todate: Major Gifts From Longtime Supporters Enhance Heart And Neuroscience Research

Claire and Leonard Tow $15 Million Gift Will Spur Motor Neuron Disease Research

The Leonard and Claire Tow Charitable Trust has approved a $15 million challenge grant to Columbia University Medical Center to establish the Claire and Leonard Tow Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease. An immediate commitment of $3 million will endow the Claire Tow Professorship in Motor Neuron Disorders. This challenge grant must be matched by July 2006.

The Tow gift will focus on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease; information gained will help understand other motor neuron diseases.

Leonard Tow says, “Claire and I have been enthusiastic supporters of CUMC’s efforts to establish a new center for the study and treatment of motor neuron diseases and are pleased to play a role in launching this important project.” Basic mechanisms that lead to the loss of motor neurons in ALS have much in common with the loss of motor neurons in such diseases as spinal muscular atrophy — a childhood neuromuscular disease. The Center will provide a comprehensive basic and clinical research program that focuses on both neurodegenerative disorders and on restoration of motor function after spinal cord injury. Center laboratories will ultimately occupy about 15,000 square feet of space within the Medical Center, most likely in the Neurological Institute.

Center scientists who will work in more than a dozen core research areas include Gerald Fischbach, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine; Thomas Jessell, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator; Serge Przedborski, M.D., Ph.D., the William Black Professor of Neurology; Chris Henderson, Ph.D., Professor of Pathology and Neurology; Darryl DeVivo, M.D., the Sidney Carter Professor of Neurology; Umrao Monani, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neurology; Hiroshi Mitsumoto, M.D., the Wesley J. Howe Professor of Neurology; Peter Scheiffele, Ph.D.,Assistant Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics; Brian McCabe, Ph.D.,Assistant Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics; Hynek Wichterle, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pathology and Brent Stockwell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University.

The Center will adopt a multidisciplinary approach — widely considered the best way to engage in translational research — and its goal is to transform lab discoveries into actual therapies. The team will include basic science investigators as well as clinical investigators who might move rapidly from animal models or tissue culture systems to clinical trials with the most promising leads.

“Center scientists will be dedicated to the study of the differentiation and survival of motor neurons in normal and pathologic situations,” says Dr. Fischbach. “The best minds at Columbia will focus on diseases that have devastating consequences and about which more knowledge must be gained if there is ever to be hope for cures.”

To learn more about the Claire and Leonard Tow Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease contact Robin Rosenbluth, Assistant Vice President of Development, 212-326-5730.

Clyde and Helen Wu Give $10 Million for Bench-to-Bedside Heart Research

Columbia Trustee Clyde Wu, M.D.’56, and his wife, Helen, have given $10 million to permanently endow the Helen and Clyde Wu Center for Molecular Cardiology.

“I’ve always believed that to advance clinical medicine you must dig deeper into basic science,” says Dr. Wu, a cardiopulmonary specialist who is on the clinical faculty of Wayne State University College of Medicine in Detroit. “I hope that by increasing our involvement and commitment to basic science other people will see the logic and follow suit.”

As a practicing physician since the “Dark Ages” of cardiology, Dr.Wu has witnessed a revolution in the treatment of heart disease. “When I first started my internship, the only thing we had for heart attack survivors was morphine for the pain, and they had a high rate of mortality,” Dr.Wu recalls. “Now advances such as clot-busting drugs, angioplasties, and stents have reduced mortality to around 5 percent to 7 percent. Those advances came from basic science.”

But despite the great strides made in cardiology in the past 50 years, cardiovascular disease is still the nation’s leading cause of death.

“Most state-of-the-art treatments for heart disease target symptoms,” says the Center’s director, Andrew Marks, M.D., the Wu Professor of Molecular Cardiology and Chairman of the Department of Physiology. “The Helen and Clyde Wu Center for Molecular Cardiology is devoted to an entirely new treatment paradigm that targets the underlying cause of the illness. Dr. Wu has been a great supporter of the Center in the past and with this generous gift we will be able to turn what we’ve learned in the past few years into better therapies.”

Dr. Wu’s gift to the Center is the latest example of a long history of philanthropy. In the 1980s, he and his wife, a former concert pianist, presented a gift to construct a piano practice room in Bard Hall. They later established a student loan endowment fund, which Dr. Wu requested be made available to worthy students who would be charged no interest during their years of education and training.

