John Merck Scholars Program Application

Alexander Ming Fisher Lecture

The Alexander Ming Fisher Memorial Lecture on Death and Dying was established in the early 1970s by E. Douglas Southwick to commemorate the life of Alexander Ming Fisher, M.D., a graduate of Columbia University, and to institute a yearly lecture series on the topics of death and dying. Since 1974, Alexander Ming Fisher lecturers have explored a wide variety of issues including family care in terminal illness, death and public policy, the impact of AIDS on the practice of medicine, physician-assisted suicide, Medicare and terminal illness, and genetic engineering and the prolonging of life.

2008-2009 Events
Thursday, November 6, 2008 4:00 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	"Waging Hope in the Shadow of Death"
	Brigadier General Loree K. Sutton is a Warrior and Psychiatrist.  She currently serves as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) and Director, Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. Prior to this assignment, BG Sutton served in a variety of leadership, policy and operational roles, including as the Commander, Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas; Command Surgeon, U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM); Commander, DeWitt Army Community Hospital/Health Care Network; Deputy Commander for Clinical Services, General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital; Division Surgeon, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized); Special Assistant to the Surgeon General, LTG (Ret) Ronald R. Blanck; White House Fellow and Special Assistant to Office of National Drug Control Program Director, General Barry R. McCaffrey, US Army (Retired); Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Disaster Medicine Consultant at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS); Chief of Inpatient Psychiatry at William Beaumont Medical Center; Division Psychiatrist, 1st Armored Division, including deployment from Germany to Operations Desert Shield / Storm; and Mental Health Officer with 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment Task Force, Multinational Force and Observers, Sinai, Egypt. BG Sutton has received numerous awards, including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Order of Military Medical Merit. She has earned the Expert Field Medical Badge, the German Armed Forces Efficiency Training Badge (Silver), and is authorized to wear the US Army 9th Infantry Regiment Manchu Warrior Belt Buckle. Other honors include the Colonel Robert Skelton Award as the outstanding officer in residency training at Letterman Army Medical Center, and the Sandoz Award as the outstanding graduate medical student at Loma Linda University in the field of Psychiatry. BG Sutton has received the "American Patriot" award from the Non-Commissioned Officer Association (NCOA) and also serves proudly as a Yellow Rose of Texas; Honorary Texan; Admiral of the Texas Navy; Kentucky Colonel; and an Honorary Member of the Non-Commissioned Officer Corps. Selected to serve as a member of Leadership Washington (LW), Class of 2003, she was subsequently elected to serve on the LW Board of Directors, 2003-2004. BG Sutton completed her Internship and Residency training in Psychiatry at Letterman Army Medical Center, located at the Presidio of San Francisco, California. She holds a Medical Degree from Loma Linda University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Pacific Union College. Board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, BG Sutton is licensed to practice medicine in California. She is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College, and a distinguished graduate of the National War College.

PAST ALEXANDER MING FISHER LECTURERS

1974 - Cicely Saunders, O.B.E., M.R.C.P., medical director, St. Christopher's Hospice, London, England

1975 - Colin Murray Parkes, M.D., Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London, England

1976 - Jeanne Quint Benoliel, R.D., D.N.Sc., professor and chairman, University of Washington School of Nursing

1977 - Robert Kastenbaum, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of Massachusetts

1978 - Edwin Schneidman, Ph.D., professor of thanatology, Neuropsychiatric Institute, Unversity of California at Los Angeles

1979 - Leon Kass, M.D., Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Biology, University of Chicago

1980 - Raymond S. Duff, M.D., professor of pediatrics, Yale University

1981 - Alexander M. Capron, L.L.B., executive director, President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research

1983 - Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., Foundation's Fund Research Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University

1984 - Francis D. Moore, M.D., Mosely Professor Emeritus of Surgery, Harvard University

1985 - Ida M. Martinson, R.N., Ph.D., Health Care Nursing, School of Nursing, University of California at San Francisco

1986 - Rev. John Parris, professor of social ethics, Holy Cross College; adjunct professor of medicine, University of Massachusetts

1987 - Merle Sande, M.D., professor of medicine, University of California at San Francisco; chief, medical service, San Francisco General Hospital

