CUIMC Update - January 15, 2025

January 15, 2025

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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

A Healer at the Helm
Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, who is also CEO of CUIMC, sat down with University Trustees co-chair David Greenwald for a conversation about Columbia’s future at the Columbia Alumni Leaders Experience luncheon.

Columbia Students Mentor Kids Through Sports
A VP&S student-led initiative called Pick Up Sports and Health (PUSH) combines sports and science lessons to motivate community youth to pursue health-oriented careers and promote health equity.

Understanding Alcohol and Cancer Risk
The U.S. Surgeon General has recommended adding the risk of cancer to warning labels on alcoholic beverages. Columbia cancer and nutrition epidemiologist Jeanine Genkinger explains how alcohol changes the body, how it impacts your risk of cancer, and how to reduce your risk.

Mailman Study Finds Slowing of Age-Related Decline in Older Adults
Older adults in England have experienced significant improvements in health compared to previous generations, researchers at Columbia's Robert N. Butler Aging Center have found.

The Health Effects of Wildfire Smoke—and How to Reduce Your Risk
Wildfires are increasingly becoming a fact of life and they pose a significant public health threat. Wildfire smoke contains acids, toxic chemicals, metals, and harmful particulate matter. Columbia pulmonologist Aliva De explains the health risks of wildfire smoke, who is most vulnerable, and how to reduce your exposure.

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Wafaa El-Sadr, ICAP
    $1,969,401 over three years for a subaward from Gilead Sciences for "HPTN 103/Purpose 4."
  • Jeremy Kane, Epidemiology
    $258,058 over two years for a subaward from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for "Substance Use Prevention for Recently displaced Adults (SUPRA)."
  • John Santelli, Population & Family Health
    $523,890 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Improving understanding of Capacity to consent to sensitive biomedical HIV prevention Research among adolescents in Rakai Uganda (ICARE)."

School of Nursing

  • Rebecca Schnall and Dustin Duncan
    $7,420,722 over three years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Limited Interaction Efficacy Trial of MyPEEPS Mobile to Reduce HIV Incidence in Young Men who Have Sex with Men and Use of Targeted Geospatial Epidemiology (MyPEEPS Mobile-LITE)."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Hulya Bayir, Pediatrics: $1,000,000 over four years from the Empire State Development Corporation for "Columbia Life Sciences NYFirst Recruitment of Dr. Hülya Bayr."
  • Joshua Cook, Medicine: $578,016 over three years for a subaward from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Diabetes-Docs: Physician-Scientist Career Development Program (DiabDocs)."
  • Qing Fan and Jonathan Javitch, Molecular Pharmacology & Therapeutics: $452,375 over two years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "Pleiotropic pathways of extracellular calcium sensing."
  • Syed Hussaini, Taub Institute: $452,375 over two years from the National Institute on Aging for "Assessing Neuronal Vulnerability in the Entorhinal Cortex due to Alzheimer's Disease Pathology."
  • Rachel Luba, Psychiatry: $901,775 over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for "A Randomized Controlled Trial Examining Extended-Release Injectable Buprenorphine in those who use High Potency Synthetic Opioids."
  • Marykathryn Pavol, Neurology: $485,826 over two years from the National Institute of Nursing Research for "Patient activation, cognition, and self-management for LVADs."
  • Matthias Quick, Psychiatry: $3,089,024 over five years from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Functional Dynamics of Neurotransmitter: Sodium Symporters (NSSs)."
  • Juan Schvartzman, HICCC: $2,056,250 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Effects of polyamines on chromatin function."
  • Emmanouil Tsamis, Ophthalmology: $496,414 over two years from the National Eye Institute for "Development, validation and assessment of an automated, topographic structure-function approach to the detection of glaucoma and its progression."
  • Emmanuel Zorn, Medicine: $642,056 over one year from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Functional significance of plasma cell infiltrates of human cardiac allograft vasculopathy."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia Surgery | As catastrophic fires rage across California, we stand in awe of the courage and dedication of firefighters. Noah Landguth and Joe Lorenz,... | Instagram

In the News Highlights

  • AI Is Already Changing the Ways We Fight Cancer
    Jan 8, 2025
    Popular Science
    A study published today in the journal Nature by researchers at Columbia University described a new medical AI model that they say can accurately predict the activity of genes at the cellular level. In theory, this level of granularity could open up new paths for researchers to understand the gene mutations that cause cancers to occur in the first place. “Having the ability to accurately predict a cell’s activities would transform our understanding of fundamental biological processes,” paper senior author and Columbia professor Raul Rabadan said in a statement. “It would turn biology from a science that describes seemingly random processes into one that can predict the underlying systems that govern cell behavior.”
  • 24, and Trying to Outrun Schizophrenia
    Dec 30, 2024
    The New York Times
    Dr. Lisa Dixon, who has directed New York’s OnTrack program since its inception, agreed that discharging participants into the broader health care system can be rocky because, as she put it, “it’s so hard to get services.” Often, she said, patients return to report that they cannot even find a psychiatrist. But two years, Dr. Dixon said, may be enough to provide people with a “great start to their life.” As that period ends, she added, “we want to be minimizing the resources needed and the dependence on professional care,” seeking the lowest level of services that the person needs.
    Lisa Dixon is the Edna L. Edison Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
  • Being Told to 'Calm Down,' Other Microaggressions May Raise Risk for Postpartum Hypertension
    Jan 10, 2025
    HealthDay News
    The words “calm down” are worse than unhelpful—they actually can increase blood pressure among new mothers of color, a study has found. “It is well-known that Black, Hispanic and South Asian women experience microaggressions during health care. It is not as well known whether these microaggressions may have an association with higher blood pressure,” lead researcher Teresa Janevic, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, said in a news release from the college.