todate: a progress report on the Capital Campaign

Johnson & Johnson Supports “Bench to Bedside” Neuroscience at CUMC

Mood disorders. Schizophrenia. Epilepsy. Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps nowhere is the need for new diagnostics and drugs greater than in neurology and psychiatry, where growing numbers of patients are waiting for more effective treatments.

Johnson & Johnson has now joined Columbia University Medical Center to accelerate drug discovery and therapeutics for brain-related diseases. The company’s $5 million gift establishes The Paul Janssen Scholars Program in Translational Neuroscience at Columbia University Medical Center.

Translational research blends aspects of basic science with clinical research so discoveries made in the lab may be quickly transformed into potential drugs and tested in patients. Just as importantly, observations made at the bedside also travel back to the bench to expedite discovery.

While academic medical centers lead the way in the explosive growth of basic knowledge about disease, the pharmaceutical companies play the major role in therapeutics. A key element in completing the bridge between bench and bedside is a partnership between academia and industry. To build such a bridge in neuroscience, Johnson & Johnson, a worldwide leader in healthcare products and services is partnering with CUMC, a leading center for research and patient care.

“Scientists are making great progress in understanding brain-related diseases, but the knowledge gained at the lab bench is not always converted quickly into therapies and diagnostics for patients,” says John Mann, M.D., professor of psychiatry and chief of neuroscience at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. “At Columbia, a unique combination of clinical and basic neuroscientists can move important laboratory discoveries quickly into the clinic. The goal of this gift is to create the elements of a program to catalyze this process.”

Johnson & Johnson is donating $3 million for a rotating, two-year Paul Janssen Fellowship in Translational Neuroscience Research, to be awarded to a young physician-scientist with a promising new approach to studying diseases of the brain and body. An additional $2 million gift will provide the Paul Janssen Professorship in Clinical Neuroscience for a nationally recognized physicianscientist who also is engaged in translational research.

The two elements create a model for attracting the world’s best minds to the challenge of devising practical solutions to human suffering from the hope generated from bench science.

“We’re proud to honor the memory of Dr. Paul Janssen by providing this grant to Columbia University Medical Center, one of the country’s preeminent medical research institutions,” says William C.Weldon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “Our hope is that this grant will inspire the type of collaborations between bench and bedside that contributed so importantly to Dr. Janssen’s discoveries in the neurosciences.”

The new contribution is part of a tradition of support from Johnson & Johnson to CUMC. In 1972, the company endowed the Johnson & Johnson Professorship in Surgery, currently held by Eric A. Rose, M.D., chairman of the Department of Surgery and associate dean for translational research. The company has also provided significant research support to CUMC through its Focused Giving Program. Managed by Johnson & Johnson’s Corporate Office of Science and Technology, the program was established in 1980 to stimulate exploration in medical science and set new directions in science and technology.

The Paul Janssen Scholars Program in Translational Neuroscience at Columbia University Medical Center honors the life and work of Paul Janssen, whose discovery nearly 50 years ago of Haldol, the first highly effective antipsychotic drug, still offers lessons for how translational research is the best hope for developing new therapeutics.

In 1953, Dr. Janssen started a fledgling pharmaceutical company in a spare room of his father’s import business in Belgium. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a Johnson & Johnson company, developed from the original company started by Dr. Janssen.

Talking with a friend one day about a professional cyclist’s strange behavior while intoxicated with amphetamines, Dr. Janssen made a connection between the cyclist’s ranting and the behavior of people with paranoid schizophrenia. Taking this insight back into the lab, he began searching for chemical compounds that could block amphetamine’s effects in mice, reasoning that such a compound would also work for patients with schizophrenia.

Dr. Janssen quickly found such a compound, and contacted psychiatrists to test the drug in patients. That compound, Haldol, instantly revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia and is still widely used today.

“The Johnson & Johnson/CUMC partnership promotes the legacy of Dr. Janssen by supporting the work of both rising new stars and established researchers in translational neuroscience,”Dr.Mann says.

To learn more about translational medicine at CUMC, contact Director of Development Kristen Mahood, at 212-304-7214 .

Most Recent Nobel Prize Strengthens CUMC’s Reputation as a Neuroscience Powerhouse

After the awarding of the second Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to a CUMC scientist in four years, the mood on campus this past October was heady. During a celebration on campus for the CUMC community, the winner, Richard Axel, M.D., who shared the prize with Linda Buck, Ph.D., paid special tribute to the unique environment at Columbia that he believes nurtures each scientist’s individual quest for discovery.

“I have been at Columbia my entire adult life, starting as an undergraduate scholarship student at Columbia College. I know that the way in which I operate would not have been accommodated at other institutions. I love this place,” said Dr. Axel, University Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. The prize was awarded to the pair for their pioneering work on how mammals can detect and distinguish among a vast range of odors.

