HICCC Honors (Spring 2020)
Congratulations to our HICCC members who have recently received major research grants, earned prestigious honors, been elected to honorary societies, or taken leadership positions in professional organizations.
Major Grants
Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, will receive $277,395 over two years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a subaward of “Using EV-MicroRNAs to Identify a Non-Invasive Biomarker of Uterine Fibroid Outcomes.”
Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, Pediatrics, will receive $271,000 over one year from Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy for a subaward of “Screen Newborns in New York State for DMD.”
Piero Dalerba, MD, Pathology & Cell Biology, will receive $359,899 over one year from the New York State Department of Health for “A Novel Biomarker to Improve Risk-Prediction in Familial Breast Cancer Patients.” Dr. Dalerba also will receive $1,902,076 over five years from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for “Dissecting Cell Composition and Drug Sensitivity in Human Adenoid Cystic Carcinomas (ACCs)” and $809,999 over three years from the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for “Biodegradable Cationic Nanoparticles as a Push Chemo-Drug Carrier and a Pull CFDNA Scavenger Against Breast Cancer Metastasis.”
Charles Drake, MD, PhD, Medicine, will receive $1,000,000 over two years from the Prostate Cancer Foundation for “Maximizing Androgen Deprivation Immunogenicity with PD-1 and IL-8 Blockade in Lethal Prostate Cancer.”
Donna Farber, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology, will receive $328,123 over two years from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust for “The Role of Gamma-Delta T Cells in Human Early Life Immunity.”
Joji Fujisaki, MD, PhD, Pediatrics, will receive $1,826,568 over four years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Roles and Therapeutic Potential of CD150high Niche-Associated Regulatory T Cells in Bone Marrow Injury and Engraftment.”
Wei Gu, PhD, Institute for Cancer Genetics, will receive $1,923,750 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Regulation of p53 Acetylation and Deacetylation in Tumorigenesis.”
Gregg Gundersen, PhD, and Howard Worman, MD, Pathology & Cell Biology, will receive $2,121,437 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for “Nucleoskeleton-Cytoskeleton Connections and Cell Polarity in Aging.” Dr. Gundersen also will receive $1,296,000 over four years from National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Integrin Recycling and Adhesion Formation in Cell Migration.”
Dawn Hershman, MD, Medicine, will receive $1,396,752 over six years from the National Cancer Institute for a subaward of “SWOG NCORP Research Base” and $250,000 over one year from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for “Interventions to Reduce Therapy Related Adverse Effects.”
Jianhua Hu, PhD, Medicine, will receive $2,025,813 over five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for “Novel Analysis of Association between Microbiome and Treatment Infection in AML.”
Chin Hur, MD, Medicine, will receive $354,411 over five years from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for a subaward of “Implementation of Childhood Obesity Treatment Innovations to Improve Outcomes of Low-Income Children: The Connect for Health II Study.”
Kevin Kalinsky, MD, Medicine, will receive $300,643 over one year from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for “Circulating Biomarker Determinants of Late Relapse.”
Stavroula Kousteni, PhD, Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, will receive $600,000 over three years from the V Foundation for Cancer Research for “Targeting the Bone Marrow Niche to Treat MDS and AML” and $356,400 over one year from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for “Molecular Basis of the Inhibitory Effects of ATRA on Osteoblast-Induced MDS/AML.”
Chao Lu, PhD, Genetics & Development, will receive $300,000 over four years from Pew Charitable Trusts for “Synthetics and Lineage Dependencies of Cancers Driven by Epigenome Abnormalities.”
Jennifer Lue, MD, Medicine, will receive $259,494 over one year from Denovo Biopharma for “Exploring the Activity of Enzastaurin Alone and in Combination with Select Compounds in Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas.”
Cathy Lee Mendelsohn, PhD, Urology, Ali Gharavi, MD, Medicine, and Jonathan Barasch, MD, PhD, Medicine, will receive $2,400,000 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Investigating the Genetic, Cellular, and Metabolic Events Important for Urothelial Homeostasis and Response to Urinary Tract Infection.”
Alfred Neugut, MD, PhD, Epidemiology, will receive $592,280 over three years from the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. for “Otsuka-Columbia Center for Clinical Epidemiology & Health Outcomes Research.”
Emmanuelle Passegué, PhD, Genetics & Development, will receive $552,594 over one year from the Office of the NIH Director for “Millipore Sigma ImageStream-X Mark II Imaging Cytometer.”