Over the years, Dr. and Mrs. Wu also have made gifts to establish four Clyde and Helen Wu Professorships in Clinical Oncology, Immunology, Molecular Cardiology (currently held by Dr. Marks), and, just this year, Chemical Biology (held by James Rothman, Ph.D., Professor of Physiology). Dr. Wu is the Chairman of the Columbia Board of Trustees’ Health Sciences Committee and serves on CUMC’s newly created Board of Visitors.

“I have all the confidence in Andy and his staff and I’m sure they will open new doors in understanding cardiology,” Dr.Wu says. “Their work is classic translational research, in which you enter an area for knowledge’s sake and then you see the possibility for applications. This is what great centers do.”

To learn more about the Wu Center for Molecular Cardiology, contact Robert Thompson, Senior Director of Development, 212-342-0094.

Recent Wu Center Contributions to Molecular Cardiology Andrew Marks, M.D., the Wu Professor of Molecular Cardiology and Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Steven Marx, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, discovered a drug that led to the development of the first drug-coated stent, which went on the market in 2003. The drug, sirolimus, and others like it, prevent cells from clogging newly implanted stents. In two years the use of drug-coated stents has nearly replaced uncoated stents. Discovery of how beta blockers benefit heart failure patients. Discovery of a drug that prevents fatal arrhythmias in mice (illustration below). Center researchers are now working to refine the drug for clinical trials.   Dr. Andrew Marks and his team at the Wu Center for Molecular Cardiology found the leak in a key channel in the heart (image at left in illustration) that causes heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias — and the drug that fixes the leak (image in the right side of illustration).

Sackler Institute Strives to Understand Role of Brain Development in Psychiatric Illness

Several studies have reported increased suicide rates and questionable therapeutic effects from the use of a major class of antidepressant drugs in children and adolescents. A start-up grant from the Sackler Foundation — a longtime supporter of research into the biologic roots of mental illness — will enable Columbia’s Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology to explore these unexpected effects of Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). “At Columbia, we’re in a unique position to study this problem that’s very much in the news,” says Myron Hofer, M.D.,Director of the Sackler Institute. “We have had researchers working across the appropriate disciplines needed to study this issue since the Sackler Foundation created our institute — so we have the methods and expertise already in place.”

The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology was dedicated at the Psychiatric Institute in January, 2001. The Institute, supported by a gift from the Sackler Foundation, uses a multidisciplinary approach to develop more effective means to treat and prevent psychiatric disorders. Pictured at the ribbon-cutting event are from l to r: Dr. Fischbach; Herbert Pardes, M.D., President and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; Mortimer Sackler and Kathe Sackler, M.D., of the Sackler Foundation; B. Timothy Walsh, M.D., the William and Joy Ruane Professor of Pediatric Psychopharmacology and former Acting Chairman of Psychiatry; Ilene Sackler Lefcourt of the Sackler Foundation; and Myron Hofer, M.D., Director of the Sackler Institute.

Researchers will investigate early SSRI administration on several levels. One team will explore the effects of SSRIs on the brain development of the fetus and early childhood development. Using a different approach, Myrna Weissman, Ph.D, Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology, has already revealed in a three-generation study a strong familial risk for developing anxiety in childhood, followed by depression in adolescence or adulthood. She will explore the role of genetic variants in the serotonin transporter (reuptake) gene and the differences between adolescent and adult depression that may be evident in functional MRI studies of the families in collaboration with Bradley Peterson, M.D., Deputy Director of Child Psychiatry.

Catherine Monk, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, will study a small group of pregnant women treating their depression with SSRIs and a group of women not using medication to treat their depression while pregnant. She and her team will evaluate how exposure to depression and to SSRIs affect the fetus.William Fifer, Ph.D, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Assistant Director of the Sackler Institute and Dr. Monk have developed methods to study the behavior and autonomic responses of the fetus in utero, as well as the feeding, respiratory and autonomic function of newborns. Autonomic functions are those such as breathing and heartbeat that occur involuntarily.

Jay Gingrich, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry; Michael Myers, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Behavioral Biology; Thomas Jessell, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics; and Raymond Stark, M.D., Professor of Perinatology, have developed animal models that will lead to a deeper understanding of the human research findings, extending to the cell and molecular/genetic levels.

The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology was established in 2001 to investigate the complex processes underlying the development of mental illness, at levels ranging from the molecular to the psychological. Its basic science, behavioral neuroscience and clinical divisions, and their affiliated programs, form a network of research and training opportunities that seek to gain a better understanding of the central principles and specific mechanisms that underlie the normal and abnormal development of brain and behavior.