Drs. Eric Kandel, Richard Axel and Gerald Fischbach celebrate Dr. Axel’s winning of the 2004 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

CUMC’s position as a leader in neuroscience research has been immeasurably enhanced by Drs. Axel and Buck – a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher in Dr. Axel’s lab from 1984- 1991– and by Eric Kandel, M.D., University Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics, Psychiatry, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, who won the Nobel in 2000 for seminal work on the basic processes of learning and memory. These scientists are members of a group of 21 Columbians whose work has been recognized with a Nobel in the category of physiology or medicine. Today, exciting, groundbreaking neuroscience research takes place in more than 50 independent laboratories at CUMC.

Here are just a few highlights:

• Columbia is home to six Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators and four members of the National Academy of Sciences.



• One-third of all CUMC principal investigators study the brain and the nervous system, primarily in the departments of neurology, psychiatry, and neurological surgery. Many of these researchers also belong to one of the country’s first interdisciplinary centers – the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, which was established in 1975.



• Other researchers come from the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), basic science departments and several interdepartmental centers and institutes, including the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, which focuses on developmental disorders of the nervous system, and the new Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia, which emphasizes neural circuitry.



• Coupled with stellar researchers in basic science, CUMC boasts an outstanding clinical faculty. CUMC’s Neurological Institute has trained more neurology and neurosurgery chairpersons who lead the nation’s academic medical centers than any other institution of its kind.



• These neuroscience investigators generated $194 million in total research funding last year (35 percent of CUMC’s total), more than any other group of neuroscientists in the country.

In May 2004 CUMC sponsored a major brain and mind symposium as part of the university’s yearlong Columbia 250 anniversary festivities. Attendees gathered at Columbia’s Morningside campus to hear leading neuroscientists and Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Drs. Axel, Kandel, and Thomas Jessell, Ph.D., who also was the symposium’s co-organizer, discuss the promise, possibilities, and potential pitfalls of brain science.

During the event,Columbia University president Lee Bollinger and Gerald Fischbach, M.D., executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences and dean of the faculty of medicine, announced plans to create a Neuroscience Initiative. This initiative will bring together researchers and clinicians to expedite discoveries from the laboratory to the bedside, offering tremendous hope for prevention and opportunities to develop new therapies for brain related diseases.

Describing the depth and breadth of the neuroscience research taking place at CUMC today, Dr. Kandel says: “It’s not just that we have gifted people here. It’s that Columbia has created an environment that has provided scientists with the opportunity to interact at an extraordinary level that is unmatched anywhere. All of us have been at other institutions, but the intensity of the interaction that goes on here is truly unique.”

To learn more about neuroscience at CUMC, contact Assistant Vice President for Development Robin Rosenbluth 212-342-0089.

Stem Cell Research at CUMC: At the Forefront of Medicine

Stem cell research is currently taking place in more than 40 laboratories at CUMC, where researchers are studying the use of stem cells in brain disorders, heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases. Here, Gerald Fischbach, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculty ofMedicine, and a strong proponent of stem cell research, discusses this controversial, but very important, field of science.

Why do you think stem cell research is so promising?

There are many diseases in which cells have either been damaged or lost entirely. Today, our therapies can only optimize the function of the cells that are left. So in Parkinson’s disease, when cells in the brains of patients can no longer produce enough dopamine, our therapies try to maximize the effect of the dopamine that remains.

What stem cell therapy offers is the possibility of replacing the cells that are lost, not just making do with what’s left.

In my view, there’s enough information now from animal studies and from transplantation of small pieces of tissue, to indicate that therapies using stem cells, adult or embryonic, are possible in humans and have a good chance of success. It’s one of the more revolutionary approaches to therapeutics that I’ve seen in my time in medicine.

After former President Ronald Reagan died, news reports quoted several researchers saying that it is unlikely that stem cells will be effective in treating Alzheimer’s disease, and one even called that possibility a “fairy tale.” Is there any way stem cell research can help in the fight against Alzheimer’s?

I believe stem cells have the most impact on Alzheimer’s disease by helping us understand why these cells are dying in the first place. If you isolate stem cells from a patient with Alzheimer’s you can study them in tissue culture to see what’s wrong with them and see what drugs might help them.

I’m a little more skeptical that they will be used as a replacement therapy in Alzheimer’s, at least not in the next few years. The reason is that Alzheimer’s is so global, affecting many different regions of the brain, that we won’t know exactly where to put these cells. It’s different from Parkinson’s disease where we know exactly where the brain is deficient and where new cells are needed.