Raúl Rabadán, PhD, Biomedical Informatics, and Teresa Palomero Vazquez, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology, will receive $3,037,494 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Single-Cell Characterization of Tumor and Microenvironment Co-Evolution in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphomas.” Dr. Rabadán also will receive $1,000,000 over two years from Stand Up to Cancer for “Identification of Genomic and Immune Factors in High-Risk Populations for Pancreatic Cancer.” Dr. Rabadán, Liam Paninski, PhD, Statistics, and Oliver Hobert, PhD, Systems Biology, will receive $999,993 over three years from the National Science Foundation for “CRCNS Research Proposal: Topological and Dynamical Structures of Brain Development and Sexual-Dimorphism in C. elegans.”
Ran Reshef, MD, Medicine, will receive $2,039,264 over six years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Effector T-Cell Trafficking in Graft-Versus-Host Disease.” Dr. Reshef also will receive $648,000 over two years from the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for “Glucagon-Like-Peptide 2 (GLP-2) Analogues as a Novel Strategy for Prevention and Treatment of Graft-Versus-Host Disease.”
Rodney Rothstein, PhD, Genetics & Development, will receive $386,374 over two years from Cellectis SA for “Mechanisms of Recombination Stimulated by 3’-Overhangs, 5’-Overhangs or Blunt Ends.”
Regina Santella, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, will receive $250,000 over one year from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for “Environmental Exposures, DNA Repair Capacity and Breast Cancer Risk.”
Robert Schwabe, MD, Medicine, will receive $2,079,884 over four years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “DAMPs and Their Receptors Link Hepatocyte Death to HSC Activation and Liver Fibrosis.”
Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine, and Andrew Lassman, MD, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Care Center, will receive $5,344,411 over six years from the National Cancer Institute for “Columbia University Minority/Underserved Site NCI Community Oncology Research Program.”
Lawrence Schwartz, MD, Radiology, will receive $349,979 over two years from Bayer for a subaward of “CALGB 80802 and Correlative Substudy CALGB 150902.”
Peter Sims, PhD, Systems Biology, will receive $1,268,297 over three years from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for a subaward of “An Integrated Map of the Immune System in Humans Across Tissues and Ages.”
Megan Sykes, MD, Medicine, will receive $3,837,184 over three years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems.”
Alison Taylor, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology, will receive $577,368 over two years from the National Cancer Institute for “Functional Approaches to Understanding Cancer Aneuploidy: Interrogating the Effects of Chromosome 3p Deletion."
Dennis Vitkup, PhD, Biomedical Informatics and Systems Biology, will receive $2,196,805 over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Systems Biology of Protein and Phenotypic Evolution.”
Harris Wang, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology and Systems Biology, will receive $2,158,440 over two years from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for “A Multimodal Oral Non-viral CRISPR-Cas Medical Countermeasure to Enhance Ionizing Radiation Resilience and Survival.”
Timothy C. Wang, MD, Medicine, will receive $2,065,703 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “Understanding Stem Cell Heterogeneity and Niche Function in Intestinal Regeneration After Irradiation.”
Chaolin Zhang, PhD, Systems Biology, will receive $424,464 over five years from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for “Novel Regulation and Function of the lncRNA Gomafu in Human Neurons.”
Columbia Honors
Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Pilot Research Pilot Award
The Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Pilot Research Pilot Award (CaMPR) is a two-phase award that provides planning and start-up funds to support the formation of newly configured investigative teams with the aim of addressing a significant health problem at the cellular, individual, or community level.
HICCC Members on four projects that were awarded a CaMPR:
Fatemeh Momen-Heravi, DDS, PhD, Dental Medicine, Raul Rabadan, PhD, Biomedical Informatics and Systems Biology, Mathew Matthen, MD, Medicine, Alex Rai, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology, and Gary Schwartz, MD, "Optimizing Tumor-Derived Exosomes as a Biomarker for Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Advanced Solid Tumors”
Rachel Shelton, ScD, MPH, Sociomedical Sciences, “Investigating the Dissemination and Implementation of Opioid Education and Naloxone Training on College Campuses”
Fatemeh Momen-Heravi, DDS, PhD, Dental Medicine, Mathew Matthen, MD, Medicine, Alex Rai, PhD, Pathology and Cell Biology, and Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine, “Tumor-Derived Exosomes as a Biomarker for Response to Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Head and Neck Cancer”
Rachel Shelton, ScD, Sociomedical Sciences, “Planning for the Dissemination and Implementation of Opioid Education and Naloxone Training on College Campuses”
Precision Medicine Pilot Awards
The Precision Medicine Pilot Awards fund multidisciplinary research proposals focused on approaches to tailor medical care (prevention, diagnosis, and/or treatment) to the individual patient.
