todate - a progress report on the capital campaign - Columbia University Medical Center

A Message from Gerald D. Fischbach, M.D. With this inaugural issue of to date, we are proud to introduce to you our new name – Columbia University Medical Center – which encompasses the four Health Sciences schools, College of Physicians & Surgeons, School of Nursing, School of Dental and Oral Surgery, and Mailman School of Public Health. ¶ Seventy-five years ago, Columbia University, in partnership with Presbyterian Hospital, created and implemented a model for the first academic medical center. Today Columbia University Medical Center is at the pinnacle of its success with boundless opportunities. The decisions we make today will allow us to lead tomorrow. Faced with unprecedented challenges, Columbia is committed to once again building a new, innovative and viable model for academic medical centers in the 21st century. ¶ Philanthropic investment in our faculty, students, programs and facilities must come from those who share our vision to invest in knowledge itself. Defining the Future, a campaign for Columbia University Medical Center, is unprecedented in its magnitude. We invite your participation as we work together to realize this vision.

If the faculty and supporters of Columbia University Medical Center are the bedrock on which it is built, then Herbert and Florence Irving can be thought of as the keystone. Their generosity, combined with a vision of a medical school of unsurpassed excellence crowning the northern tip of Manhattan, has been essential in helping Columbia maintain its preeminence in the health sciences.

The Irvings have graciously agreed to serve as honorary chairs of Columbia University Medical Center’s capital campaign. “The Irvings’ acceptance honors us all,” says Dean Fischbach. “We are most grateful for their strong partnership with Columbia and their support of the campaign that will help us reach new levels of excellence in the biomedical sciences.”Two landmarks on the medical center campus, the Irving Pavilion and the Irving Cancer Research Center, are examples of the impact of the Irvings’ philanthropy at Columbia. Their generosity has also enabled the creation of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Herbert and Florence Irving Center for Clinical Research and the Irving Clinical Scholars Awards, which have been instrumental in launching and supporting the careers of dozens of investigators and physicians of world renown. The ambitious goals of the capital campaign are shared by Herbert and Florence Irving, and with their guidance and encouragement it is assured of success.

Russ and Angelica Berrie [center] with Berrie Center Co-Directors Drs. Robin Goland and Rudolph Leibel

Russell Berrie, founder of the multimillion-dollar global gift company Russ Berrie and Co., demonstrated that personal dedication and vision can greatly enrich the value of a philanthropic investment. In the months before his death in 2002, Mr. Berrie met with the scientific directors of Columbia’s Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center to design a funding roadmap for a new research program in cellular therapies for diabetes. A man whose dream was to help medicine find a cure for diabetes, Mr. Berrie sought the most efficient path to discovery. Announced earlier this year, the Russell Berrie Foundation’s $12 million commitment, which resulted from Mr. Berrie’s careful planning, is a master-work of medical philanthropy that promises to bring the center closer to fulfilling Mr. Berrie’s dream.

Ranked one of Fortune’s 40 “Most Generous Americans” in 1998, Mr. Berrie, popularly known as the man behind Russ teddy bears, gave away millions of dollars to charity. This $12 million gift brings his support for the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, which he established in 1997, to $36 million.

Mr. Berrie’s interest in diabetes was personal. He had Type 2 diabetes, as did his mother, for whom the Diabetes Center was named. He founded the Russell Berrie Foundation in 1985 with the stated goals of strengthening communities and advancing patient-centered medicine. Today, the Berrie mission is carried out by Mr. Berrie’s wife, Angelica, and the Foundation’s Trustees. “The importance of this gift for me is that it keeps alive Russ’ dream of finding a cure for diabetes, ”says Mrs. Berrie, who succeeds her late husband as president of the Foundation and CEO of Russ Berrie and Company.

Cellular therapy, a relatively new biotechnology, involves manipulating cells through genetic and other means in order to restore damaged body tissues and holds promise for curing diabetes and other conditions, such as Lou Gehrig’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The Berrie Foundation Program in Cellular Therapies for Diabetes will explore replacement of insulin-producing beta cells lost to diabetes and will develop methods of coaxing the body to generate them on its own. The multiple research initiatives to be supported within the Berrie Center include the work of Dr. Domenico Accili on the molecular physiology of insulin signaling and the development of beta cells, and of Dr. Rudolph Leibel on the molecular genetics of beta cell development.

