CUIMC Update - November 15, 2023

November 15, 2023

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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

CUIMC Holds Second Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Summit
CUIMC held its second Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Summit on Nov. 2, bringing together the university community to engage with pressing topics related to diversity and inclusion through presentations, panel discussions, and workshops.

CUIMC Celebrates Fall with Free Soup and Squash
The CUIMC community enjoyed live music, warm soup, and winter squash at the Annual Fall Festival. Festival attendees also donated to the Helping Hands Annual Food Drive, ongoing through Nov. 21.

ICAP Celebrates 20 Years of Advancing Global Health
Founded in 2003 as a global health center situated in the Mailman School of Public Health, ICAP today works in 40 countries, designing and implementing 180 innovative projects designed to strengthen health systems, increase access to health services, and enhance capacity to respond to health threats.

Columbia Doctors Offer Advice on Staying Healthy This Holiday Season
While no one can guarantee a sickness-free season, Columbia physicians shared their tips to stay healthy and give you the best chance possible against cold, flu, COVID, and more throughout the holidays.

Resources to Celebrate Trans Identity and Navigate Challenging Times
This Transgender Awareness Week, Columbia Psychiatry has put together free or low-cost self-care practices and resources for individuals impacted by anti-transgender discrimination, prejudices, and violence.

Last Chance! Share Your Thanksgiving Traditions
Share what you love about Thanksgiving! The CUIMC Office of Communications would like to hear about Thanksgiving traditions in your family and your favorite Thanksgiving dishes and recipes, to be shared in the CUIMC newsroom. 

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Kiros Berhane, PhD, Biostatistics
    $281,439 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "Neighborhood characteristics and neurodevelopment: Risk and protective factors, and susceptibility to stressors and school disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic."

School of Nursing

  • Jacquelyn Taylor, PhD
    $1,408,790 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute on Aging for "The Impact of a Race Based Stress Reduction Intervention on Well-Being, Inflammation, and DNA methylation in Older African American Women at Risk for Cardiometabolic Disease."

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

  • Domenico Accili, MD, Medicine
    $7,402,545 over four years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for "Columbia Diabetes Research Center."
  • Giovanni Ferrari, PhD, Surgery
    $2,118,086 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for "Mechanisms of accelerated calcification and structural degeneration of implantable biomaterial in pediatric cardiac surgery."
  • David Fidock, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology
    $1,293,841 over five years for a subaward from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for "Defining the resistome in P. falciparum: evolution and mechanism."
  • Ikjae Lee, MD, Neurology
    $967,680 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Metabolic Alteration in Presymptomatic and Symptomatic ALS Study (MAPS ALS Study)."
  • Edward Owusu-Ansah, PhD, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics
    $1,770,013 over four years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for "Regulation of OXPHOS Assembly in Skeletal Muscles."
  • Meghna Trivedi, MD, Medicine
    $472,539 over four years for a subaward from the National Cancer Institute for "Development of an Integrated Risk Prediction Model of Taxane-induced Peripheral Neuropathy."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

A Day of Firsts! 🤝

Today Keith R. from Queens, NY became the first patient at Columbia/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital to undergo a first-of-its-kind ultrasound-based renal denervation (RDN) treatment to lower blood pressure after its approval by the FDA yesterday. Columbia University Irving Medical Center is the first medical center in the country to offer it to patients, and the treatment is the first FDA-approved renal denervation therapy in the U.S.

Pictured here with Keith is Ajay Kirtane, MD, Director of the Columbia Interventional Cardiovascular Care program at #ColumbiaMed, who led studies showing the efficacy of this treatment option, which uses ultrasound energy to calm kidney nerves and is geared towards patients with difficult-to-control hypertension who require options beyond lifestyle modifications and medications.

“It is truly remarkable to witness the approval of this technology that has the potential to help patients with difficult-to-control hypertension who are in need of other options. I want to thank all of the collaborators and the many patients who committed along the years to the careful study of this technology, allowing this day to come to fruition," he said.

Learn more about Dr. Kirtane's research and how the device works: https://lnkd.in/gNq8csrc

In the News Highlights

  • Long a Bipartisan Effort, a Program to Fight Global HIV Is Stuck in Washington Gridlock
    Nov 4, 2023
    USA TODAY
    Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr was visiting a rural village in Tanzania about a decade ago when a farmer thanked her for saving his family. The farmer had received medication for HIV/AIDS, which has devastated impoverished areas in Africa and other countries. El-Sadr’s visit to one of Columbia's ICAP sites came as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a federally funded program that provides prevention, treatment and education for people around the world.
  • New Postpartum Depression Drug Gets Almost $16,000 Price Tag, Raising Questions About Access
    Nov 7, 2023
    CNN Online
    Mental health specialists welcomed the approval of Zurzuvae this summer, not just because it presents a new way to treat postpartum depression but also specifically because it “appears to be fast-acting,” said Dr. Catherine Monk, chief of the Division of Women’s Mental Health in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
  • 8 Ways to Slow Your Biological Aging
    Nov 6, 2023
    NBC News Online
    “By improving heart health we can slow down our bodies’ aging process,” said study author Nour Makarem, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. “Another important message is that what we observed was dose dependent, which means that as heart health goes up, biological aging goes down.”