The National Multiple Sclerosis Society granted the 2014 Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research to Philip Laurence De Jager, associate professor of neurology at HMS and neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Multiple sclerosis is a disabling disease of the central nervous system, for which there is no cure. It blocks communication between the brain and the body, causing numbness, tingling, blindness, or paralysis, among other symptoms.
The Barancik Prize seeks to encourage innovation and originality of research regarding MS, with a special focus on projects that may lead to finding a cure for the disease. De Jager designed a genetic map of the susceptibility of MS, that is expected to lead to a better understanding of its functioning. His ultimate goal is to be able to develop a personalized way of predicting, treating, and preventing multiple sclerosis.
“We’re thrilled to present the 2014 Barancik Prize to Dr. De Jager for his visionary approach towards understanding the genetic architecture of MS,” said Timothy Coetzee, Chief Advocacy of Services and Research Officer at the National MS Society.
“Overall, I see two compelling and complementary projects,” said De Jager. “First is to understand a person’s trajectory from not having MS to their diagnosis.
"The second project is to gather enough data on a single, large set of MS patients to set the stage for an impactful discovery effort to understand MS-related neurodegeneration."
In addition to his professorial positions, De Jager is an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. He is also the director for basic and translational research at the Institute for the Neurosciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
HMS Professor and Physician of Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital Creagh E. Milford has been awarded the Institute of Medicine Anniversary Fellowship in Osteopathic Medicine.
Fellows will participate actively in the work of an appropriate expert study committee or roundtable, including contributing to its reports or other products. This exposes them to a variety of experts and perspectives, including legislators, government officials, industry leaders, executives of voluntary health organizations, scientists, and other health professionals.
Each Fellow will be assigned to an IOM member who will serve as a senior mentor during the two years of the fellowship. During this time, Fellows are expected to continue their work at their main academic posts, while being assigned to a board of the IOM.
The overall purpose of the IOM Anniversary Fellows Program, created to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Institute’s establishment, is to enable talented, early career health science scholars to participate actively in the work of the IOM and to further their careers as future leaders in the field. The program especially welcomes nominations of under-represented minority candidates.
Boston Children’s Hospital has announced that Catherine Rose from Philips Healthcare is the recipient of this year’s annual Rising Star Award. The award recognizes the outstanding achievements of an up-and-coming innovator in the field of pediatric health care.
Rose will receive $25,000 to advance her product, LightAide, an interactive light product for children with disabilities.
“Dr. Rose could be commended if she had only developed a tool that helped her daughter interact more capably with the world, but she did so much more,” said Sandra L. Fenwick, Boston Children’s president and CEO. “She’s given hope for the future to other disabled populations and stood up for all parents who want to build a better world for their children.”
A vibrant new teaching tool for children with low vision and cognitive disabilities, LightAide began when Rose noticed that LED lighting used in a Philips showroom could capture the attention of her deafblind daughter, Alexis.
Rose suggested developing an interactive light product for children with disabilities. It should be a learning tool that significantly outperformed what schools were currently using, and still be affordable.
“We couldn’t be more proud of Catherine and all she’s accomplished,” said Joseph Frassica, chief medical informatics officer and chief technology officer at Philips Healthcare. “She paired her experience as a mother of a child with special needs with her industry expertise to envision a product that not only embodies Philips’ mission for insight-driven innovation, but that has the potential to make meaningful differences in the lives of thousands of children.”
Boston Children’s Hospital’s Global Pediatric Innovation Summit + Awards 2014 provided an engaging forum to build partnerships, accelerate innovations and help reshape the future of pediatric medicine. The dynamic and comprehensive agenda gathered innovators and thought leaders from across the globe to examine clinical, informatics and business opportunities in pediatric innovation.
David G. Nathan, president emeritus of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and physician-in-chief emeritus of Boston Children’s Hospital, was honored as the inaugural recipient of the Boston Children’s Hospital Lifetime Impact Award at the hospital’s second Annual Global Pediatric Innovation Summit, Taking on Tomorrow.
In addition to his leadership at both Harvard teaching hospitals, Nathan was a pioneer in pediatric hematology and oncology. He has also been a mentor to generations of leading clinicians and physician-scientist researchers.
The Lifetime Impact Award recognizes a clinician and/or researcher who has devoted his or her entire career to accelerating innovation in pediatric medicine. It also provides national and international recognition to an individual who has made extraordinary and sustained leadership contributions throughout his or her career to improve health care in the field of pediatrics.