There may be some hope for stem cells as a replacement therapy when Alzheimer’s first starts, because the disease may be restricted to one small region of the brain. But this would only work if we had a way to detect Alzheimer’s disease early, and if restoring the lost cells could stop the whole process early on.

Aren’t stem cells from adults, such as those that come from bone marrow, good enough. Why is there a need for embryonic stem cells?

Adult stem cells are extremely important, and I think research on adult stem cells should go full speed ahead.

But I’m less optimistic about adult cells for a few reasons. Adult stem cells are few in number and to date they’ve been hard to grow. That’s an issue because we’re going to need billions of them to make a standard therapy.And in my view, they have much less potential, since they’ve already committed to become certain cell types. So far, none of the reports that say blood cells can form nerve cells in your brain, or that fat cells can form muscle cells, have held up to scrutiny. So I think there’s a real need for work on human embryonic stem cells.

Describe some of the stem cell research going on at Columbia.

Our scientists are committed to converting stem cells into sources of future therapies for some of the major diseases of mankind.

One of the most dramatic examples is the work of Tom Jessell [Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and an HHMI Investigator] with mouse embryonic stem cells, which he has steered into becoming motor neurons. These neurons grow out from the spinal cord and connect to all the muscles in the body. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to move. Tom has shown that motor neurons derived from embryonic stem cells act just like real motor neurons – when placed into the spinal cord they know where to grow and the muscles to which they must connect. It’s probably one of the clearest examples of integrating stem cells into a normal circuit. So, if someone has lost many of their motor neurons due to Lou Gehrig’s disease or spinal muscular dystrophy, here’s a possible model to restore those muscles to functionality.

We also have researchers here trying to turn embryonic cells into neurons that release dopamine for use in Parkinson’s disease. And at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center researchers are collaborating with others to turn embryonic stem cells into new insulin-producing cells.

In August 2001, President Bush announced he’d provide NIH funds for human embryonic stem cell research, but limited that funding to cell lines that already existed at the time. How has that decision affected research on human embryonic stem cells?

I believe it has had a dampening effect. You can say “I’ve given you a gift, use these 20 lines.” But we need more right now. We can’t expect 20 lines are going to be adequate for all the research and trials that need to get done. Every line is valuable because every line is different. Some may work for Parkinson’s but not for diabetes. So we need hundreds, maybe thousands, of cell lines to work with. Think of developing a new medicine. The first chemical you get in the lab is not one you put on the market. Hundreds of similar molecules are synthesized to find the best one. Similarly we have to optimize these cell lines.

How can progress be made in embryonic stem cell research with these funding restrictions?

Right now significant progress can only be made with private funds, either from industry or philanthropy. Philanthropy is needed for longer-term development projects like stem cell research. Individuals who donate now will help enormously to drive this research forward. I feel that these funding regulations will be relaxed over time. When that time comes, we want to have a strong scientific program in place to successfully compete for federal funding.

To learn more about supporting stem cell research at CUMC, contact Assistant Vice President for Development Robin Rosenbluth at 212-342-0089.

Herbert and Florence Irving Set Their Sights on Columbia’s Department of Ophthalmology

Herbert and Florence Irving, noted New York City philanthropists and honorary chairpersons for CUMC’s Defining the Future campaign, have made a multi-million- dollar commitment to Columbia’s Department of Ophthalmology – further enhancing their standing as the most generous and prolific benefactors in the history of the medical center. Funds will go toward developing programs in translational research, the branch of inquiry that transforms basic science research findings into new remedies for patients; modifying existing space in CUMC’s Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute to accommodate a translational research laboratory of the highest quality; and advancing the department’s current efforts in cornea and cataract research. This is Ophthalmology’s first major gift from the Irvings, who also have served the department as members of its board of advisors.

“I am thrilled – and deeply grateful – that the Irvings have chosen to support our research efforts in such a tangible, thoughtful way,” says Stanley Chang, M.D., Edward S.Harkness Professor, K.K. Tse and Ku Teh Ying Professor of Ophthalmology, and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology. “This gift will assist us as we expand our efforts to attract outstanding new clinician-scientists to our research programs. It will also enable us to accelerate basic science discoveries and develop them into treatments or procedures that can preserve or restore vision. Ultimately, it will help us promote and sustain a tradition of progress and excellence that makes us one of the premier centers for vision research and clinical care in the country.”

Scientists in the new translational research laboratory will concentrate on identifying the most potent new therapies for age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, both of which continue to be among the major causes of visual impairment and blindness worldwide. The department’s cornea and cataract researchers, in turn, will use their portion of the Irving gift to expand upon genetic studies of corneal dystrophies (inherited disorders that cause the cornea to become cloudy or abnormally shaped), and to investigate the potential of a novel transplantation technique known as deep lamellar endothelial keratoplasty for the treatment of swollen and cloudy corneas.

