BIDMC Awards and Honors: Third Quarter 2018

Awards and Honors highlights some of the recent accomplishments of the BIDMC community.

Gregory R. Ciottone, MD, FACEP, FFSEM, Director of the Division of Disaster Medicine recently joined Team Rubicon Global as Medical Director. The mission of Team Rubicon Global is to provide veterans around the world with opportunities to serve others in the wake of disasters. Team Rubicon Global launches and supports independent disaster response veteran service organizations, each referred to as Team Rubicon, located in select countries around the world. In his role, Dr. Ciottone will help develop medical capabilities in the Team Rubicon Global network and advise senior leadership on these topics. He also recently received the Disaster Medical Sciences Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians. This award recognizes leaders who have made significant contributions to the field. 

Eliot Chaikof, MD, PhD, and Richard D. Cummings, PhD, have been awarded funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to support a career development program at Harvard Medical School. The Harvard Program in Translational Glycobiology Career Development (Harvard ProTG) will focus on career development of the next generation of biomedical investigators in glycosciences – the study of complex carbohydrate molecules and their roles in human development and health. Chaikoff and Cummings will serve as co-directors of the Harvard ProTG program.

Stephen K. Epstein, MD, MPP, FACEP, Department of Emergency Medicine, was elected to the American Medical Association’s Council on Medical Service for a four-year term. The Council studies and evaluates the social and economic aspects of medical care and recommends policies on these issues to the AMA House of Delegates related to the socioeconomic factors that influence the practice of medicine.

Michael D. Fox, MD, PhD, Department of Neurology, has been selected as one of three finalists of the inaugural Trailblazer Prize for Clinician-Scientists by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). The Trailblazer Prize recognizes early-career clinician-scientists whose research contributes to innovations in patient care. Dr. Fox was recognized for his pioneering work mapping human brain connectivity. Leveraging brain connectivity information (housed in a database called the Human Connectome), Fox and colleagues can determine the brain regions connected to brain lesions – areas of the brain that appear abnormal in brain imaging tests.

Sharon Inouye, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, was named an Honorary Fellow by the American Academy of Nursing. The Academy is comprised of nurse leaders in different fields, and the Honorary Fellow designation recognizes the contributions of noteworthy professionals from outside of the nursing profession. Dr. Inouye’s work is focused on improving the quality, safety, and outcomes of hospitalization for older adults. Through her work, she has developed a proven method for reducing delirium and functional decline in hospitalized older persons, the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP).

Stephanie Jones, MD, Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, was recently accepted into The Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Fellowship Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine. The one-year program features sixty fellows from 53 institutions around the world. Participants are nominated by the dean or other senior official of her institution.

Barbara B. Kahn, MD, Department of Medicine, was awarded the 2019 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Excellence in Science Award. The award recognizes women whose outstanding career biological science have contributed significantly to the understanding of a particular discipline through scientific achievements, training of students and postdoctoral fellows, and contributions to the broader scientific community. Dr. Kahn’s research has focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes and the link between obesity and diabetes. FASEB is the nation’s largest coalition of biological and biomedical researchers, representing 30 scientific societies and over 130,000 researchers world-wide.

Lev T. Perelman, PhD, Director of the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging and Photonics, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, and a member of BIDMC's Division of Gastroenterology, has received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Award. The $2M award supports “potentially transformative ideas that represent an opportunity for a significant shift in fundamental engineering knowledge with strong potential for long term impact on national needs or a grand challenge.” Dr. Perelman and his team are being recognized and funded for their work developing the light activatable CRISPR system capable of dynamic control of gene activation in space and time, which could be used for developing effective cancer therapies or serve as a non-invasive fiber-free optogenetic tool.

Daniel R. Ram, PhD, and Emily Rosenberg, MD, were the BIDMC recipients of the 2018 Dean’s Community Service Award at Harvard Medical School. The Dean’s Community Service Award, established in 1999, recognizes individuals whose dedication and commitment to community service have made a positive impact on the local, national, or international community.

Joshua Russo, MD, PhD, was awarded a 2018 Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) Young Investigator Award. The award recognizes 29 promising early career scientists dedicated to advancing critical research in developing better early detection methods, improving life-saving treatments and finding a cure for prostate cancer. The award – which granted a total of $6 million in 2018 – provides financial support and a comprehensive career development program to early career scientists with unique approaches and groundbreaking ideas to drive the research needed to defeat prostate cancer.