“In the past few years, new methods in brain research have revealed that major psychiatric illnesses are developmental in origin, with subtle abnormalities of brain structure likely to have been initiated as early as the fetal period,” Dr. Hofer says. “What we can learn about the unique effects of psychotropic medications early in development will directly help us treat children and adolescents more effectively and has the potential of telling us how we may, in time, be able to prevent the development of these illnesses through early intervention.”

To learn more about the Sackler Institute, contact Kristen Mahood, Director of Development, 212-304-7214.

Time for Lyme Helps CUMC Become Lyme Research Leader

About 500 supporters of the nonprofit organization Time For Lyme Inc. raised more than $1 million to help fight Lyme disease at the organization’s Time For Lyme Rocks Miami’s South Beach gala, held recently at the Greenwich Hyatt in Greenwich, Conn. The benefit was sponsored by Time for Lyme Inc. to raise funds for Columbia University Medical Center’s Lyme Disease Research Center, as well as for its ongoing education, advocacy and prevention programs. Author Amy Tan accepted the Time For Lyme Public Awareness Award for her efforts to educate the public about this devastating illness through her writing and charitable activities. ESPN TV reporter Brooke Landau spoke about her years-long battle with Lyme disease. Both stressed the need for research funds to help find a cure for this disease. Dateline NBC correspondent Chris Hansen was master of ceremonies.

Time For Lyme works closely with federal legislators to address Lyme disease issues. Through its fundraising efforts, Time For Lyme is on its way to establishing the first endowed Lyme Disease Research Center in the country at Columbia University Medical Center.

Pictured l to r: Pat Smith, President, Lyme Disease Association; Brooke Landau, keynote speaker; Diane Blanchard, Co-President Time For Lyme; author Amy Tan, honoree; Debbie Siciliano, Co-President Time For Lyme; and Brian Fallon, M.D., Director of CUMC’s Lyme Disease Research Center.

To learn more about Lyme disease research at Columbia, contact Kristen Mahood, at 212-304-7214.

Harnessing Kid Power in the Search for Diabetes Cure

The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at CUMC combines unprecedented family-oriented patient care and education for children and adults who have diabetes with world-class diabetes research programs. When two of the Center’s patients, New Jersey teens Sydney Davis, 12, (left) and Daniel Rosen, 13, wanted to create a charitable project for their 13th birthdays to raise money for diabetes research, they conceived the idea of a rubber bracelet that says, “Cure Diabetes Today.” So far, more than 2,500 donors worldwide have contributed to the bracelet initiative, bringing total gifts to about $75,000.

Other Berrie Center supporters who are committed to helping the Berrie Center find a cure for diabetes have joined in the bracelet initiative as well. Emily Lazar Stein, founder of The Lodge, a New York-based music mastering and production company; JoAnn and Joe Murphy, Co-Chairs of the Berrie Center Diabetes Advisory Committee; and,Valerie and Ken Lazar, members of the Diabetes Advisory Committee, are also helping to spearhead the bracelet initiative. For more information and to donate to the bracelet initiative online, please visit: http://nbdiabetes.org/about/index.html.

To learn more about diabetes research at Columbia, contact Lauren Logan, Director of Development, 212-851-5424.

New Chairman Seeks to Make Columbia Psychiatry Worldwide Leader

The chairmanship of the Department of Psychiatry at P&S is a responsibility that carries tremendous weight in academic medicine. Besides being chairman, the individual is also psychiatrist-in-chief at NewYork- Presbyterian Hospital and director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, one of the oldest psychiatric research facilities in the nation. In January, Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., a noted expert in neurobiology, pharmacology and treatment of schizophrenia, took on the challenge of all of these roles.

In describing his move from the University of North Carolina, where he was Director of the Mental Health and Neuroscience Clinical Research Center, Dr. Lieberman says, “The psychiatry and neurosciences faculty at Columbia have enormous strengths in schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. This is just an incredible place to be at this time.”

Dr. Lieberman also directs the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia and is the Lieber Professor of Psychiatry, funded through the generous support of Steve and Connie Lieber. Mrs. Lieber is president of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), the largest donor-supported organization in the world devoted exclusively to funding scientific research on psychiatric brain disorders (See related story below).