“Florence and I have been consistently impressed with Dr. Chang and his faculty – they are all enthusiastic and creative individuals with tremendous ideas for the future of their field.” —Herbert Irving

“We are so pleased that we’re able to assist Dr. Chang and the Department of Ophthalmology with the development of their research programs,”Mr. Irving says. “Florence and I have been consistently impressed with Dr. Chang and his faculty – they are all enthusiastic and creative individuals with tremendous ideas for the future of their field. We have no doubt that their work will someday yield some amazing results, and we’re delighted that we can play this vital role in the process.”

Over the course of four decades, Herbert and Florence Irving have established and maintained an extraordinary philanthropic partnership with Columbia. Their contributions to clinical research at the university – not to mention their commitment to developing a first-rate cancer research and treatment program at CUMC – underscore a legacy of kindness, compassion, and generosity that is felt today in every laboratory, classroom, and patient care facility of the medical center.

To learn more about the campaign for Ophthalmology contact Development Officer Jane Heffner at 212-305-7827.

Interventional Cardiology Greatly Expands at CUMC

The Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy (CIVT) team, from left, Drs. Jeffrey Moses, Gregg Stone and Martin Leon.

A new Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy (CIVT) has been established at Columbia University Medical Center with the recent arrival of a world-renowned group of interventional cardiologists. CIVT is a combined research and clinical program whose goal is to develop noninvasive procedures that reduce the need for invasive cardiovascular surgery. The CIVT group recently moved to Columbia from Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

The group has been instrumental in pioneering many minimally invasive coronary interventions, including angioplasty to open blocked arteries, coronary artery stenting to keep areas of blockage open and atherectomy to remove calcified plaque in the arteries. Their work has led to advances that enable early diagnosis and treatment of cardiac and vascular disease and has allowed patients with serious heart disease to be treated without surgery or lengthy hospital stays.

“We at Columbia are fortunate to have recruited this outstanding group, which is building on our existing program in interventional cardiology and taking it to the next level,” says Allan Schwartz, M.D., chief of cardiology in the department of medicine at CUMC.

The team, noted for its innovative approaches to tackling high risk and complex cases, has conducted more than 20,000 angioplasties and cardiac interventions in the past 10 years. The number of these procedures at CUMC has more than tripled since the team arrived in August 2004.

“We consider this move the opportunity of a lifetime,” says CIVT director, Jeffrey Moses, M.D. “It’s important in this field to be able to combine a basic understanding of biology with mechanical delivery and to continue to develop new technology. Being part of a major academic medical center opens up opportunities for collaboration that could lead to major research breakthroughs.”

With a continued shift toward lessinvasive therapies and experimental procedures, and more of an emphasis on prevention, the CIVT group believes the future of cardiovascular medicine lies in detecting warning signs of the disease at the genetic or cellular levels, and intervening before symptoms develop.

The group is affiliated with the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), a nonprofit organization founded in 1990 by Martin Leon, M.D., associate director of CIVT, to conduct cardiovascular clinical trials. CRF sponsors continuing education and training forums, such as the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference, the world’s largest educational conference specializing in interventional vascular medicine. Its recent conference in Washington, D.C., attracted about 20,000 participants.

Gregg Stone, M.D., director of research and education for CIVT and vice chairman of CRF, says, “As cardiovascular medicine crosses virtually every medical subspecialty, including endocrinology, diabetes, hematology, and women’s health, we now have many new scientific avenues to explore the impact of early cardiovascular interventions through one of the greatest universities in the world.”

The Center for Interventional Cardiology team is known for its ground-breaking work in minimally invasive cardiac procedures, such as the insertion of cardiac stents – cylindrical metal devices that enlarge narrowed blood vessels.

CIVT joins a cardiology faculty at CUMC with a long tradition of cardiovascular breakthroughs that directly improve patient care. In 1911, Horatio Williams, M.D., introduced the first electrocardiography machine in the United States; in 1956 Andre Cournard, M.D., and Dickinson Richards, M.D., won a Nobel Prize for introducing the catheter as a valuable tool for exploration, diagnosis and treatment of coronary heart problems and in 1984, the first successful pediatric heart transplant was performed by Columbia surgeons. “In this new century, with all its possibilities for change and growth, the Division of Cardiology anticipates major advances in the way that Columbia’s medical faculty meet the challenge of heart disease that will bring increasing benefits to our patients,”Dr. Schwartz says.

To learn more about Columbia’s Division of Cardiology and the research being conducted by CIVT, contact the development office at 212-342-0099.