“With the selection of David Nathan as the inaugural recipient of Boston Children’s Lifetime Impact Award, we have set the bar high for this new honor,” said Boston Children’s President Sandra L. Fenwick. “David is the consummate patient-centered researcher who is not only a giant in the development of the field of pediatric hematology/oncology but also a superb leader and teacher. His legacy lives in the greater excellence he has brought to Boston Children's and Dana-Farber, his scientific discoveries, and the many leaders in clinical medicine and research who call him a mentor.”
In nominating Nathan for the award, David Williams, MD – chief of hematology/oncology at Boston Children’s and associate chairman of pediatric oncology at Dana-Farber – called his mentor a “proverbial ‘triple threat’” who “combined outstanding clinical care, research and teaching leadership, … while he also steered two major academic institutions to greater heights.”
Under Nathan’s leadership, the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s and Dana-Farber developed as the country’s premier program. His own research was instrumental in the creation of the first successful treatment for iron overload in thalassemia patients, prenatal diagnosis of thalassemia and sickle cell disease, and the drug hydroxyurea, now a mainstay for managing the disease’s painful effects for many patients.
“It is difficult to imagine another individual whose impact on the field of pediatrics has been so broad and deep,” Stuart H. Orkin, MD, chairman of pediatric oncology at Dana-Farber and associate chief of hematology/oncology at Boston Children’s, wrote in seconding Nathan’s nomination. “His influence has been felt by those in research laboratories, by those at the bedside, and, most importantly, by the patients to whom he has dedicated a life’s work.”
Nathan is also credited with enhancing the stature of both Boston Children’s and Dana-Farber as research and teaching institutions.
“David Nathan is truly a once-in-a-generation leader in academic medicine and in academic pediatrics,” Benz wrote in supporting Nathan’s nomination. “David has used his devotion to training and career development to populate the field with leaders who amplify his impact nationally and internationally. He has built outstanding faculties in his division, department, hospital and Dana-Farber. He has instilled into those institutions the commitment to the highest quality of scientific rigor, compassionate and competent clinical care, and development of the next generation of leaders.”
HMS and Massachusetts General Hospital physician Kate Treadway received the Trustees Medal, an occasional lifetime achievement award for a doctor who has made a monumental and lasting impact on the institution and its physician community.
“Her name is the MGH synonym for unparalleled primary care. She brings to her extraordinarily fortunate patients an abundance of knowledge and experience tempered by wisdom, humor, and radiant humanity. It takes only a single visit for a patient to see that she wants to understand both the technical and emotional aspects of their illness, and that nothing will stop her from giving to or getting for them the best that medicine has to offer,” said one of Treadway’s nominations for a past award.
“She has always represented the essence of what it means to be a physician – to study and learn and dedicate yourself with passion to the pursuit of making every life you touch be as whole as it can be. She understands the needs of people at every stage of life, and she knows not only how to heal but also how to comfort and bring solace to people who are beyond our ability to heal in a conventional sense,” it said.
Treadway is known for her deep commitment to patient care, being an enduring advocate, and being a conscientious molder of the next generation of physicians dedicated to patient care.
She is a persistent and articulate voice for the sanctity of medical professionalism and the doctor-patient bond. She has also been an inspirational educator in the Introduction to the Profession and Patient-Doctor courses at HMS.
“What is always there beneath everything we do, as the deep steady heart beat of the MGH is the profound commitment to our patients and the recognition that truly great medical care does not rest on treatment of the disease alone but on the care and attention to the person who has the disease. It is such an old notion but one that in the hustle and bustle of our modern medical practice can easily become lost. Etched into the wall on the main corridor of the White Building is the phrase we all know by Francis Weld Peabody: ‘One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient,’” said Treadway in her acceptance speech.
Valerie E. Stone has been appointed Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Mount Auburn’s new Chair of the Department of Medicine.
Stone has been on the HMS faculty since 2001 and has been a Professor since 2011, when she became the first African American full professor in the Department of Medicine at HMS.
Stone comes to Mount Auburn Hospital from Massachusetts General Hospital, where she served as director of the Primary Care Medicine Residency Program and associate chief for teaching and training of the Division of General Internal Medicine. She began her new role at the hospital on May 19.
“Dr. Valerie Stone comes to us with an incredible background of skills and leadership, and we are excited to have her join Mount Auburn Hospital,” said Jeanette Clough, President and CEO of Mount Auburn Hospital. We are confident that that she will bring a continued success and growth to our Department of Medicine and to the hospital as a whole.”