Mr. Berrie viewed cellular therapy research as a foray into a new frontier, an exciting, although not completely predictable, venture. “Russ was very bold,” says Mrs. Berrie. “He didn’t know what the research would yield, but he felt it was promising and he wanted to try it out.”

As the Berries considered how to make the gift, they consulted scientists outside Columbia for opinions about how such funding should be disbursed and managed. “We kicked the tires,”says Mrs. Berrie. What made up their minds to create the program at Columbia was their confidence in Dean Gerald Fischbach, and in the co-directors of the Berrie Diabetes Center, Dr. Rudolph Leibel, professor of pediatrics and medicine and head of Columbia’s Division of Molecular Genetics, and Dr. Robin Goland, Irving Associate Professor of Medicine.

“Our relationship with Columbia is unique because of the trust factor, ”says Mrs. Berrie. “It was significant in our decision to partner with them on this initiative.”

In creating a plan for how the funds would be used, the Berries held in-depth meetings with Dr. Leibel and other leaders of the cellular research faculty at Columbia. Because the field is largely unexplored, the group agreed it was necessary to build flexibility into the gift arrangement, which provides the option of expanding investigations that bear fruit and weeding out those that do not, and incorporates freedom to shift funding among investigations and personnel. It was also decided that the program would pursue multiple avenues of research concurrently, in order to pinpoint valuable investigations as soon as possible.

In addition to these novel aspects of the gift, Mr. Berrie requested a provision that Columbia help support and advance the work of research collaborators outside the University. “Russ felt that the best chance we have to find a cure was to break through the academic walls that separate different institutions, ”says Mrs. Berrie. “He felt collaboration would be key to getting there faster. ”The first collaborator, Dr. Douglas Melton, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, has already begun working with Berrie Center scientists.

Dr. Leibel is delighted at the Berrie Foundation’s firm commitment to promoting the best research. “This is a challenging set of expectations,” he says, “but at the same time, it’s one of the most inspiring and encouraging ways to receive philanthropy.”

Legendary New York City developer Paul Milstein and his wife, Irma, have made a $5 million commitment to the Department of Surgery that will help ensure the continued excellence of its ground-breaking initiatives in the field of surgical science. A field in which Columbia has established itself as a national leader, surgical science addresses innovative approaches to treatment and prevention for diseases often treated with surgery. The gift is earmarked for research in cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and patient-focused surgical outcomes.

“Paul and Irma Milstein’s generosity is fueling the research continuum of the department and will be catalytic to its innovative efforts in surgical science,” says Dr. Eric A. Rose, Morrisand Rose Milstein/Johnson & Johnson Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery.

Surgical science, with its tremendous potential for improving patient care, is a fitting cause for Mr. Milstein, whose contributions to New York City can only be described as transformative. During a career that spanned more than 40 years, Paul Milstein became known as a master builder and a visionary in the real estate field. Boldly investing in neglected neighborhoods, he bolstered urban renewal in the city. His construction of three luxury apartment buildings in the Lincoln Center area during the 1960s and ’70s is commonly thought to have helped spur the revival of the Upper West Side, and in the 1980s, his purchase of the Milford Hotel contributed to the rehabilitation of the theater district.

Paul Milstein’s impact on New York City extends to his philanthropic activities, which include generous gifts to the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University. Together with his brother Seymour, Paul Milstein made a major gift toward construction of the Milstein New York-Presbyterian Hospital building.

Irma and Paul Milstein’s commitment continues a tradition of Milstein family benevolence to the Department of Surgery, including the establishment of two professorships and numerous gifts to surgical science. In 2002, the Seymour Milstein family’s generous support enabled the department to consolidate its surgical science laboratories into a single institute, named the Paul Milstein Institute for Surgical Science.

The funding will help the department’s researchers in their work to assault tumors via vaccines, halt the march of Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes-related complications with novel molecular therapies, and evaluate the health of surgical care.

“Columbia is a very important place to our family and we are always happy to support a project that can help the institution bring surgical care to new levels of excellence and pave the way for all hospitals to improve,” says Irma Milstein.