Groups Join Forces to Fight Asthma in Harlem

Many of Harlem’s children face a formidable enemy, one that often stalks poor children living in urban environments, impeding their ability to live normal, healthy lives. That enemy is asthma, believed to affect about 28 percent of Harlem’s children, an extraordinarily high rate compared with national estimates of 5 percent to 10 percent. The Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) Asthma Initiative is trying to control the asthma epidemic in Harlem with the help of various experts, including Columbia doctors and public health professionals.

One in every three children in central Harlem has asthma — one of the highest rates ever found in an American community — according to preliminary results of a study based at Harlem Hospital Center. A health care team is seeking more funding to screen and treat Harlem's children for asthma.

“When a child has an asthma attack and can’t breathe, that’s a horrifying experience for a child and parents,” says Dr. Vincent Hutchinson, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Harlem Hospital and medical director of the asthma initiative. “But thankfully, it’s a manageable condition. Kids in our program are living better now that they are on a treatment plan, which drastically decreases the need for them to be rushed to the emergency room in the middle of the night.”

Part of the challenge in reducing Harlem’s asthma rates is that many respiratory irritants – cigarette smoke, dander from pets, dust, roaches, physical activity, pollen and air pollution – can trigger asthma attacks.

The founders of the HCZ Asthma Initiative have mounted a multi-pronged attack, sending health care teams into schools and apartments to screen children for asthma and follow up to address as many of the triggers as possible. They offer smoking cessation programs; advise family members to smoke outside their apartments; provide apartment cleaning and pest control services; and offer free legal services to put pressure on landlords to keep their buildings clean.

The initial funding for the initiative came from the Robin Hood Foundation, which continues to provide major support; in 2004 the Foundation donated nearly $900,000 to HCZ. Robin Hood fights poverty in New York City by finding and funding the most effective programs to help poor people and their families build better lives for themselves.

“Robin Hood is thrilled to support the lifesaving work of Harlem Hospital and the Harlem Children’s Zone,” says David Saltzman, executive director of the Foundation.“Hundreds of poor children in Harlem will literally breathe easier as a result of their extraordinary efforts.

New funding sources since the initiative’s inception include the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Legacy Foundation and the Dyson Foundation.

The HCZ Asthma Initiative’s work is garnering more attention, prompting some New Yorkers to reach out to help as well. For example, a Bronx-based company, Indoor Environmental Solutions, began donating one air purifier per month to a child recommended by Harlem Hospital after its owner read about the initiative’s efforts in the newspaper.

The HCZ Asthma Initiative grew out of a 2001 meeting between Geoffrey Canada, the director of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit educational organization, and Stephen W. Nicholas, M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Columbia’s College of Physicians & Surgeons (P&S) and director of pediatrics at Harlem Hospital.While the HCZ worked to improve education for Harlem’s children, its leaders observed a high rate of absenteeism among Harlem’s schoolchildren that seemed to be caused by asthma attacks.

Mr. Canada and Dr. Nicholas assembled a powerful health care team to work with HCZ to tackle the problem: the pediatrics departments at both Harlem Hospital and P&S; Columbia’s Harlem Health Promotion Center; Touchpoints, an educational institute founded by Harvard physician and P&S graduate T. Berry Brazelton, M.D.; and the New York City Department of Health. In 2001, the program began screening children 12 years old and younger for asthma. More than 3,000 children, of whom nearly 1,000 had asthma, have been screened so far and offered treatment under an asthma management plan.

“We have an important program that works beyond our initial expectations,” Dr. Nicholas says. “But if we’re going to respond effectively to the asthma crisis that affects children in Central Harlem, we will need significantly more funding.”

For more information about the Harlem Children’s Zone Asthma Initiative, contact Kellye Jackson-Roney, Director of Development at Harlem Hospital, at 212-939-4025.

Complementary Medicine Program Helps Children with Cancer

When a child is diagnosed with cancer, parents will do anything possible to improve their child’s health, including turning to complementary therapies. Columbia’s Integrative Therapies Program for Children with Cancer, the first in the nation, strives to ensure that the alternative treatments to which families may turn are medically sound.

“When I came here in 1996, parents were asking me about the safety of supplements for their kids, but when I looked into it, I found very little valuable information,” says Kara Kelly M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics. Interested to know how many of their patients were using supplements or other therapies, Michael Weiner M.D., director of pediatric oncology, suggested Dr. Kelly interview their parents.

Patient Javaun Humphrey, with his sister Shantel Levy, samples a meal prepared with cancer-fighting ingredients.

“To my surprise we found that 84 percent were using complementary therapies, much higher than I expected. It showed us there was a real need to find accurate information to help guide patients and their families,” she says. In response, Dr. Kelly founded the program not only to provide accurate information, but also to investigate which alternative therapies actually work and to offer those to patients. The therapies are not meant to replace surgery and chemotherapy. Instead, the program utilizes complementary therapies to alleviate many of the physical and emotional effects of standard treatment.