For over a dozen years, Stone held a variety of leadership roles at Mass General and was an active primary care clinician in the hospital’s Internal Medicine Associates and Senior Scientist at the Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation.
Her research focus has been on quality of care for HIV/AIDS and barriers to treatment for HIV, as well as current issues in primary care education.
She has held numerous leadership roles in the Society of General Internal Medicine as well, which in 2012 honored her with their Elnora Rhodes Award for lifetime contributions to SGIM’s mission of promoting patient care, education and research in primary care medicine.
Frederick Bartlett, assistant clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and general and vascular surgeon at Mount Auburn Hospital, has been selected by the surgical residents at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as the 2014 recipient of the John Robotham, M.D. Award for Resident Teaching.
The award is given annually to the faculty member who best exemplifies clinical surgical teaching excellence, and is named for Dr. Robotham, a longtime member of the former Deaconess Department of Surgery, who is renowned for his clinical teaching.
Dr. Bartlett was chosen from a large teaching faculty in the Beth Israel Deaconess Integrated Program in Surgery, including surgeons from Beth Israel Deaconess, Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Brockton Hospital, and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Bartlett completed his Residency in General Surgery at the New England Deaconess Hospital, and his Fellowship in Vascular Surgery at University of California at San Francisco. He is certified in both disciplines by the American Board of Surgery.
The Society for Neuroscience awarded the Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award in Neuroscience to Nicolas X. Tritsch of Harvard Medical School, and Timothy O’Leary of Brandeis University.
The award recognizes two promising young scientists for outstanding research and educational pursuit in an international setting.
“The field of neuroscience draws the best and the brightest from around the world,” said President of The Society for Neuroscience Carol Mason. “It is an honor to recognize Drs. Tritsch and O’Leary, whose research reflects extraordinary skill, intellect, and creativity.”
The Gruber International Research Award will be presented during Neuroscience 2014, The Society’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. It includes $25,000 for each recipient.
Research conducted by French native Tritsch has helped to uncover new information about how neurons communicate. As a postdoctoral fellow at HMS, Tritsch discovered that neurons in the basal ganglia that produce dopamine co-release the neurotransmitter GABA.
Such work may lead to new insights about therapies to treat Parkinson’s disease. It suggests that current therapies, which aim to restore dopamine, may be missing an important factor in the disease.
Gary Ruvkun, Harvard Medical School professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital, was named one of six winners of the 2015 Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences. Each winner, along with winners in Physics and Mathematics, will receive a $3 million prize.
Ruvkun and Victor Ambros, University of Massachusetts Medical School, were each recognized for the discovery of a new world of genetic regulation by microRNAs, a class of tiny RNA molecules that inhibit translation or destabilize complementary mRNA targets. The other winners in the life sciences include C. David Allis, Alim Louis Benabid, Jennifer A. Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier.
The Breakthrough Prizes aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career. Breakthrough Prizes are funded by a grant from Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki's foundation, The Brin Wojcicki Foundation; a grant from Mark Zuckerberg’s fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; a grant from Jack Ma Foundation; and a grant from Milner Foundation.
The awards were presented at an exclusive Gala co-hosted by founders Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Yuri and Julia Milner, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter at NASA's Ames Research Center. Seth MacFarlane hosted The 2nd Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony which also featured Kate Beckinsale, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cameron Diaz, Jon Hamm and Eddie Redmayne as presenters.
“This year’s life sciences laureates have made some spectacular discoveries, from a new kind of gene to a Parkinson’s treatment that has improved the lives of many,” Wojcicki said. “It’s energizing to be in the company of such brilliant and fertile minds.”
"The world faces many fundamental challenges today, and there are many amazing scientists, researchers and engineers helping us solve them,” Zuckerberg said. “This year's Breakthrough Prize winners have made discoveries that will help cure disease and move the world forward. They deserve to be recognized as heroes."
Robin Cook has been selected as the 2014 recipient of the Robert B. Parker award, which recognizes outstanding accomplishment by an author or entity fostering the mystery genre in New England.
Cook is widely credited with introducing medical science to mystery writing to create the medical thriller genre.
During Cook’s 34-year career, 28 of his 33 novels were New York Times bestsellers that have been translated into 40 languages. His 34th book, Host, is scheduled to be released in 2015.
The award was created to honor Robert B. Parker, who wrote the critically acclaimed Spencer detective mysteries as well as the Jessie Stone and Sunny Randall series. He also wrote four westerns.
The Parker award will be presented at the third annual Gala Mystery Night at the New England Mobile Book Fair. About 50 mystery writers, including Cook, will be welcoming the public and signing books.