Recent experience indicates that as the U.S. is faced with outbreaks of global infectious disease threats including SARS and West Nile virus, state-of-the-art facilities are no longer a luxury, but a necessity, if the healthcare community is to successfully identify an outbreak’s source with speed and accuracy. Thanks to the extraordinary gift of Mrs. Dawn Greene and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University Medical Center is now home of the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory, a premier facility for emerging virus research and treatment. The Greene gift also endows in perpetuity the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Professorship in Epidemiology, a chair for the director of the infectious disease laboratory, W. Ian Lipkin, M.D.

“We are proud and honored that the Jerome L. Greene Foundation has chosen the Mailman School,” says Dr. Allan Rosenfield, dean of the Mailman School. “Our model laboratory, with Dr. Lipkin at its helm, will be at the vanguard for studying the infectious disease outbreaks that have become a fact of life for us in New York and globally.”

Since his arrival at Mailman in 2001, Dr. Lipkin has propelled the school to the forefront of international efforts to combat many of the infectious diseases challenging the world today. An authority on the use of molecular biological methods for pathogen discovery, he has developed methods of research applicable to many disease and health threats. “Through the capabilities of this laboratory, we will have the resources to track the agents that cause disease outbreaks and coordinate efforts to offer precise diagnostics, and provide advice on recommended treatment,” he says.

Dawn Greene, president of the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, has followed in the philanthropic footsteps of her late husband, Jerome L. Greene, an extra ordinarily generous donor to many New York City institutions, including the Columbia Law School. A patron of the arts, medicine, and education, Mrs. Greene is especially committed to virus research in the pursuit of global health. “A laboratory with such technological advances in our midst will benefit the scientific community as a whole and, in particular, the citizens of New York,” she says. “On behalf of the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, I am extremely pleased to support the work of Dr. Ian Lipkin and his team of scientists.”

Columbia University Medical Center will bid farewell to one of its first-citizens this fall, as Dr. Thomas Q. Morris, vice president for health sciences and vice dean of the Columbia Faculty of Medicine, retires after a 49-year tenure of distinguished service. A 1958 P&S graduate who joined the faculty in 1964, Dr. Morris is celebrated for his skill as a gifted educator and a forward-thinking administrator at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Important joint initiatives between the two institutions began during his tenure. Throughout his career in advancing the ideals of academic medicine, Dr. Morris has brought quality to the medical center through his contributions as a faculty member, a volunteer and a donor.

Born and raised in Westchester, Dr. Morris completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana before returning to New York City for his M.D. at P&S and completing all of his postgraduate medical training at the then Columbia Medical Division of Bellevue Hospital. Appointed to the staff of Presbyterian Hospital two years later, Dr. Morris joined the P&S faculty, rising to the position of professor of clinical medicine.

“Tom Morris is a wonderful educator and an unparalleled academic leader,” says Dean Fischbach. “One would be hard pressed to find an education or clinical program at the medical center that has not benefited from his wisdom and guidance.”

His generous spirit, lack of self-importance and ready sense of humor endeared Dr. Morris to many of Columbia’s faculty and graduates. “His teaching style was one of collegiality. You felt you were a junior member, but that you were also an entitled member of a team,” says Dr. Glenda Garvey (P&S ’69), professorof clinical medicine.

His gift for bringing people together enabled Dr. Morris to establish key cooperative ventures between the university and the hospital. As acting chairman of the Department of Medicine in 1978, he helped establish Associates in Internal Medicine, which to this day provides top-quality care for the northern Manhattan community. During his term as president of Presbyterian Hospital from 1985-1990, Dr. Morris partnered with former Columbia deans Henrik Bendixen and Herbert Pardes to initiate joint electronic information systems for clinical and biomedical data, thus establishing the precursor to the Department of Biomedical Informatics, which allows scientists to manipulate vast databases including that of the Human Genome Initiative. Together with Columbia’s Kathleen O’Donnell, vice president and senior associate dean, Dr. Morris laid the groundwork for the acclaimed Office of Clinical Trials, which facilitates the establishment and approval of new clinical research initiatives at Columbia University Medical Center.

In 2000, Columbia called upon Dr. Morris to hold key leadership responsibilities as interim dean for clinical and educational affairs during the year the institution awaited appointment of a new dean of the Faculty of Medicine. In 2000, he was also named Alumni Professor of Clinical Medicine, a chair created to recognize excellent leadership in clinical medicine.