As a scientist who has published more than 300 papers and a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine, Dr. Lieberman focuses on understanding the pathology of shizophrenia and the mechanisms of antipsychotic drugs. His goal is to translate research results into treatments that will measurably improve the everyday lives of people living with mental illness.

In a recent discovery, for example, Dr. Lieberman and his team found through brain imaging studies that the loss of gray matter in the brain typically experienced by schizophrenia patients can be prevented by one of the new antipsychotic drugs, olanzapine, but not by haloperidol, an older, conventional drug. It is only in the last decade that researchers have learned that gray matter — which contains the bulk of the brain’s cells — deteriorates in schizophrenics.

Dr. Lieberman takes the reins at Columbia at a time when the discipline of psychiatry faces many of the problems that confront all of academic medicine today, such as diminished reimbursements for services, the imminent contraction of the NIH budget and criticism of and increasing pressure on the pharmaceutical industry, which helps fund medical education and research.

“I hope to instill a new spirit of teamwork and common purpose within the department that will enable us to work together to effectively overcome these challenges,” Dr. Lieberman says. “My vision is to make Columbia Psychiatry the top department in the world and to establish a new model of academic psychiatry that will define the standards and practice patterns for psychiatric medicine and public mental health care services for the 21st century.”

To learn more about psychiatry research at Columbia, contact Kristen Mahood, Director of Development, 212-304-7214.

Long-time NARSAD Support Fuels Innovative Psychiatric Research Projects

The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) will award an unprecedented number of “Distinguished and Young Investigator” grants to Columbia in 2005. The one- and two-year grants will support 17 of the university’s most promising young scientists working in the areas of neurobiology and psychiatry. In addition, four senior university scientists will receive grants in the range of $100,000 to pursue projects that have presented special opportunities.

An example of a study by a senior scientist is one being conducted by Myrna Weissman, Ph.D., of three generations of families at high and low risk for major depression. Dr. Weissman has studied the group for more than 20 years and with NARSAD’s support will collect blood samples for DNA analysis. If the results are promising, the preliminary findings will be used to apply for significant funding from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Fifteen of the 191 grant awardees from around the world will be chosen to make presentations about their work at NARSAD’s annual scientific symposium in New York.

Since its inception in 1987, NARSAD has given nearly $17 million in grants and gifts to more than 200 Columbia faculty and has supported the work of the university’s most distinguished scientists, such as Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D, University Professor of Psysiology & Cellular Biophysics, Psychiatry, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics. Since 1987,NARSAD has awarded more than $175 million in the form of thousands of research grants to faculty at universities around the world.

“I am happy to be a part of the vital, groundbreaking work conducted at Columbia,” says Constance Lieber, NARSAD president and founder. “Columbia scientists have played an exceptional role in the research of schizophrenia and depression, which afflict so many.”

The Lieber family and NARSAD have been longtime supporters of psychiatric research at Columbia, establishing the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia Research and the Lieber Professorship of Psychiatry, held by Dr. Lieberman.

“These grants will continue Columbia’s legacy of being on the cutting edge of psychiatric research,” Dr. Lieberman says. “Support from the Liebers and NARSAD enhances our psychiatric research capabilities and, in turn, the clinical care we provide, while simultaneously encouraging young investigators to enter the field.”

To learn more about supporting young investigators at Columbia University Medical Center, contact Kristen Mahood, Director of Development, 212-304-7214.

Marriott Family Supports CUMC Mitochondrial Disease Research

Speeding Progress in Research of Mitochondrial Diseases

Known as the “powerhouses” of the cell, mitochondriacontain enzymes that convert food intoadenosine triphosphate (ATP) theenergy the body needs tosustain life and growth.

The Marriott Mitochondrial Disease Research Fund has been established at Columbia University Medical Center with a gift of $600,000. This gift will significantly further ongoing research of mitochondrial diseases at the H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center. The Merritt Center is comprised of six research scientists working on mitochondrial diseases, little-known but often devastating disorders for which there are no cures. Columbia is one of the world’s leaders in mitochondrial genetic research. “Most people probably don’t realize that mitochondrial diseases are fairly common, occurring at a rate of about 15 out of every 100,000 people,” says Salvatore DiMauro, M.D., Lucy G. Moses Professor of Neurology, who leads a group of world-renowned investigators in the Department of Neurology. “There are no cures for mitochondrial diseases yet, but our scientists are working closely with clinicians in a classic example of translational research to discover which disease abnormalities are most common in children and adults. Those findings are taken back to the lab, where we try to learn what has gone awry at a cellular level.”