“Our goal is to heal not only our patients’ bodies, but also their minds and spirits,” says the program’s director, Elena Ladas. “We’ve found the complementary therapies make such a huge difference in the lives of these children.”

Among other techniques, children use yoga to increase energy and reduce stress during chemotherapy; aromatherapy to reduce the nausea and anxiety that arise during bone marrow transplant procedures; and acupressure from wristbands that apply slight pressure to the inside of the wrist to reduce nausea.

One 12-year-old patient recently told Dr. Kelly that the breathing exercises she learned from the program’s yoga instructor made her feel better and increased her energy, which was being sapped by the rounds of chemo.

The program is so successful that Dr. Kelly, the program’s medical director, and Ms. Ladas are increasingly being sought for advice by other pediatric oncologists interested in setting up their own integrative therapies programs. The two also sit on the National Cancer Institute’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine Editorial Board, which produces evidence- based, peer-reviewed cancer information summaries for physicians and patients. The program’s website (www.integrativetherapiesprogram.org) also is one of only two alternative medicine sites deemed scientifically rigorous enough to be listed as a resource by the National Cancer Institute.

As leaders in the field of alternative therapies for children with cancer, Dr. Kelly and Ms. Ladas are constantly developing new ideas. “We’re curing more and more children with cancer and now we’re trying to think of ways to promote wellness in children after they leave our care,” Dr. Kelly says.

The program’s new Chef Program, for example, introduces children and their parents to a diet designed to maximize the anticancer properties of phytonutrients, as well as being heart-healthy. Once a week, a chef brings in tasty dishes such as black-eyed pea salad or udon noodles in ginger broth.

The eating-right philosophy also helps children currently battling cancer, according to the program’s most recent scientific findings. The report, published this June in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed that a greater intake of vitamin C, vitamin E, and betacarotene reduces a child’s side effects from chemotherapy and can even result in fewer days spent in the hospital.

What the therapies don’t do is make a big dent in the family’s pocketbook; all the services are free, supported mostly by individual donors.

“There are so many expenses associated with having a child with cancer, even when the standard treatments are covered by insurance or Medicaid,” says Dr. Kelly. “We want to make it available to everyone and we’re hoping to raise more funds so we can bring our services, such as yoga and massage, to every patient.”

For more information about the Integrative Cancer Therapies program, contact Director of Development Jean Ford, at 212-342-0093.

Simons Foundation Gift Supports Autism Research and Care

The Simons Foundation has awarded Columbia University Medical Center a $750,000 gift to support three faculty positions in the year-old Columbia Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program (CDNP) for Autism and Related Disorders. The program provides clinical evaluation services and treatment for children, adolescents, and adults with autism, a complex developmental disorder that severely affects communication, learning, socialization, and other behaviors.

The new funds are also a boost for the program, as it seeks to expand into a full-fledged autism center with more space and personnel to accommodate additional patients.

The Simons Foundation is a private family foundation based in New York City whose primary mission is to fund advanced research in science and mathematics. A secondary mission is to help children with learning difficulties. Bridging these two areas, the Simons Foundation has recently undertaken a major initiative supporting research into autism and its treatment.

“This gift will provide us with initial funding for some of our investigators to move forward with new scientific research focused on a better understanding of autism, which likely will lead to better treatments,” says Agnes Whitaker, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry and director of CDNP.

Columbia, with its partners NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute, launched the program in September 2003 to establish a New York-based center for autism care and research. The program offers coordinated and interdisciplinary medical, psychiatric, psychological, and language evaluation services, in addition to specialized treatment of serious behavior problems that often accompany autism and related disorders. The program also provides an array of experts in fields as diverse as pediatric neurology, developmental pediatrics, pediatric neuropsychiatry, behavior therapy, communication, cognitive testing, and occupational therapy. It also has consultant faculty from various pediatric specialties including neuropsychology, gastroenterology, neuroradiology/ neuroimaging, urology, ophthalmology, and otolaryngology.

Drs.Marc Patterson, left, and Agnes Whitaker of the Columbia Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program, with Matthew Ross, chairman of the Kids Foundation, which also helps support Columbia’s program. (see below)

Already, the varied backgrounds of these practitioners are generating new projects. The program is starting to build a database of clinical information to support autism research. All families receiving services at the CDNP are invited to participate in the database of anonymous patient information that can be used to better characterize autism and to answer questions about the best methods of clinical care and the causes of autism. One new service, available this fall, is an innovative system for teaching nonverbal children with autism to read and write.

“No other clinical service exists within the New York metropolitan area that provides the comprehensive, interdisciplinary evaluation and services needed to help establish an accurate diagnosis and treatment recommendations,” says Marc Patterson, M.D., professor of clinical neurology and clinical pediatrics and co-director of CDNP. “We also help guide families through the bewildering maze of referrals and support agencies that are required for the care of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.”