During his accomplished career, Dr. Morris found time to pursue many extramural activities. As associate dean for academic affairs in 1980, his interest in the learning experience of Columbia students at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York, led to 23 years as a member of that hospital’s board and an advising role in upstate New York’s health care system. Also during the 1980s, he was inspired to broaden his knowledge of medical care overseas, resulting in 20 years of service on the board of the American University of Beirut. Dr. Morris has also been active in the world of medical and community philanthropy, contributing his expertise as a board member of the Medical Center’s Neighborhood Fund, the Gladys Brooks Foundation, the William J. Matheson Foundation, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, and others. He has received numerous awards for his leadership in the P&S Alumni Association and has made yearly gifts to the P&S alumni fund and multiple education and research initiatives since 1966.

This fall when Dr. Morris retires, he and his wife, Jacqueline, will move to their farm in Delhi, New York, near Cooperstown. He says he “looks forward to listening to the grass grow, ”but that he is not going to let any take root beneath his feet. He will remain active on behalf of Columbia and his other volunteer activities. Dr. Morris sums up his time at Columbia University Medical Center exuberantly: “I’ve found everything I’ve done to be not only rewarding, but also fun. The only way you can do most of these jobs is if you enjoy them, and it’s fulfillment that makes you want to continue and try to do better in order to help others.”

	1767 King’s College Medical School—founded by Dr. Samuel Bard, George Washington’s physician is— the first in New York and the second in the 13 colonies.

			1919 Dr. William Darrach, dean of P&S 1919-1930, wrote his “Memorandum on the School of Medicine” which cleared the way for construction of the medical center.

	1926 Dr. William Gies, a founder of Columbia’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery, advocates elevating academic requirements of dental education on par with medical schools.

			1950 Dr. Erwin Chargaff documents the way bases pair up in DNA molecules, later known as Chargaff’s Rules, and significantly advances research in the structure of DNA.

	1953 Dr. Virginia Apgar (P&S ’33), professor of anesthesiology, presents her study for assessing the condition of newborns in the Apgar Score.

			1955 Textbook of Neurology appears in print courtesy of Dr. H. Houston Merritt, founder of modern neurology. Medical students and residents in the field still refer to this seminal work.

	1956 Drs. André Cournand, left, and Dickinson Richards (P&S ’23), right, share the Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking work on cardiac catheterization.

			1977 Dr. Keith Reemtsma performs the medical center’s first heart transplant. Columbia is one of three institutions in the U.S. to offer heart transplantation.

	2000 P&S University Professor Dr. Eric Kandel shares a Nobel Prize for his work on the molecular basis of memory.

			2003 Dr. Thomas Jessell appointed to direct stem cell research initiative at Columbia.

When Vice President of Development John Scales asked Lynn Shostack, CEO and president of the multimillion dollar venture capital and investment firm Gardner Capital Corp., to help the medical center with its capital campaign and to champion medical research at the university, she did not hesitate. Ms. Shostack had developed strong opinions about the health care system during the long illness of her late husband and business partner, David Gardner, along with a belief in the need to emphasize a humanistic approach to doctoring.

As Ms. Shostack sees it, building a productive doctor-patient relationship is a key priority in an era of mounting demands on a physician’s time. To that end, in 2002 she endowed a $2.1 million chair in medicine to advance teaching and care in clinical cardiology, a tribute to the excellent care Columbia cardiologist Jerry Gliklich, M.D., clinical professor of medicine, provided to her husband. “We became very close to Jerry Gliklich, who stood out in a field of expert specialists as an individual who instinctively worked to organize the best that medicine had to offer his patient,” says Ms. Shostack.

Dr. Gliklich was appointed by the Columbia Trustees and the Department of Medicine as the first David A. Gardner Professor in 2002. Describing the professorship’s effect on his life, Dr. Gliklich says,“It’s given me the opportunity to teach more, to try to spend more time with the patient, and to convey something about my ideas and ideals about patient care to other physicians.”

Philanthropic funds from major donors like Ms. Shostack are a lifeline for many special programs at Columbia at a time when most medical institutions are hampered by budgetary cutbacks. As a member of the Health Sciences Advisory Council, an elite circle of donors and faculty who build recognition and raise money for the campus, and the ALS Advisory Board, a fund-raising advocacy group for ALS research, Ms. Shostack will play an influential role in matters related to university governance and will help attract private contributions.