Known as the “powerhouses” of the cell, mitochondria contain enzymes that convert food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) the energy the body needs to sustain life and growth. When mitochondria do not work properly, the cell generates less ATP, resulting in cell dysfunction and, ultimately, organ failure. Tissues that are most vulnerable to the effects of mitochondrial genetic mutations are those that require a great deal of energy to function properly. Depending on which cells are affected, symptoms may include seizures, stroke, loss of motor control, muscle weakness and pain, gastrointestinal disorders, poor growth, cardiac disease, liver disease, vision and hearing problems, and developmental delays.

Well-known genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, are caused by mutations in the DNA of the cell’s nucleus.Many mitochondrial diseases result from mutations not in nuclear genes, but in genes of the mitochondria. (Mitochondria have their own DNA because they were independent bacteria millions of years ago.) Though not as common as diseases that result from genetic mutations in nuclear DNA, diseases due to mutations in mitochondrial DNA can be no less severe.

Mitochondrial research is still a young science, but as members of a leading treatment and research center, CUMC researchers are devoting themselves to pinpointing genetic mutations in mitochondria. Scientists here have identified about 25 to 30 of the approximately 150 mitochondrial DNA mutations reported in the past two decades. No treatment can ever hope to be developed without first knowing about a mutation.

Because of Columbia’s reputation in this area, many individuals who suspect they may have a mitochondrial disease — or their parents, or their doctors — regularly contact Dr. DiMauro and his colleagues looking for answers.

“Until just a few decades ago no one knew that genetic dysfunction in the mitochondria actually could cause disease,” Dr. DiMauro says. “What makes this field so exciting is that we are learning things every day that may bring us closer to actually being able to help people whose symptoms were not understood before.”

To learn more about mitochondrial disease research at CUMC, contact Michelle Gelber, Director of Development, 212-304-7210.

Speeding Progress in Research of Mitochondrial Diseases

Steve Hersh, M.D., Director of the Medical Illness Counseling Center in Chevy Chase, MD, and a friend of and medical adviser to J.W. Marriott Jr., CEO of Marriott International, helped direct the $600,000 gift for mitochondrial disease research to the H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center. Dr. Hersh is also involved with the care of Steve Marriott, a Vice President at Marriott International, who has a complex mitochondrial disorder.

“I am privileged to have been able to successfully propose to the Marriott Foundation the distribution of funds for the purpose of creating the Marriott Mitochondrial Disorders Clinical Research Fund [MMDCRF] at Columbia University’s H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center,” Dr. Hersh says. “Thirty-seven years ago I had the privilege of learning clinical neurology as a resident under the inspired and exciting tutelage of Lewis P. Rowland, M.D., when he was Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. [He was later chairman of Neurology at CUMC.] It was there that I first encountered the brilliant and ebullient Salvatore DiMauro. Over the past three years, before advocating the establishment of the MMDCRF, I met many times with Dr. DiMauro and his collaborators, Dr. Eric Schon [Professor of Genetics & Development], and Dr. Michio Hirano [Associate Professor of Neurology]. Their enthusiasm, imagination, scholarship, superb experimental methodology, hard work, and openness to collaboration across disciplines reminds me of historic leaders in medicine with whom I had the privilege of spending time or studying under. These doctors and their coworkers, technicians and graduate students, comprise a powerful group who bring great credit to Columbia. They are changing our understanding of diseases and of clinical medicine and deserve enthusiastic support.”

Florida Friends Turn Out for CUMC

Gerald D. Fischbach, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, travelled to Palm Beach, Fla., this past January to visit several of CUMC’s friends and supporters. Dr. Fischbach was hosted by Hildegarde “Hillie” Mahoney, who with her late husband David Mahoney established the David Mahoney Professorship in Brain and Behavior at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Mrs.Mahoney opened her home to Columbia friends for a “Cocktails and Conversation” reception on The Next Frontier in Brain Science: The Thinking Brain, for which Richard Mayeux, M.D., Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Epidemiology, joined Dean Fischbach.

While in Palm Beach, Dr. Fischbach also met with many P&S supporters, including Harold and Joan Seiden, who with their daughter Judith Levi established a scholarship for underprivileged medical students at Columbia through the I.W. Foundation; George Moffet II of the Whitehall Foundation, which has provided neuroscience grants to Columbia since 1966; Paul Brown, M.D., a former resident at Columbia University Medical Center who has since joined the CUMC Board of Visitors; and Ray Gambino, M.D., a former faculty member of CUMC’s Department of Pathology, who is helping CUMC build bridges to other funders. Dr. Fischbach noted, “It is wonderful to meet with the extraordinary individuals who support Columbia University Medical Center and to learn about their commitment to our College of Physicians and Surgeons.”

