases. Bhasin’s pioneering investigations of androgen hormones such as testosterone have been notable for their bold study design, innovation and enduring impact in bringing resolution to controversial issues in reproductive endocrinology. His landmark study demonstrated conclusively that testosterone increases muscle mass and strength in healthy men with normal levels of the hormone and that the hormone’s anabolic effects are augmented by resistance exercise. He is HMS professor of medicine, director of the Research Program in Men’s Health: Aging and Metabolism and director of the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, all at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
  • Robert NeerGerald D. Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational Research. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to research that accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical applications. Neer played a critical role in the work that led to the successful introduction of parathyroid hormone therapy for osteoporosis. With his colleagues, he was the first to test synthetic PTH 1-34 in clinical medicine. He also served as a pioneer in the development of standardization and precision criteria for the quantitative computed tomography (QCT) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) bone density tests. Neer is HMS associate professor of medicine and director of the Bone Density Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • Anne KlibanskiOutstanding Mentor Award. This annual award recognizes a career commitment to mentoring and a significant positive impact on mentees’ education and career. Klibanski, the HMS Laurie Carrol Guthart Professor of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, has mentored more than 50 trainees, many whom have gone on to leadership roles at Harvard and other top institutions. The first woman promoted to full professor of medicine at Harvard from Mass General, Klibanski recognizes the barriers women face for career advancement. In her role as director of the Center for Faculty Development at Mass General, she oversees institutional offices for career development and mentoring for women faculty, researchers and clinicians. Klibanski is chief of the neuroendocrine unit and director of the Neuroendocrine and Pituitary Tumor Clinical Center at Mass General and chief academic officer at Partners HealthCare.
  • Douglas RossOutstanding Scholarly Physician Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to the practice of clinical endocrinology in academic settings. Ross participated in the initial multicenter trials validating the diagnostic use of human recombinant TSH for the assessment of thyroid cancer. He has been an active participant in the National Thyroid Cancer Treatment Co-operative Study Group and was lead author on their publication regarding micropapillary thyroid cancers. Ross has served three terms on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism and currently serves on the editorial board of Thyroid. Ross is an HMS professor of medicine and co-director of the Thyroid Associates practice at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The Endocrine Society has elected new officers and council members to lead the organization. The following HMS faculty are among the new members:

  • Henry M. Kronenberg was elected president-elect and will serve as president-elect in 2015-2016 and then as president in 2016-2017. Kronenberg is HMS professor of medicine and chief of the endocrine unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  • Beverly M.K. Biller was elected council member at-large and will serve a three-year term. Biller is HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The new officers and council members will begin serving their terms in March.


David A. WilliamsDavid A. Williams, the Leland Fikes Professor of Pediatrics, was recently inducted as president of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). With a membership of more than 15,000 clinicians and scientists, ASH is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists committed to the study and treatment of blood and blood-related diseases. Williams, a leader of Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, is chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital and associate chairman of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Williams is also director of Translational Research Program at Boston Children’s and director of Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Training Program. His research focuses on the biology of hematapoetic stem cells, and he co-founded the Transatlantic Gene Therapy Consortium and the North American Aplastic Anemia Consortium.


Two HMS students have been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2015. Selected by experts in their field, this year’s list spotlights rising stars under the age of 30 in 20 categories.

  • Eran Hodis, 29, Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program student, was named to the Forbes list in science for discovering genetic mutations that show how cancer cells increase the production of the enzyme telomerase, which make the cells impervious to death. The findings are far-reaching, as these mutations in the genomes of melanoma are among the most common in cancer cells.
  • Alex Bick, 26, Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program student, was recognized in the Forbes list for health care for computer analysis of scientific and medical big data. His research, which includes showing how genetic mutations influence people’s response to blood pressure drugs, is widely cited.