To learn more about the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program for Autism and Related Disorders, contact Director of Development Kristen Mahood, at 212-304-7214.

CUMC Launches Campaign to Create Innovative Teaching Academy

Mission of the Glenda Garvey Teaching Academy:
To recognize excellence, reward achievement, and
promote innovation in education of health professionals.

CUMC is embarking upon a multi-million dollar fund-raising effort to establish the Glenda Garvey Teaching Academy, a unique entity that will support the advancement of knowledge through education across the medical center. The Academy is named for Glenda Garvey, M.D., P&S’69, a legendary figure in the history of medicine and medical education at Columbia. Dr. Garvey died earlier this year at age 61 after a 40-year career at Columbia as a student, resident, physician and professor. “We believe strongly that the academy will have a transformational effect on CUMC, infusing and reinvigorating our educational mission with fresh vision and purpose – much as Dr. Garvey did during her lifetime,” says Gerald Fischbach, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. “And we are equally confident that every student and patient at the medical center will benefit from the work that the Academy does to improve and elevate our teaching enterprise.”

Dr. Glenda Garvey, who set the gold standard for teaching excellence at CUMC. Over 25 years, she trained more than 3,000 medical students, as well as every intern and resident who passed through the Department of Medicine.

In recent years, several prominent medical schools such as the University of California, San Francisco, Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic, have formed academies – with members selected for their achievements in education – to develop and advance best-practice methods of teaching. The academies are usually independent bodies, separate from departments, with their own resources. The Glenda Garvey Academy will be unique because it will encompass all the schools that compose CUMC – the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, the Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the Graduate Program.

The interdisciplinary model will establish a community where CUMC educators can come together to share information and ideas and explore new ways of teaching in the health professions. The academy will offer a variety of faculty development programs to stimulate curriculum innovation and reform; provide advocacy, mentoring, recognition and support for faculty educators; and, encourage outside funding for educational initiatives.

Since the campaign’s official launch in early 2004, CUMC has secured a $1 million lead gift from Stanley Ho, president and Joy Ho, vice president of their family- owned business, Allure Home Creations Co. Mr. and Mrs. Ho, Taiwanese immigrants who came to the United States in the mid-1970s, donated the gift to the Garvey Academy initiative as a way of thanking their long-time physician – Ron Drusin, M.D., professor of clinical medicine and associate dean for education at the College of Physicians & Surgeons. As Dr. Drusin’s patient, Mrs. Ho was able to overcome heart problems and give birth to two sons, Howard and Edward, while other physicians had previously told her she would not be able to have children.

“For Dr. Drusin, as for CUMC, teaching is one of the highest priorities,” Dr. Fischbach says. “We can’t underestimate the tremendous role Ron played in getting this project off the ground by his suggestion to Mr. and Mrs. Ho that they direct their gift to the Garvey Academy. Dr.Drusin’s commitment to excellence in medical education is matched only by his altruism and extraordinary kindness.”

In addition to the gift from Mr. and Mrs. Ho, an additional $1 million has come from faculty, alumni and classmates at the Brearley School in New York, which Dr. Garvey attended.

For more information about the Glenda Garvey Teaching Academy, or to inquire about making a contribution, contact Randy Beranek, Senior Director of Development, at 212-304-7235.

Out and About

Pictured in London, from left, are Rosenthal Center donors Angelica Berrie and Hinda Rosenthal (seated), and Gerald Fischbach, M.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. CUMC Delegation Meets with the Prince of Wales On the heels of the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s 10th anniversary gala, a CUMC/Rosenthal Center delegation, led by center director Fredi Kronenberg, M.D., traveled to London to present H.R.H. The Prince of Wales with an award for excellence in international leadership. The award honors Prince Charles for his work on behalf of integrated health care in the United Kingdom. The group met with Prince Charles and others from the Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Health to discuss new partnerships in women’s health, pain medicine, and the intersection of health and environment. In the first planned initiative, the Rosenthal Center and the Foundation for Integrated Health will work together to bring the center’s popular course in integrative pain medicine to London in 2005. For more information on this partnership, contact Dr. Kronenberg at fk11@columbia.edu or 212-342-0111.

New Advanced Degree Is Approved for School of Nursing

The Board of Trustees of Columbia University approved the creation of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (Dr.N.P.) degree at the School of Nursing at the board’s June 2004 meeting. The Dr.N.P. is the first clinical doctoral degree in nursing to be offered by any academic institution nationally or internationally.