CUMC Remembers Toni Diamond, ALS Supporter

The Department of Neurology and the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Research Center at CUMC hosted a plaque dedication in memory of Toni Diamond, founder of MDA’s “Wings Over Wall Street,” which supports research to find a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The late Ms. Diamond and her husband Warren Schiffer (at center in photo) started this annual event in 2001 after she was diagnosed with ALS by Hiroshi Mitsumoto, M.D., Wesley J. Howe Professor of Neurology at CUMC. Wings has raised more than $4 million over the past four years for ALS research, which has been donated to both CUMC and Johns Hopkins. Pictured above are friends and family of Ms. Diamond at the plaque dedication.

CUMC Researchers Push for Greater Focus on Autism

A participant in the “Autism Think Tank” responds to questions from senior neuroscientists attending the event. The Think Tank was attended by many nationally recognized autism clinicians and neuroscientists.

In a unique two-day conference — dubbed the “Autism Think Tank” and convened by Columbia University Medical Center, the Simons Foundation and the New York Center for Autism — dozens of eminent autism clinicians and neuroscientists met in New York City this past February to urge more researchers to devote their knowledge, skills and ingenuity to the study of autism. Major support was provided by the Simons Foundation, and additional sponsors were the New York Center for Autism, Autism Speaks, Cure Autism Now, the National Alliance for Autism Research and the National Institute of Mental Health. In recent years, the diagnosed incidence of autism spectrum disorders has risen by more than 500 percent. What was once considered a rare disease is now thought to affect nearly one in every 166 children in the United States. With numbers like these putting a strain on parents, caregivers, schools and social services, better understanding and treatment of the disease has become imperative.

At a dinner to honor the scientists involved, attended by hundreds of sponsors, affected families, and foundation representatives, and during the two days of lively discussions, many Think Tank participants emphasized the need to learn more about normal brain development in childhood, in addition to brain development in autism.

“Autism is a problem of the brain’s circuitry,”said Tom Jessell, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics at CUMC. “Uncovering the map of a normal brain’s circuits is really important, because if you don’t know how a circuit works normally you can’t ask what’s gone wrong with it in autism.”

Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., University Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, Psychiatry, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, said, “We know nothing about the science of social recognition and if we make a significant effort to understand the circuits responsible for this, we may learn a lot about autism.”

To encourage more researchers to devote themselves to the study of autism, the Simons Foundation has created at least four Young Investigator Awards. The awards, of $100,000 each, are available to young scientists working in autism research who work with any of the Think Tank’s more established scientists.

In 2004, a $750,000 Simons Foundation gift enabled Columbia to support three faculty autism research positions in the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program for Autism and Related Disorders. Columbia, with its partners NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, launched the program in 2003. This unique program, directed by Agnes Whitaker, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and codirected by Marc Patterson, M.D., Professor of Clinical Neurology and Clinical Pediatrics, offers coordinated and interdisciplinary medical, psychiatric, psychological, and language evaluation services for families with autistic children. The program also specializes in treatment of serious behavior problems that often accompany autism and related disorders.

“No other program like this exists in the New York metropolitan area,” says Bradley Peterson, M.D., Deputy Director of Child Psychiatry at Columbia, the faculty coordinator who planned and managed the Autism Think Tank event. “For families with autistic children, getting the right kind of help is often a bewildering task. This program guides families through the maze of referrals and support agencies that they must navigate to get the best possible care for their children.”

To learn more about autism research at Columbia, contact Kristen Mahood, Director of Development, 212-304-7214.

Gatsby Charitable Foundation Switches on New Brain Circuit Research

The human brain is arguably the most complex structure in the known universe, filled with 100 billion neurons whose interconnections control our thoughts, actions, and emotions.

Columbia University neuroscientists are launching a new initiative to probe the brain’s profound mysteries with the aid of a $5 million gift from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Columbia University is already home to many outstanding neuroscientists, such as two Nobel laureates, Eric Kandel, M.D., University Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, Psychiatry, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, and Richard Axel, M.D.,University Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics. In addition to supporting ongoing research into brain circuits, the gift will be used to recruit the best young experimental and theoretical neuroscientists to Columbia.