1988 - Samuel O. Thier, president, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences

1989 - Edwin Cassem, M.D., acting chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital

1990 - Rabbi Moses Tendler, Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler Professor of Medical Ethics, Yeshiva University

1991 - Kenneth Ryan, M.D., professor and chairman, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital

1992 - H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and philosophy, Center for Ethics, Medicine and Public Issues, Baylor College of Medicine

1993 - Christine K. Cassel, M.D., F.A.C.P., professor of medicine and public policy studies, chief, Section of General Internal Medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center

1994 - George Soros, founder and chairman, the Soros Foundation

1995 - Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., clinical professor of surgery, Yale University

1996 - Daniel Callahan, Ph.D., director of international programs, the Hastings Center

1997 - Bruce C. Vladeck, Ph.D., professor of health policy, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine

1998 - Joanne Lynn, M.D., director, Center to Improve the Care of the Dying; professor of health care science, George Washington University School of Medicine

2000 - Neil Gillman, Ph.D., Aaron Rabinowitz & Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Daniel Callahan, Ph.D., director of international programs, the Hastings Center

2001 - Nancy S. Wexler, M.D., Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology, College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University

2004 – James Q. Wilson, Ph.D., Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University; James Collins Professor Emeritus of Management and Public Policy, UCLA

2004 - Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.,Director, Center for Bioethics Emanuel and Robert Hart Chair of Bioethics Chair, Department of Medical Ethics, University of Pennsylvania

2005 – Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., Attending Neurologist, Pain & Palliative Care Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center , Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Clinical Pharmacology, Cornell University Medical College, and Medical Director, International Palliative Care Initiative, Open Society Institute

2006 – Joan Didion is the author of five novels, Run River, Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, Democracy, and The Last Thing He Wanted, and eight books of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami, After Henry, Political Fictions, Where I Was From, and The Year of Magical Thinking.  She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  In 2005 she was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Lettres, and also the National Book Award in Nonfiction.

2007 - Thomas H. Murray, Ph.D., President of The Hastings Center

The John M. Lewis Memorial Lecture

2008-2009 Events
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:30 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	"Exploring DNA Repair Pathways & Stem Cell-Like Behavior in Budding Yeast"
	Rodney Rothstein received his B.S. from the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 1969 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1975, where he started his studies on yeast genetics in 1970. He did postdoctoral work at the University of Rochester and Cornell University before taking a position as Assistant Professor of Microbiology at UMDNJ-Newark (1979-84). He joined Columbia University Medical Center in 1984 and was promoted to full Professor in 1998. He has had appointments at the University of Paris VI (1992), Université René Descartes, Faculté de Médicine Necker Enfants Malades (1999) and at Institut Curie, Paris (Mayent-Rothschild Boursier, 2005). He has been a member of numerous advisory panels for the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund, the NSF, the NIH and was a member of National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research from 1993-97. He has chaired numerous meetings on Genetic Recombination and Genome Stability. In 2001, he gave the Erasmus Lecture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2005 he gave the Herbert Stern Lecture at UC San Diego. In 2006 he gave the Gregor Mendel Lecture at Mendel’s Abbey, Brno, Czech Republic, and this year he gave keynote lectures at the Salk Institute’s DNA Replication & Genome Stability meeting in La Jolla, California and at the Conférences Jacques Monod’s Biological Response to DNA Damage meeting in Roscoff, Brittany, France. Rodney Rothstein pioneered the use of recombination to alter genomes and has used these methods to isolate novel genes involved in the maintenance of genome stability. His work on plasmid-chromosome recombination led to the double-strand break repair model for genetic recombination, a major paradigm shift. His development of “one-step” gene disruption technology is an elegant method noteworthy for the ability to create a non-reverting null mutation, which is critical for defining gene function. Rothstein’s work directly led to the “knock-out” technology that is used in many organisms to exploit recombination to either remove or insert DNA sequences into specific positions within the genome. In yeast, this technique led to the creation of a gene disruption library, the first complete collection of gene knock-outs for an entire eukaryotic genome. His laboratory has gone on to discover many new genes that affect the control of genome stability and are conserved in most species. Among them are Top3, a novel type I topoisomerase and Sgs1, a DNA helicase whose human homologues (Blm, Wrn and Rts) cause cancer predisposition and premature aging. Rothstein’s lab also showed that active pol II transcription elevates recombination between directly repeated sequences, which are often targets for disease-associated chromosome rearrangements. His work on Holliday junction recombination intermediates in the ribosomal DNA showed that replication and recombination are intimately associated, an area of intense study today. His lab has also applied the powerful tools of fluorescent microscopy and cell biology to address the coordination of recombination events. They showed that the central yeast recombination protein, Rad52, is responsible for the recruitment of other DNA repair proteins to recombination foci. By fluorescently marking the broken ends of chromosomes, they demonstrated for the first time that recombination foci assemble at these DNA ends. His lab also found that these foci act as repair centers capable of repairing more than one DSB. His work on the choreography of the DNA damage response using a combination of genetics and cell biology has set a new standard for the study of DNA damage-induced foci in all organisms. Recently, he has shown that yeast spores exhibit a unique asymmetric pattern of protein segregation reminiscent of a stem cell-like division showing that microbial systems likely laid the foundations for stem cell behavior. In summary, Rodney Rothstein’s research is remarkable for its breadth and originality. His work has touched almost every aspect of the cellular response to DNA damage and his lab has uncovered many new and important pathways that eukaryotic cells use to cope with this problem.

