CUIMC Update - September 13, 2023

September 13, 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 tocuimc_update@cumc.columbia.edu. Grants are provided by the Sponsored Projects Administration office.

News

ICYMI: Watch the CUIMC Open Forum
In case you missed the CUIMC Open Forum this week, watch the recording to hear from CUIMC leaders and learn about campus initiatives including Care for the Caregivers, a School of Nursing initiative, and Mailman research focused on exposomics.

Mailman Dean Linda P. Fried Receives Legion of Honor
Linda P. Fried, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health, received the Legion of Honor, France’s highest order of merit, recognizing her positive impact in France and globally through her scientific advances on aging and public health leadership.

Program Provides Mental Health Care to NYC School Children and Teachers
Aiyana Rivera-Rodriguez, MD, medical director of the School-Based Mental Health Program at NYP/CUIMC, shares how this innovative program works with schools to provide comprehensive support for students, caregivers, and teachers.

New Drug Shows Promise in Preventing Cartilage Loss from Osteoarthritis
People with osteoarthritis currently have only two treatment options: pain management and joint surgery.Mildred Embree, DMD, PhD, College of Dental Medicine, has developed a drug that targets the disease in early-to mid-stages, which she hopes to soon test in clinical trials.

Columbia Researchers Discover How COVID Mutates to Escape Paxlovid
Paxlovid is still a highly effective treatment for most people with COVID, helping to prevent many hospitalizations and deaths. But for those who are immunocompromised and whose infections persist for months, the antiviral drug can lose its effectiveness as the virus mutates.

Events

Grants

Mailman School of Public Health

  • Daniel Giovenco, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences
    $2,912,828 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Assessing the impact, equity, and mechanisms of a novel policy intervention to reduce tobacco retailer density in communities."

Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons

  • Randy Auerbach, PhD, Psychiatry
    $876,029 over four years for a subaward from the National Institute of Mental Health for "Development and testing of a digitally assisted risk reduction platform for youth at high risk for suicide."
  • Guy Garty, PhD, Center for Radiological Research
    $351,542 over two years for a subaward from the Department of Energy for "Development of high current highly charged laser ion source."
  • Stavros Thomopoulos, PhD, Orthopedic Surgery
    $2,518,043 over five years from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for "Formation of a functional tendon enthesis during development and healing."
  • Gao Wang, PhD, Sergievsky Center
    $2,653,647 over four years from the National Institute on Aging for "Multiomics data integration methods to discover putative causal variants, genes and patient heterogeneity for Alzheimer's disease."
  • Hee Won Yang, PhD、病理学和细胞生物学
    $792,000 over three years from the American Cancer Society for "Therapeutic Resistance to BRAF/MEK inhibitors in BRAF-mutant Melanoma."

Honors

Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons

Social Media Snapshot

Columbia Medicine on Instagram: "Research conducted by Columbia Mailman School of Public Health is among the first studies to report biomarker metal levels among #marijuana users, and most likely the largest study to date that links self-reported marijuan

In the News Highlights

Experts Share Tips to Help Kids Return to School
Sept. 4, 2023
GMA(video)
ABC News’ Becky Worley joinsDr. Edith Bracho-Sanchezand Maya Feller to share tips on how to prepare kids mentally and physically for the return to school.

The One Thing that Child Therapists Say Harms Kids' Happiness the Most
Sept. 7, 2023
HuffPost
Jennifer Cruz, a child psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, explained to HuffPost: “Shielding children from stress and tough emotions may keep them from developing resilience and make future challenges tougher.”

U.S. Lab Tests Suggest New Covid-19 Variant BA.2.86 May Be Less Contagious and Less Immune-Evasive than Feared
Sept. 4, 2023
CNN Online
At the other lab,Dr. David Ho, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, and his team used blood plasma from 61 adults: 17 who had gotten three monovalent vaccine doses and two bivalent vaccines, 25 who had recovered from a BA.2 breakthrough infection and 19 who’d recovered from an XBB breakthrough infection. His results were substantially similar to Barouch’s.