Peter Hesketh of the Gatsby Foundation says, “the Gatsby Charitable Foundation provides nearly all its funding for programs in the United Kingdom, where it is based, so this award is a particular tribute to the quality of the work undertaken in this field at Columbia.”

In the past few decades, neurobiologists have learned that our ability to walk down the block, smell a rose, or experience joy is generated by the vast circuits of interconnecting neurons that comprise the central nervous system.

Through the power of cell and molecular biology, the basic building blocks of these circuits — its neurons and the connections they make among themselves — are beginning to be understood. But, except for a few simple reflexes, how neurons assemble into the circuits that control mood and behavior remains largely obscure.

“Many features of a working brain can only be appreciated by visualizing an entire circuit in action and dissecting the workings of its component neurons,” says Tom Jessell, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and coordinator of the Gatsby Circuit Initiative. “New techniques are needed to help us advance from the study of individual nerve cells to the activity of complex neuronal ensembles.” Part of the job of the Gatsby-funded scientists will be to develop new and more powerful techniques for exploring brain circuits.

Engineers, mathematicians and physicists are becoming increasingly important in the search for the underlying principles that govern brain function. Two neuroscientists with just such a background, Ken Miller, Ph.D., formerly of the University of California, San Francisco, and Laurence F. Abbott, Ph.D., who arrives at Columbia in September from Brandeis University, will join Columbia neuroscientist Ning Qian,, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, in starting a new Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia. Gatsby funding will also help to establish collaborative projects with scientists at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, housed at University College, London.

“In general, the more intriguing the behavior, the less we comprehend about the organization and function of its underlying circuitry” says Dr. Jessell. “And it is through an understanding of these complex circuits that we will gain insight not only into who we are, but also into brain diseases such as autism and Rett syndrome, schizophrenia and bipolar disease, in which key brain circuits have gone awry.”

To learn more about neuroscience research at Columbia, contact Robin Rosenbluth, Assistant Vice President of Development, 212-326-5730.

Burt Lee: P&S Alum and Devoted Friend

Though Burt Lee, M.D., graduated from P&S a halfcentury ago and went on to an illustrious career in medical oncology, his attachment to his alma mater has only grown stronger. Throughout the years he has maintained an impressive standing as supporter, volunteer, donor and advocate of the institution he credits with preparing him for an “incredibly satisfying career” in medicine. Although he now lives in Florida, Dr. Lee remains actively connected to P&S and continues to work to maintain the school’s tradition of stellar education and research.

As Chairman of the Cancer Committee of the Health Sciences Advisory Council at P&S for the past decade, Dr. Lee has come to the Washington Heights campus at least twice a year to spearhead discussions with the committee, which works to enhance the medical center’s cancer research and clinical capabilities. The Cancer Committee is composed of donors and friends interested in cancer research, education and patient care. Each member is asked to give and to help raise awareness of current endeavors by reaching out to individuals, corporations and foundations with whom they are familiar and who also may have the interest and capacity to give. Dr. Lee himself has raised more than $250,000 through his foundation, the Julie Gould Fund, for cancer research programs at Columbia University.

Dr. Lee created the Julie Gould Fund 20 years ago at P&S in honor of a close family friend, Julie Gould, who died of cancer. Each year, a third-year P&S research fellow working on an innovative oncology project is named a Julie Gould Scholar and receives support from the Julie Gould Fund. Dr. Lee has remained attentive to which candidates are chosen for the scholarships each year, the potential of their research, and their level of financial need. In addition, he has approached other foundations on behalf of Columbia, such as the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, where he secured additional support for the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Lee’s enthusiasm and connection to his alma mater remain unparalleled.

“It’s always wonderful for me to be back here,” Dr. Lee says. “Ever since I was in med school, I’ve always felt there was a ‘we’re all in this together’ feeling about P&S. When I was a student, the faculty truly wanted me to succeed, as opposed to so many of my teachers at college and in the earlier years of my education. Today, my colleagues at P&S seem to be appreciative of my efforts on the school’s behalf. I am extremely devoted to what this place represents — a beacon in academic medicine — and I want to do everything I can to help.”

Devotion to academic medicine — and to P&S’s vital role in the field — has been a consistent theme in Dr. Lee’s professional life. “I always advised my postgraduate fellows to work in academic medicine whenever possible,” Dr. Lee says. “In this type of environment more opportunity is available to do clinical research, be on the cutting edge of medical treatment, teach postgraduate fellows — which I find so rewarding — and deliver patient care with fewer economic restraints.”