Dean’s Distinguished Lecture In The Basic Sciences

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series was founded at the College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1981 to provide a forum and formal vehicle for interdisciplinary academic exchange in the basic sciences, clinical sciences, and humanities. The lectures are designed to emphasize the cross-collaborative nature of scientific inquiry and to enrich the traditional scholarly exchange between the health sciences faculties, the other branches of Columbia University, and the metropolitan New York medical community—all while honoring the school’s fundamental responsibility to maintain the highest standards of humanistic education.

Over the past twenty years, we have been fortunate to have as speakers some of the world’s leading basic scientists, clinicians, and humanistic scholars, all of whom have made significant and outstanding contributions to their respective fields. Yet, as expert as all of these speakers are in their areas of specialization, they have been able to bring their thoughts and experiences to life for those outside their traditional academic disciplines—some of whom ultimately have found new ways to advance this knowledge at the intersection of the arts and sciences.

Through the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series, we look forward to continuing our tradition of bringing together students, professors, researchers and clinicians in the spirit of true intellectual curiosity and academic cooperation—sowing the seeds, perhaps, for the next great breakthrough discovery or cure in the process.

PAST DEAN'S DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS IN THE BASIC SCIENCES

1982-83 - Brian Hoffman
1983-84 - Eric Kandel
1984-85 - Harold Ginsberg
1985-86 - Elvin Kabat
1986-87- Reinhold Benesch
1987-88 - Wayne Hendrickson
1988-89 - Richard Axel
1989-90 - Frederick Alt
1990-91 - Arthur Karlin
1991-92 - Stephen P. Goff
1992-93 - Argiris Efstratiadis
1993-94 - Barry Honig
1994-95 - Riccardo Dalla-Favera
1995-96 - Thomas M. Jessell
1996-97 - Michael D. Gershon
1997-98 - Gary Struhl
1998-99 - Kathryn Calame
1999-00 - Lloyd A. Greene
2000-01 - Virginia E. Papaioannou
2001-02 - Vincent Racaniello
2002-03 - Eric Gouaux
2003-04 – Andrew Marks
2004-05 - James E. Rothman
2007-08 - Marian Carlson

Dean's Distinguished Lecture in the Clinical Sciences

The Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series was founded at the College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1981 to provide a forum and formal vehicle for interdisciplinary academic exchange in the basic sciences, clinical sciences, and humanities. The lectures are designed to emphasize the cross-collaborative nature of scientific inquiry and to enrich the traditional scholarly exchange between the health sciences faculties, the other branches of Columbia University, and the metropolitan New York medical community—all while honoring the school's fundamental responsibility to maintain the highest standards of humanistic education.