Ms. Shostack, who studied art at the University of Cincinnati before pursuing a career in business, is unabashedly romantic when she compares running a successful organization to the process of artistic creation. “Business is completely plastic,” she says. “If you shape a company elegantly, it will communicate just like a work of art—only it will have a unique character because it has become more than you.”

Ms. Shostack’s decision to leave the easel for the boardroom came as a result of a chance conversation. Nearly 30 years ago, at a retreat organized by a group of educators who identify extraordinary talent, she met the former president of Ohio University, Vernon Alden, who glimpsed in the young art student a genius for business. He persuaded Ms. Shostack to give it a whirl, and the headstrong daughter of WWII bomber pilot Walter Shostack proceeded to smash every glass ceiling. “I’m extremely risk-oriented,”she says. “Given a choice between the known and unknown, I will opt for the unknown every single time.”

Once Ms. Shostack overcame the intimidations of Harvard Business School in the 1970s, becoming one of 26 women to graduate in a class of 800, she discovered her knack for banking and finance. She created full-service banking at Citibank to court the wealthy, and did the same at Bankers Trust Co. after it made her its highest-ranking woman officer in 1982. Widely recognized as an expert in the marketing of financial services, she received the American Marketing Association’s Services Award in 1995. By then she was CEO of Joyce International Inc., an international manufacturer and retailer. She has been a frequent contributor on marketing to leading publications, and her seminal work,“Breaking Free from Product Marketing,”is cited widely.

With her business acumen matched by her commitment to medicine, Ms. Shostack was a natural choice to help in the “Defining the Future” Campaign. “We have every reason to believe that Lynn Shostack will be a longtime friend and leader of the Columbia community,” Mr. Scales says. “Her intellect and insight will be a major asset to us.”

Ms. Shostack is delighted about her new role. “You need to have the ability to be fascinated with whatever life presents you,” she explains. “Life is not worth living unless you are engaged in some activity that you have defined as glorious and worthy.” If her success at Citibank and Bankers is any indication, she will be an enormous asset to the Columbia University Medical Center as it ramps up its efforts to recruit enthusiastic donors and volunteers.

At a time when corporate contributions to charities have declined, Maxcor Financial Group, a leading institutional brokerage firm with principal offices in New York, London, and Tokyo, is expanding its strong commitment to philanthropy. Earlier this year, its charitable giving arm, Maxcor Foundation, announced a $1.25 million 5-year commitment to the medical center. Funding for the gift—$250,000 of which has already been paid—was raised in part from Maxcor’s second annual Charity Day, where 100 percent of the day’s brokerage revenues from Maxcor and its worldwide subsidiaries, which include the Euro Brokers group of companies, were contributed to charity. Having raised $1 million in this year’s Charity Day, Maxcor was able to carry out its goal of arranging gifts specifically to organizations focused on helping children and their families, one of which was Columbia University Medical Center.

Gil Scharf, chairman and CEO of Maxcor Financial Group

“We are delighted to support an organization as robust and dedicated to the well-being of our New York community as Columbia,” says Gil Scharf, chairman and CEO of Maxcor Financial Group. “This gift is part of our firm’s ongoing commitment not just to doing well, but to doing right. This is a shared purpose that is important to all of us at Maxcor and Euro Brokers.”

Two Columbia University Medical Center divisions will benefit from Maxcor’s commitment. In the Department of Pediatrics, the newly named Maxcor Program for Overweight Education and Reduction (POWER) in the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology will expand outreach programs and patient-oriented research. Created in 2001 to tackle the crisis in childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes, one of its related complications, the POWER program treats its young patients through a four-step program of information, intervention, behavioral modification and reinforcement. Maxcor’s generosity will also augment research in pediatric obesity under way at Columbia. “I am extremely grateful for this gift,” says Sharon Oberfield, M.D., professor of pediatrics and director of Pediatric Endocrinology. “Maxcor’s financial support will help us make an impact on the well-being of our community.” Dr. John Driscoll, chair of the Department of Pediatrics, agrees.“This work holds great promise for understanding childhood obesity and developing ways to prevent it,”he says.