Jules L. Dienstag, the Carl W. Walter Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, received the 2014 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Distinguished Achievement Award, which represents the Liver Society’s highest honor and recognizes the sustained scientific contributions of an individual to the field of liver disease and the scientific foundations of hepatology.
As a hepatologist, clinical investigator and teacher, Dienstag has devoted his career to the understanding, prevention and management of viral hepatitis.
At Mass General, Dienstag was medical director for liver transplantation; executive director of the Liver-Biliary-Pancreas Center; founder of the Liver Evaluation Clinic; and chairman of the General Clinical Research Center Advisory Committee and its HMS-wide successor, the Clinical Translational Science Center (“Catalyst”) Human Research Center Advisory Committee.
At HMS, Dienstag has served as faculty associate dean for admissions, associate dean for academic and clinical programs and dean for medical education.
Clayton Professor of Oncology and Pathology and director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Bert Vogelstein will be awarded the 2014 Warren Triennial Prize of Massachusetts General Hospital.
The award will be presented at the Warren Triennial Prize Symposium, “The Genetics of Cancer,” on Monday, November 24, at Mass General.
“Dr. Vogelstein is a legend in the field of cancer research who has pioneered some of the fundamental concepts that underlie our understanding of how cancer arises, how it can be detected and how it should be treated with increasingly targeted therapies,” says Daniel A. Haber, director of the Mass General Cancer Center. “The scope of his research contributions is exceptional, as is its impact. Just as significantly, he has trained and mentored generations of young scientists who are now making their own important contributions to the field.”
Vogelstein is the first scientist to determine the molecular basis of a common human cancer. This discovery represents a landmark in the application of molecular biology to the study of human disease.
Vogelstein’s work on colorectal cancers forms the paradigm for much of modern cancer research, with major implications for improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
His team has determined the genetic landscapes of more than a dozen tumor types, and together with their earlier studies, this work has provided the conceptual basis for what is now called “personalized medicine.”
The top scientific award presented by the Mass General and one of the oldest in the world, the Warren Prize honors scientists who have made outstanding contributions in fields related to medicine and includes a cash award of $50,000.
Charles Safran, associate professor of medicine at HMS and chief of the Division of Clinical Informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has received the American College of Medical Informatics' 2014 Morris F. Collen Award in recognition of his commitment to and achievements in medical informatics.
The award is given annually in honor of Morris F. Collen, a pioneer in medical informatics, which concentrates on the use of communications and information technology to advance patient care, teaching and medical research.
Safran is the third BIDMC informatrician to receive the honor, following Warner Slack, MD, and Howard Bleich, MD, who founded of the Division of Clinical Informatics more than 40 years ago. The Division was among the first academic divisions in the world to concentrate on the use of computers for patient care, teaching and medical research.
"I am honored to be following in such footsteps and build upon the solid foundation created by Warner and Howard," said Safran. "The clinical informatics program has always been about the care and well-being of our patients and fellow citizens."
Under Safran's leadership since 2007, the Division works to improve the quality and reduce the cost of medical care; enhance the quality of medical education; improve the relationship between doctor and patient; and explore innovative approaches to research through computing.
"ACMI is proud to honor Charles Safran with the Collen Award," said ACMI Chair Alexa McCray of HMS. "We congratulate Dr. Safran on his accomplishments in improving patient care at Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard's teaching hospitals and thank him for the clinical informatics leadership role he has played both throughout his career and recently during the creation of the CI subspecialty of medicine."
"Dr. Safran has had a profound impact on Beth Israel Deaconess and me personally," added John Halamka, Beth Israel Deaconness’ chief information officer. "I began my career in his lab and first prototyped our Beth Israel Deaconess web-based systems under his mentorship."
Safran chairs the clinical informatics track of the HMS master's program in biomedical informatics and National Library of Medicine informatics fellowship. He graduated cum laude in mathematics from Tufts University, where he also earned a master's degree in mathematical logic and a Doctor of Medicine degree.
JoAnn Manson, the HMS Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, gave the Ancel Keys Memorial Lecture at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2014, an annual event that showcases important research in cardiology and related fields.
Manson’s lecture was titled “Controversies in Primary Prevention: Aspirin, Estrogen and Vitamin D Supplementation.”
The Ancel Keys Memorial Lecture was created by the Council of Epidemiology and Prevention to honor Dr. Ancel Keys, a founding member of the council. Keys’ work included the study of cardiovascular diseases and their correlates, causes and prevention in the United States and abroad.