Over the past twenty years, we have been fortunate to have as speakers some of the world's leading basic scientists, clinicians, and humanistic scholars, all of whom have made significant and outstanding contributions to their respective fields. Yet, as expert as all of these speakers are in their areas of specialization, they have been able to bring their thoughts and experiences to life for those outside their traditional academic disciplines—some of whom ultimately have found new ways to advance this knowledge at the intersection of the arts and sciences.

Through the Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, we look forward to continuing our tradition of bringing together students, professors, researchers and clinicians in the spirit of true intellectual curiosity and academic cooperation—sowing the seeds, perhaps, for the next great breakthrough discovery or cure in the process.

PAST DEAN'S DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS IN THE CLINICAL SCIENCES

1981-82 - Robert Mellins
1982-83 - Keith Reemtsma
1983-84 - Arthur Bank
1983-84 - Salvatore Di Mauro
1985-86 - DeWitt Goodman
1986-87 - L. Stanley James
1987-88 - Lewis P. Rowland
1988-89 - Qais Al-Awqati
1989-90 - I. Bernard Weinstein
1990-91 - Robert Canfield
1991-92 - J. Thomas Bigger
1992-93 - Nancy S. Wexler
1993-94 - Harold C. Neu
1994-95 - Eric A. Rose
1995-96 - Leonard Chess
1996-97 - Herbert D. Kleber
1997-98 - Richard Mayeux
1998-99 - Donald Klein
1999-00 - Alan R. Tall
2000-01 - Myron L. Weisfeldt
2001-02 - Anne Gershon
2002-03 - Barbara Barlow
2003-04 – Rudolph Leibel
2005-06 - David A. Brenner
2007-08 - Donald W. Landry

Dean's Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities

The Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series was founded at the College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1981 to provide a forum and formal vehicle for interdisciplinary academic exchange in the basic sciences, clinical sciences, and humanities. The lectures are designed to emphasize the cross-collaborative nature of scientific inquiry and to enrich the traditional scholarly exchange between the health sciences faculties, the other branches of Columbia University, and the metropolitan New York medical community—all while honoring the school's fundamental responsibility to maintain the highest standards of humanistic education.

Over the past twenty years, we have been fortunate to have as speakers some of the world's leading basic scientists, clinicians, and humanistic scholars, all of whom have made significant and outstanding contributions to their respective fields. Yet, as expert as all of these speakers are in their areas of specialization, they have been able to bring their thoughts and experiences to life for those outside their traditional academic disciplines—some of whom ultimately have found new ways to advance this knowledge at the intersection of the arts and sciences.

Through the Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, we look forward to continuing our tradition of bringing together students, professors, researchers and clinicians in the spirit of true intellectual curiosity and academic cooperation—sowing the seeds, perhaps, for the next great breakthrough discovery or cure in the process.

DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS IN THE HUMANITIES

1981-82: Fritz Stern
1982-83: Harriet Zuckerman
1983-84: David Rothman
1984-85: Edith Porada
1985-86: Robert Merton
1986-87: Barbara Aronstein Black
1987-88: Louis Henkin
1988-89: Zbigniew Brzezinski
1989-90: Howard Shanet
1990-91: Fred Friendly
1991-92: Henry F. Graff
1992-93: Osborn Elliott
1993-94: James H. Beck
1994-95: Simon A. Schama
1995-96: David N. Cannadine
1996-97: George Rupp
1997-98: Jack Greenberg
1998-99: Kenneth Jackson
1999-00: Robert E. Pollack
2000-01: Edward W. Said
2001-02: Eric Foner
2002-03: Jeffrey Sachs
2003-04: Jonathan Cole
2004-05: Andrew Delbanco
2007-08: David Freedberg

The Annual Thomas Q. Morris Symposia

Thomas Q. Morris, M.D. spent nearly 50 years at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, beginning with his enrollment at the College of Physicians & Surgeons as a first-year medical student in 1954. Since then, he has held nearly every important position at the medical center. A Westchester native, Dr. Morris graduated from the University of Notre Dame before starting medical school. He received his M.D. in 1958, and completed his residency at the Columbia Division of Bellevue Hospital. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Columbia for a fellowship, joining the P&S faculty in 1964. Throughout the years, he served as acting chairman of the Department of Medicine, associate dean for academic affairs, vice dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and interim dean for clinical and educational affairs. More recently, he was vice president for health sciences and vice dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine and Alumni Professor of Clinical Medicine. He was also president and chief executive officer of Presbyterian Hospital from 1985 to 1990.