The Maxcor gift will also support an assistant professorship in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Rheumatology, allowing the division to expand and develop a program dedicated to arthritis and related conditions such as lupus and autoimmune diseases. Toward this end, a junior faculty member, named the Maxcor Scholar, will be recruited. Dr. David A. Brenner, chair of the Department of Medicine, looks forward to new research opportunities the gift will enable.“There are many exciting advances in rheumatology to explore,” he says. “The Maxcor gift will help us develop viable new therapies.”

Maxcor came to national attention when, after losing 61 employees to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the company immediately organized the Euro Brokers Relief Fund, a public charity, to assist the bereaved families and dependents of its former employees, including 88 children. Following the success of the relief fund, which has raised more than $4.5 million to date, Maxcor was inspired to create the Maxcor Foundation, which identifies and supports additional recipients of the firm’s Charity Day grants.

When the history of the 21st century is written, breakthroughs in health will be counted among its signal achievements. Advances in medicine, dentistry, nursing and public health have been astounding in the recent past, and we are poised to take equally significant steps in the near future. Columbia University Medical Center comprises four schools – the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the School of Nursing, the School of Dental and Oral Surgery and the Mailman School of Public Health. Each shares a common commitment to elevating standards of health care and education, as well as to informing public policy decisions that impact health care and the environment.

In all four schools, education must keep pace with the accelerating rate of research. Our students will be leaders and role models throughout the country in practicing modern, evidence-based medicine, and promoting prevention and public health. We cannot spare any expense in providing them with cutting-edge tools such as simulation technology, information science, and a thorough knowledge of molecular genetics.

Dr. Fischbach is shown here inspecting the construction progress of the Irving Cancer Research Center

In the College of Physicians and Surgeons, our 5,000 faculty members who help educate more than 1,2000 students provide more than 500,000 outpatient visits annually and are engaged in extensive pre-clinical and clinical research studies. The School of Nursing continues a venerable tradition of preparing practitioners at all levels including those skilled in advanced practice nursing. This component of the workforce is essential in delivery of quality care. Dentistry, a field that has been taught and practiced at Columbia for many decades, has been remarkable in working with our local community to develop programs that benefit all ages suffering a wide variety of disorders. To this tradition they now add a renewed interest in fundamental research focused on infection of the oral cavity and mineral metabolism. The Mailman School has taken a leadership role in improving the delivery of health care in the Third World. They have also led investigations regarding the fallout resulting from the September 11 tragedy, a task for which it is ideally suited, having spent decades examining the relationships between health and our physical, social, political, and socioeconomic environments.

Research at P&S is consistently rated among the very best in the nation in terms of quality of publications, number and diversity of research areas, and research support. Research at Columbia University Medical Center does not take place in a vacuum, but in a vast, interdisciplinary network composed of teachers, researchers, students, and, critically, benefactors. Great discoveries, even when they are the brainchild of a single individual, could not come to fruition without the collaborative effort of many others. Our unique combination and strengths of four schools enhances the efforts of each one.

The prognosis is bright, but the one critical ingredient without which we cannot proceed is your support. With a comprehensive effort energized by our collective aspirations to define the future of healthcare, Columbia University Medical Center will be positioned to advance its leadership in education, research, patient care, and public health. We invite all of you, our vibrant community of alumni, patients, partners and investors, to join us as we embark on what is certain to be an extraordinary adventure.

Dr. Karen Marder [bottom row,center] and colleagues at the Huntington’s Disease Center

An anonymous Columbia University Medical Center benefactor has committed an unprecedented $1 million, over a period of four years, to the Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, a clinical and research facility that provides multidisciplinary care free of charge. A relatively rare disorder that afflicts approximately 50,000 people in the U.S., Huntington’s lacks public and private funding opportunities available to more prevalent diseases. As a result, the center historically has relied on private support and time volunteered by Columbia faculty. This generous gift, which underwrites staff salaries and basic expenses, will ensure the continuity of the center’s vital clinical research agenda and topflight free care for Huntington’s disease patients and their families.

“The Center has become the major regional center for the care and study of patients with the disease, and today it is one of the largest in the United States,” says Timothy A. Pedley, M.D., chair of the Department of Neurology.