Announcing the Trustees’ approval, Mary O’Neil Mundinger, Dr.P.H., Dean of the School of Nursing and Centennial Professor in Health Policy, said, “We are on our way to a promising and exciting venture that can have a profound and lasting effect on improving the quality of health care.” For a decade Dr.Mundinger led a team of academics, both within the university and across the nation, to prepare the curriculum and to test the program’s viability.

Sarah Sheets Cook, vice dean of the School of Nursing (seated) with Frannie Kelly Burns’77, member of the Board of the Alumni Association of the School of Nursing at the Dr.N.P. celebration in Rye, N.Y.

The program is based on doctorallevel education that includes didactic clinical courses, clinical practice, portfolio development and a residency. Faculty will include advanced practice nurses who already function at this high level of independent practice and physicians in the same specialties. This will prepare the Doctor of Nursing Practice graduates for independent, cross-site care and accountability. This means caring for patients in outpatient offices, evaluating their needs in the emergency room, admitting and co-managing hospitalized patients, initiating specialist referrals and evaluating the subsequent advice and co-management. As advance practice nursing has evolved so has the impetus for a universally accepted credentialing standard within the profession. The Dr.N.P. degree offered by Columbia School of Nursing will provide the highest and universally accepted standard for clinical nursing practice.

To learn more about the School of Nursing contact Senior Development Officer Sally Benner at 212-342-3030.

Lynch Estate Funds Housepian Professorship in Neurological Surgery

Dr. Edgar Housepian, left, and Torkom Manougian, the Archbishop of the Diocese of the Armenian Church in New York, in 1988, while visiting some survivors of a devastating earthquake in Armenia. The visitors were served juice in the Armenian tradition of showing hospitality to guests no matter how little one has.

James Simpson Lynch Jr., and Elizabeth Lynch, a former member of the Columbia University Health Sciences Advisory Board, have posthumously endowed the Edgar M. Housepian Professorship of Neurological Surgery Research. Edgar Housepian, M.D., professor emeritus of clinical neurological surgery, was a close friend and physician to the Lynches for three decades. The professorship recently was officially established by Columbia’s Board of Trustees.

Mr. Lynch, who was the owner of Thomasville Furniture, established a Charitable Remainder Trust, an estateplanning tool, in 1975 to benefit and support his wife Elizabeth during her lifetime. Mr. Lynch designed the trust so that after Mrs. Lynch’s death, which occurred last year, the remaining funds would go to support neurosurgical research at Columbia. Mrs. Lynch was a former fashion merchandise editor for Vogue magazine.

“This gift to establish the Housepian Professorship recognizes the outstanding faculty and cutting-edge research and patient care that define this department,” says Robert A. Solomon, M.D., Byron Stookey Professor and chairman of neurological surgery. “We are grateful that, years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Lynch had the foresight and generosity that allowed the establishment of this very important chair, which recognizes Dr. Housepian’s outstanding career. The Housepian professorship further strengthens CUMC’s Neurological Institute as one of the premier centers for neurosurgery and other neurological disorders in the United States.”

Such endowments help the Department of Neurological Surgery attract and support leading physician/scientists whose expertise in neurosurgery will enhance Columbia’s research, clinical, and educational programs. In keeping with the Lynch family’s wishes, the faculty member who receives the Housepian Professorship is required to have a primary interest in clinical or basic research and the investigation and study of the etiology, pathogenesis, treatment, and eventual prevention of neurological disorders and their complications.

“I am honored by this professorship and the generosity of James and Betty Lynch. I’m grateful to them for their longstanding support of neuroscience research at Columbia,”Dr.Housepian says.

Dr.Housepian, Columbia College’45, P&S’53, has spent almost his entire professional career at Columbia’s Neurological Institute, from a residency in neurological surgery to professor and, since 1997, professor emeritus. He continues to serve as special lecturer in neurological surgery and as special advisor for International Affiliations to the executive vice president and dean of CUMC, a position he has held since 1996. During his career at the Neurological Institute he initiated many basic and clinical investigations and participated in the training of countless medical students and neurosurgical residents.

Among his many awards and achievements is the 2002 Humanitarian Award by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in recognition of Dr. Housepian’s extensive volunteer work with the Armenian Academy of Science and with humanitarian efforts to aid the country of Armenia. After an earthquake devastated Armenia in 1988, Dr. Housepian spearheaded relief efforts by gathering medical supplies and recruiting American physicians to travel to Armenia to provide medical care, food, and disaster relief. He has been honored by the Academy of Sciences of Armenia with an honorary doctorate and was the recipient of the Gold Foundation Humanitarian Award.

Dr. Housepian was instrumental in establishing the J. Lawrence Pool Professorship in Neurological Surgery, established in 1994. Dr. Pool, who passed away in May, was a mentor and friend to Dr. Housepian.

For more information about estate giving, contact Senior Director of Development Randy Beranek at 212-304-7235.