Dr. Morris treated patients, taught medical students, and collaborated with physicians and scientists. Through his diverse activities, one commitment remained constant: his dedication to medical education. His influence on medical education reached beyond the campus boundaries, through his service to the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, N.Y., American University of Beirut, and numerous non-profit foundations. He was also a visiting physician at Bellevue Hospital and Harlem Hospital and a visiting professor in Iran.

An endowment was established to support an annual symposium in Tom Morris's name to explore the future of medical education. The symposium features participants who have promoted quality medical education in significant ways.

2008-2009 Events
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 4:30 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	"Variations on a Theme of Excellence in Teaching"
	Dan Pratt is Professor of Adult & Higher Education in the Department of Educational Studies, the University of British Columbia, and holds a cross-appointment to the Faculty of Medicine, where he is the Director of Clinical Educator Fellowships in Medical Education in the Centre for Health Education Scholarship.  He is also a faculty member for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery’s Educators’ Course, one of the longest running programs for medical educators in North America.  Dr. Pratt has been a visiting professor at universities within North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and his research and publications are used in universities around the world. Nearly three decades ago, Dr. Pratt and his graduate students began assembling evidence through lengthy observations and interviews to learn how teachers in adult and higher education conceptualize learning and teaching.  Across a number of different disciplines and cultural contexts they explored variations in pedagogical BIAS – Beliefs, Intentions, Assessments, and Strategies – that characterized different perspectives on teaching.  Motivated by an underlying commitment to finding and describing a ‘plurality of the good’ in teaching, they assembled transcripts and notes for more than 250 teachers on two continents and in dozens of locations across the United States, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China.  This work is summarized in Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education (1998), authored by Pratt and his students. As the title suggests, they identified five distinctly different views of what teachers do and why. Over the course of several years, Dan Pratt and John Collins used the basic structure of Pratt’s original work to build and test an instrument that could be used to assess and summarize teachers’ views of teaching and learning – the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI).  In August of 2001, the Teaching Perspectives Inventory went online.  To date, over 100,000 educators from more than 120 countries around the world have taken the Teaching Perspectives Inventory.   In 1992 Dan Pratt received the highest award for teaching given by the University of British Columbia – the Killam Teaching Prize.  In 1999 his book, Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education, won the Cyril O. Houle Award for most outstanding literature in adult education.  In 2008 he received Canada’s most prestigious university teaching award – the 3M National Teaching Fellowship.  More on Dan Pratt and his work can be found at: http://www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/pratt.html

Past Participants and Topics

2003 “What is the Future of Medical Education?”
Daniel D. Federman, M.D., and Ponald A. Arky, M.D., Jeremiah A. Barondess, M.D., June E. Osborn, M.D., Michael E. Whitcomb, M.D.

2004 “The Academy Movement: Restructuring of Medical Schools to Advance the Mission of Education”
Haile T. Debas, M.D. and Daniel Lowenstein, M.D.

2005 “The Route to Patient Safety through Simulation in Medical Education”
David M, Gaba, M.D.

2006 “Clinical Education for the 21^st Century – Insights from the Carnegie Foundation National Study”
Molly Cooke, M.D., FACP

2008 “Self-assessment, self-direction, self-regulation and other myths: Deconstructing the fallacy of the adult learner”
Glenn Regehr, Ph.D.

Michael Heidelberger (1888 - 1991)

Trained in organic chemistry, Michael Heidelberger embarked on the characterization of the immunologic specificity of pneumococcal polysaccharides in the 1920s and continued this work after his move to Columbia in 1928. His work demonstrated that polysaccharides are effective antigens (in the absence of any peptide component), thus dispelling the myth that only proteins could serve as antigens; and that antibodies are proteins, bringing immunochemistry out of the vague realm of colloidal chemistry. Using antibodies as specific reagents, Heidelberger carried out structural analyses of a wide variety of naturally occurring polysaccharides. Heidelberger brought the precise methods of analytical chemistry to the determination of antibodies, antigens, and complement on a weight basis, providing the gold standard against which miniaturized and rapid methods such as RIA and ELISA could be standardized and compared.