Huntington’s disease is an inherited neurological disorder characterized by impaired motor control. It may also affect thinking and emotional well-being. As yet, there is no cure for this degenerative disease. The center was created in 1991 through the vision of several neurology and psychiatry faculty who understood the need for a patient-focused research and care hub at Columbia. Dr. Richard Mayeux, co-director of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain and director of the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, brought the idea to fruition and provided the new initiative with seed funding. Dr. Harold Sackeim, Chief of Biological Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, opened the door to collaboration by providing a free eight-room suite for patient care. Dr. Karen Marder, Sally Kerlin Professor of Neurology at the Sergievsky Center, the Taub Institute, and in Psychiatry, has brought the center to wide renown as its director.

In the 12 years since it was established, the center has thrived on the remarkable esprit de corps of its staff, which includes a cadre of medical center faculty, fellows, and residents. In 1996, it was designated a Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence in recognition of its exemplary research and multidisciplinary patient care. With staff trained in nine disciplines including neurology, psychiatry, and rehabilitation medicine, the center offers families with Huntington’s disease a range of coordinated services at one location.

Columbia has made important inroads into understanding Huntington’s and improving quality of life for people with the disease. In 1993, Dr. Nancy S. Wexler, Higgins Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, led an international research effort that isolated the gene carrying the Huntington’s mutation. The center’s wide-ranging clinical research includes studies of at-risk and gene-positive individuals, seeking to pinpoint the earliest signs of the disease so that prevention strategies can be designed. The center also conducts extensive trials of therapeutic medications in partnership with the Huntington’s Study Group, an international consortium of 60 Huntington’s centers.

Above all, the center provides a strong medical and emotional support system to patients and their families, which Dr. Marder says is “one of the outstanding benefits of a multidisciplinary program.” The donor’s generosity will help ensure the permanence of this vibrant model of patient care.

When the National Institutes of Health began work on the U.S. Human Genome Project in 1988, Judith Sulzberger, M.D.(P&S ’49), realized the initiative heralded a new era of biomedical discovery. She was a member of the Columbia Health Sciences Advisory Council, and in order to increase her proximity to the institution’s genetic research investigations, she chose to be a member of its Basic Science Committee. The Columbia Genome Program captured her interest, and she focused on helping Columbia’s genetic scientists and the program’s director, former chair of biochemistry Dr. Isidore Edelman, to grow the program. Generously extending her knowledge and financial resources, Dr. Sulzberger provided funding to consolidate five laboratories scattered across the Columbia University Medical Center campus. The collaborative genome center that resulted was officially named the Judith P.Sulzberger Columbia Genome Centerin March 2000.

The third of four grandchildren of The New York Times patriarch Adolph Ochs, Dr. Sulzberger, who sat on the Times board from 1973-1998,decided early to go into medicine rather than journalism. Dr. Sulzberger’s first encounter with biology in high school was key to her education choices, which would include premedical study, an M.D., a residency, internship and practice in clinical medicine. Dr. Sulzberger’s mother, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, supported her daughter’s decision. Mrs. Sulzberger, a noted philanthropist and an advocate for higher education, encouraged a sense of public duty in her four children. She established a foundation with charitable funds allotted to each sibling. “She played an important role in all of our lives, and in the lives of my sons, Daniel and James. As for me, she was someone I could talk to, although she loved history and I loved medical science,” says Dr. Sulzberger.

Columbia’s Genome Program, begun in 1989, came to Dr. Sulzberger’s attention while she was a contributing writer for P&S Journal. Dr. Edelman and the program’s scientific director, Higgins Professor of Genetics and Development, Dr. Argiris Efstratiadis, felt the rapidly advancing field could revolutionize scientific understanding of human diseaseand its treatment. Dr. Sulzberger shared this vision of medicine’s future. The genetics she knew from medical school predated the gene map, but she jumped into the new science of DNA analysis with enthusiasm, helping publicize the program in P&S Journal and other Columbia publications.

From her personal interest in the medical sciences and her conviction about the significance of genetics, a mutual respect developed between Dr. Sulzberger and the genomics program investigators. “We were inspired by her interest and her commitment to what was at that time a very shaky enterprise,” remembers Dr. Edelman, now Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Professor Emeritus and special lecturer in biochemistry and molecular biophysics. “She contributed the funding that made it possible for us to function at the preliminary level of a program in the early 1990s. Without her direct support, participation, and philanthropy, the initiative would have died.”