HICCC members on two projects that were awarded Precision Medicine Pilot Awards:
Howard Lieberman, PhD, Radiation Oncology, Israel Deutsch, MD, Radiation Oncology, Richard A. Friedman, PhD, Biomedical Informatics, and Sven Wenske, MD, Urology, “Identification of Precision Diagnostic and Therapeutic Targets for Advanced Prostate Cancer Patients Based on Mechanistic RNA Landscape”
Mathew Maurer, MD, Medicine, and Rajesh Soni, PhD, Medicine, “Application of Multi-Omics Profiling to Predict Adverse Left Ventricular Remodeling and Cardiovascular Events in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy”
Translational Therapeutics Accelerator Pilot Award
The Translational Therapeutics Accelerator Pilot Award provides investigators with the resources to position their therapeutic discoveries for commercial value.
HICCC member recipients:
Timothy C. Wang, MD, Medicine, “Development of a Novel Beta2-blocker for Treating Pancreatic Cancer”
Nicholas Arpaia, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology, and Tal Danino, PhD, Biomedical Engineering, “Programmable Bacteria for Oral Delivery of Tumor-targeted Immunotherapy”
Andrea Califano, PhD, Systems Biology, and Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine, “Validating OncoTreat, a Systems Biology Approach to Predict Drug Sensitivity, in Advanced Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors”
Changchun Deng, MD, PhD, Medicine, and Jennifer K. Lue, MD, Medicine, “Developing PI3 Kinase Inhibitors for T Cell Lymphoma”
Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, Pediatrics, “A Novel CRISPR/Cas9 Based Mutation Correction Method for Hemoglobinopathies
More Milestones
Sally Amundson, ScD, Radiation Oncology, was elected vice president of the Radiation Research Society.
Simon Cheng, MD, PhD, Radiation Oncology, was awarded the American Lung Association July 2019-June 2020 Lung Cancer Discovery Award for his project “Bmi1 Resistance Pathway and Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Lung Cancer.”
Angela Christiano, PhD, and Lorraine Symington, PhD, have been elected to the prestigious National. Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Read more.
Serge Cremers, PhD, PharmD, Pathology & Cell Biology, will be editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
The Association of American Physicians (AAP), an honorific society of the nation’s leading physician-scientists, has inducted Charles Drake, MD, PhD, and Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD. Each year, the AAP nominates individuals that are on the cutting edge of medical practice and research. Election into the society is a prestigious honor; only 72 members were added to the AAP ranks in 2020. Read more.
Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, ICAP, was awarded the Cura Personalis Award, Georgetown University Medical Center’s highest honor. Dr. El-Sadr gave a plenary talk titled “Bringing precision to the global HIV response” at the 12th Netherlands Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Epidemiology, Prevention, and Treatment.
Donna Farber, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology, was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Maryjane Farr, MD, Medicine, was elected to a four-year leadership term at United Network for Organ Sharing for all solid organ transplants in Region 9. After serving two years as associate councilor, she will serve as councilor for two years, which includes a seat on the Board of Directors for UNOS.
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named Arnold S. Han, MD, PhD, a 2020 recipient of its Rachleff Innovation Award. The prize goes to early career scientists whose research projects have the potential to significantly impact the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Read more.
Dawn Hershman, MD, MS, Medicine, has been named the recipient of the 2020 Hologic, Inc. Endowed Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. The award recognizes a female leader in oncology who is a role model and serves as a mentor to women in training to be cancer clinicians, educators, or researchers. Read more.
Ben Izar, MD, PhD, Medicine, has been named a 2020 Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Scholar. The program, awarded by Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, honors physicians whose research has the promise of bringing new, innovative treatments to patients. Read more.
Drs. Jordan Orange, Pediatrics, and Andrew Rundle, Epidemiology were among six faculty members from Columbia University Irving Medical Center inducted into the New York Academy of Medicine.
Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine, received the American Cancer Society’s Eugene D. O’Kelly Award for leadership in the field of translational research.
Antonia R. Sepulveda, MD, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology, was elected president-elect of the Association for Molecular Pathology.
Michael Weiner, MD, Pediatrics, was honored at the Israel Cancer Research Fund Tower of Hope Gala at the Pierre Hotel in New York.
Several HICCC members have been named as Highly Cited Researchers, according to the 2019 list from the Web of Science Group, released this week. Overall, Columbia University ranked 15th on the list of institutions, with a total of 47 Highly Cited Researchers. Read more.
The above is a select list of honors. If you have recently received an honor, please email HICCC Communications at cucancercomms@cumc.columbia.edu.