Dr. Lee carved out a fascinating life in medicine, one in which he did not trod the beaten path. Early in his career, in 1962, he took a leave from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to join the first team of doctors to go into post-Civil War Algeria to run a hospital for war-wounded refugees and torture victims. During the course of his 29 years at Memorial, Dr. Lee ran a large clinical practice, performed clinical research, and taught hundreds of postgraduate fellows. Current P&S faculty members Al Neugut, M.D., the Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research (see page 8), and Gwen Nichols, M.D., the Paul L. Milstein Professor of Clinical Medicine, were his students. Dr. Lee ran the Lymphoma Service at Memorial and also developed treatment protocols for Hodgkin’s disease and multiple myeloma that have been standard therapies throughout the world.

Dr. Lee believes strongly that doctors have an obligation to care for those who can’t afford adequate health care. Although he has practiced at the highest echelons of medicine — he was the physician to the first President Bush — he is now a volunteer physician for indigent patients in Vero Beach, Fla., caring for patients ranging from abused and troubled adolescents to prisoners. He was recently elected Commissioner of Health in Indian River County, Fla.

“P&S is a unique institution,” Dr. Lee says. “It is a community whose citizens — everyone from the faculty to students to the support staff — are extremely dedicated to its well-being. This kind of devotion to an institution is unusual and heartwarming. That’s why I feel so strongly that we have to support what this place — this little city within a city — stands for and help it thrive. We’re all in a wonderful boat together.”

To learn more about cancer research at Columbia, contact Jean Ford, Director of Development, 212-342-0093.

Gift Planning Creates Vital Professorships

The Board of Trustees of Columbia University has established two new professorships in the Departments ofMedicine and Neurological Surgery. The professorships were made possible by donors who planned their gifts during their lifetimes. Whether through a living trust, charitable gift annuity, gift of appreciated securities, or a bequest in one’s will, gift planning can help Columbia ensure its tradition of excellence.

The late Phyllis Studner Grant made a gift in her will to establish the Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Medicine. Mrs. Studner named the professorship for her late husband, a New York businessman. Through a second bequest, Mrs. Grant established the Myron M. Studner Scholarship Fund for P&S students.

Al Neugut, M.D., a prominent cancer researcher, has been appointed to the professorship. Dr.Neugut, Co-Director of the Cancer Prevention Program, and his colleague Dawn Hershman, M.D.,Director of the Clinical Breast Oncology Program, are the principal investigators on a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for breast cancer research. The researchers are studying causes of undertreatment of breast cancer and racial disparities in breast cancer survival.

“I am grateful to be recognized with the Studner Professorship,” Dr. Neugut says. “To sit in a named professorship is one of the university’s highest honors. This will help Columbia continue to attract outstanding faculty and the best and brightest students.” James Simpson Lynch Jr. and Elizabeth Lynch, a former member of the Health Sciences Advisory Council, posthumously endowed the Edgar M. Housepian Professorship of Neurological Surgery Research when the charitable remainder trust he established to support his wife ended with her recent death. Edgar Housepian, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Clinical Neurology Surgery, was a close friend and physician to the Lynches for more than 30 years. Jeffrey N. Bruce, M.D., was appointed to the professorship.

“This is a unique professorship to hold because it is a tribute both to the Lynches and their generosity, and also to Dr. Housepian’s terrific — and continuing — contributions to Columbia throughout the years,” Dr. Bruce says. “I’m honored to hold such a position and continue my research and clinical contributions.”

Dr. Bruce is an expert in tumors of the brain, pituitary, pineal gland and skull base and is a leader in stereotactic neurosurgery. As Director of the Gabriele Bartoli Brain Tumor Research Laboratory in the Department of Neurological Surgery, Dr. Bruce has led a translational brain tumor research project in immunotherapy and drug delivery systems. Dr. Bruce also helps organize experimental clinical protocols for the treatment of brain tumors.

“The importance ofcharitable estateplanning to the Columbia UniversityMedical Center cannot be overstated,”says Gerald Fischbach,M.D.,Execu-tive Vice President for Health andBiomedical Sciences and Dean oftheFaculty ofMedicine. “Well-crafted giftplanning today will indeed help us todefine the future ofthe medical centeras we strive to meet the goals ofourmission to discover,educate,care andlead.”