CUIMC Update - December 18, 2024

CUIMC Update is a weekly e-newsletter featuring medical center news and the accomplishments of our faculty, staff, and trainees. Please send your news, honors, and awards to cuimc_update@cumc.columbia.edu. Grants are provided by the Sponsored Projects Administration office.

News

Student-Run Free Clinic Celebrates Major Milestone
As Columbia Student Medical Outreach (CoSMO) celebrates its 20th anniversary, learn how the student-run clinics at VP&S help expand health care access in Washington Heights.

Gingerbread House Competition Returns at Holiday Tea Party
CUIMC celebrated the holiday season with a lighting ceremony on Haven Plaza, a Dreidels and Donuts event, and a tea party that included the return of the gingerbread house competition.

Faculty Club Hosts First Community Hour
The Faculty Club hosted their first Community Hour, designed to create an opportunity for colleagues to connect in a casual environment and build a sense of belonging among employees.

Avoid These Common Holiday Health Emergencies
For many people, the holidays are the most wonderful time of the year, but for an emergency room doctor, the holidays can be filled with hazards. Emergency medicine specialist Adam Blumenberg shares tips for avoiding a trip to the ER this season.

Developing New Treatments for Smell Loss
People who lose their sense of smell have far fewer treatment options than those who have lost other senses, like hearing or vision. But Columbia experts like Jonathan Overdevest, an expert in rhinology and minimally invasive skull base surgery, are developing new therapies and resources.

Events

Richard Deckelbaum Celebration of Life Service
Jan. 9, 4 p.m., Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series in the Basic Sciences: Hashim Al-Hashimi, PhD
Jan. 28, 4:30 p.m., Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series in the Humanities: “Branches and Roots: The Historical Roots of Health Disparities Research” with Samuel K. Roberts, PhD
Feb. 4, 4:30 p.m., Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series in the Clinical Sciences: “Unraveling the Mechanisms of Fight or Flight: How the Heart Responds to Adrenergic Signals” with Steven O. Marx, MD
March 27, 4:30 p.m., Black Building, 650 W. 168 St., Alumni Auditorium

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

• Melissa DuPont, Sociomedical Sciences
  $898,400 over five years from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Implementation of mental illness anti-stigma research evidence in the school system to promote help-seeking using a pilot hybrid type III trial with adaptive randomization and digital dissemination."
• Christopher Morrison, Epidemiology
  $347,972 over two years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "Individuals’ Longitudinal Risks for Firearm Violence Perpetration and Victimization."
• Yuanjia Wang and R. Todd Ogden, Biostatistics
  $997,596 over five years from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Research Training Program in Mental Health Biostatistics and Data Science."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

• Ottavio Arancio, Taub Institute
  $271,290 over three years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "A new perspective on the role of extracellular vesicles in Alzheimer’s disease."
• Philip De Jager, Neurology
  $1,572,761 over one year from the National Institute on Aging for "Discovery and validation of genetic variants affecting microglial activation in Alzheimer's disease."
• Gamze Gursoy, Biomedical Informatics
  $1,432,448 over four years from the National Library of Medicine for "Federated learning algorithms to overcome statistical and algorithmic bias and privacy concerns in machine learning for health."
• Nancy Kerner, Psychiatry
  $382,050 over five years from the New York State Office of Mental Health for "Creedmoor Psychiatric Center Residency Training Program."
• Nathalie Moise, Medicine
  $3,294,955 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Harnessing digital health and equity informed multi-level implementation strategies to promote uptake of depression treatment in cancer settings: iCan DepCare."
• Matteo Porotto, Pediatrics
  $883,864 over one year from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Thermostable measles fusion glycoprotein as a new vaccine strategy."
• Sandra Ryeom, Surgery
  $2,670,105 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Preventing Fatal Infections in Children with Down Syndrome During Treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia."
• Alexander Sobolevsky, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
  $2,918,594 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Structure and function of ionotropic glutamate receptors."
• Elaine Wan, Angelo Biviano, and Elisa Konofagou, Medicine
  $3,497,785 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Precision imaging of electromechanical coupling for non-invasive cardiac arrhythmia mapping."
• Dian Yang, Molecular Pharmacology & Therapeutics
  $582,876 over three years from the National Cancer Institute for "Investigating the cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms governing lung cancer cell plasticity."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

• James M. Noble, Neurology, is an editor of a new textbook, Merritt’s Neurology Review, a study guide for Merritt's Neurology with more than 750 case-based questions and answers. All five editors of the Review were trained at VP&S.

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia University Irving Medical CenterColumbia University Irving Medical Center

Congratulations to Deputy Chief of Columbia Cardiology, Dr. Shunichi Nick Homma, for being awarded the prestigious "Order of the Sacred Treasure Gold Rays, with Neck Ribbon" by the Japanese Government! 👏

This recognition highlights Dr. Homma’s outstanding contributions to the Japanese and Japanese-American communities through his leadership roles as President of JAMSNET, President of the Japanese American Association of New York, and former President of the Japanese Medical Society of America.

In the News Highlights

• How to Make Sense of the Fluoride Debate
  Dec 12, 2024
  The New York Times
  Naturally occurring fluoride seems almost entirely to blame for these especially high levels. It can end up in water systems through runoff from rocks and soil, said Anne Nigra, an environmental health scientist who studies U.S. drinking water at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and who was a co-author of that study.
• Columbia Doctors to Develop Implantable Weight Loss Device with Federal Grant
  Dec 13, 2024
  Crain's New York Business
  The aim of the Columbia researchers is to create a more controlled dosage of the hormone-derived drug that can be administered automatically by an internal device implanted in the arm under the skin, explained Dr. Ken Shepard, professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia and the leader of the project.
  The novel process more closely mimics the biological response to feeding than injecting a long-acting agent, said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, chief of pediatric molecular genetics and one of the leaders of the project. “The closer you can mimic normal physiology in addressing a medical problem in a patient, the better off you are, generally,” Leibel said.
• Concern Grows Over Whether Bird Flu Could Lead to a Pandemic: What to Know
  Dec 6, 2024
  TODAY
  Consumers don’t realize the raw milk they buy is not from a single cow, but pooled from many cows, says Dr. Ian Lipkin, an expert on emerging viral threats. “If one cow in that group has H5N1, then it gets distributed to many, many more people,” Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, tells TODAY.com. “It’s not a good situation.”