The Genome Center comprises but one of Dr. Sulzberger’s charitable activities at Columbia. An active member of the P&S Alumni Association for more than 20 years, she has attentively nurtured successive classes with yearly scholarship gifts, in addition to making generous gifts to genetic research in autism and Asperger’s syndrome and, on the day after the 9/11 catastrophe, to Columbia’s bioterrorism research.

The burgeoning of genetics during the past decade has made a strong impression on Dr. Sulzberger, whose novel about genetically reversing human aging will soon be published.“It is a fascinating book,”says Dr. Edelman, who read an advance copy, adding,“Equally fascinating is her intention to make the science it contains as accurate as possible. She is truly an intellectual.”

An endowed professorship permits a leading physician-scientist to expand efforts in research, treatment, and education. The establishment of a professorship offers a steady annual income from investment of its endowment and opens opportunities to the recipient for making new discoveries creating innovative therapies and sharing this information with other physicians. The gift links the donor’s name, or that of anyone the donor chooses, to the distinguished reputation anticipated for a Columbia endowed professorship.

Caitlin Tynan Doyle
Professorship in Epilepsy
A $1 million gift from Mark and Dorothy Doyle has helped establish the first epilepsy professorship in the Department of Neurology. The new chair, funding for which was completed through a bequest from the late Katharine Graham, will be known as the Caitlin Tynan Doyle Professorship in Epilepsy. The professorship honors Dr. Martha J. Morrell, director of the Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, for her advocacy and researchin women’s health and epilepsy, a field she helped pioneer.“People with epilepsy are dealing not only with seizures but with society’s ignorance about epilepsy,”says Dr. Morrell.“Our mission at the center is to create an environment where epilepsy will have the least impact on a person’s life.”

Mark Doyle, president of a New Jersey municipal bond firm, and his wife, Dorothy, endowed the professorship as a tribute to the excellent care Dr. Morrell provided their daughter Caitlin, who is now 17. Four years ago, Caitlin suffered harrowing migraines and seizures. Finding a doctor who could accurately diagnose and treat the condition had become a trial of errors, until a friend recommended Dr. Morrell. From the time of Caitlin’s first appointment with Dr. Morrell, Mrs. Doyle knew she had found a physician who could listen with her heart.“I was looking behind Dr. Morrell to see if she had wings, because to me she was an angel,”says Mrs. Doyle.

The late Katharine Graham, celebrated publisher of the Washington Post and longtime friend of the Department of Neurology, had designated her bequest to be used at the discretion of the department for the epilepsy program. In light of Mrs. Graham’s support of epilepsy research, application of her gift to the Doyle chair seemed fitting.

Dr. Timothy A. Pedley, chair of the Department of Neurology, could not be more pleased.“The Doyle professorship will assure that Columbia’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center always has leadership that is world class,”he says.“As the first incumbent, Dr. Morrell fits that leadership role better than anyone. We are lucky to have her at Columbia.”

Gallen Chair In
Clinical Neurosurgery
Herbert Gallen and his wife, designer Linda Allard, have contributed $2 million to establish a professorship in clinical neurosurgery. The gift, made in recognition of the excellent care Dr. James McMurtry III, professor of neurological surgery at Columbia, provided to Mr. Gallen’s late wife, Betty, is a culmination of Mr. Gallen’s generous support of Dr. McMurtry’s research in brain tumors. Dr. McMurtry was appointed the Herbert and Linda Gallen Professor of Clinical Neurosurgery earlier this year.

Founder and chairman of the popular women’s apparel company, Ellen Tracy, Mr. Gallen is a New Jersey native with roots in the clothing business that originated in his grandfather’s silk mill in Paterson, N.J. He has long been active in philanthropic activities for medical, cultural, and social causes in the metropolitan New York City area and has previously given more than $250,000 to support research in the Department of Neurological Surgery.

Dr. McMurtry’s remarkable 44-year career is distinguished by the breadth of his practice and authority. A pioneer in life-saving aneurysm operations, he is an expert in treating tumors of the brain and skull base and specializes in surgical care of the spine. Known to his colleagues as a “teacher’s teacher,”he has trained 15 of the country’s neurosurgery department chiefs. A philanthropist in his own right, Dr. McMurtry has made generous contributions to the Department of Neurological Surgery.

“It is a remarkable honor to receive this award,” he says. “The confidence and trust the Gallens continue to present to the University signals a promising future for medical research and advanced patient care.”

todate: a progress report on the Capital Campaign