Elvin A. Kabat (1914 - 2000)

During his doctoral work, Elvin Kabat developed a life-long interest in carbohydrate chemistry, which later led to his unraveling the complex chemistry of human blood group substances. In 1937-38, Kabat used electrophoresis to show that immunoglobulins comprise the "gamma globulin" fraction of human serum and demonstrated that gamma globulin was present in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with multiple sclerosis. In 1947, Kabat began to work on an animal model of MS in monkeys, establishing the autoimmune character of this disease. He initiated the quantitative study of antibodies in anaphylaxis and allergy and provided the first estimates of the size and shape of an antibody's antigen combining site. Kabat received the National Medal of Science in 1991. 

2008-2009 Events
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:30 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	"NF-κB and Regulation of the Inflammatory Response"
	Sankar Ghosh, Ph.D., is the Silverstein and Hutt Family Professor of Microbiology and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. Ghosh received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, NY in 1988.  He did his postdoctoral research training under Dr. David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute at MIT in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Ghosh began his independent research career at Yale University School of Medicine in 1991, and was a Professor in the Departments of Immunobiology and Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry, before moving to Columbia in December 2008. Dr. Ghosh has served in an advisory capacity for several organizations, and is a member of the editorial boards of multiple journals. He received the American Society of Immunologists-Pharmingen Investigator Award in 2002, and the 2008 Cancer Research Institute-F. W. Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology. He was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007, and was also awarded a MERIT Award from the NIH in 2001.

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize was established under the will of the late S. Gross Horwitz through a bequest to Columbia University, and is named to honor the donor's mother. Louisa Gross Horwitz was the daughter of Dr. Samuel David Gross (1805-1889), a prominent surgeon of Philadelphia, and author of the outstanding Systems of Surgery, who served as President of the American Medical Association.  Each year, since its inception in 1967, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize has been awarded by Columbia University for outstanding basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry. The purpose of this award is to honor a scientific investigator, or group of investigators, whose contributions to knowledge in either of these fields are deemed worthy of special recognition.

The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize website

2009 Louisa Gross Horwitz Press Release

2009-2010 Events
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:00 noon Davis Auditorium (Rm. 412), Schapiro Center (CEPSR) 530 West 120th Street	"MicroRNAs in Development and Disease" Lecturers: Victor R. Ambros, Ph.D. Co-Director, RNA Therapeutics Institute Silverman Professor of Natural Sciences
	Victor Ambros grew up in Vermont and graduated from MIT in 1975. He did his graduate research (1976-1979) with David Baltimore at MIT, studying poliovirus genome structure and replication. He began to study the genetic pathways controlling developmental timing in the nematode C. elegans as a postdoc in H. Robert Horvitz's lab at MIT, and continued those studies while on the faculty of Harvard (1984-1992), Dartmouth (1992-2007) and the University of Massachusetts, Medical School (2008-present). In 1993, Ambros and co-workers Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum identified the first microRNA, the product of the heterochronic gene lin-4 in C. elegans. Currently, the chief research interest of the Ambros lab is understanding the roles of microRNA-mediated regulatory pathways in animal development and human disease.
Tuesday, Tuesday November 17, 2009 3:00 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	“The Roles and Possibilities of Tiny RNAs” Lecturer: Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D. Professor of Genetics Harvard Medical School
	Gary Ruvkun is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. His lab uses C. elegans molecular genetics and genomics to study problems in developmental biology and physiology. Dr. Ruvkun is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard. Dr. Ruvkun began to work with C. elegans as a postdoc with Bob Horvitz at MIT and Walter Gilbert at Harvard, where he explored the heterochronic genes that control the temporal dimension of development in a collaborative study with Victor Ambros. The work led to the discovery of the first microRNA gene by the Ambros lab, and that the mechanism of microRNA regulation of target mRNAs is post-transcriptional by the Ruvkun lab. A few years later the Ruvkun lab found the second microRNA gene, let-7 and showed that this microRNA gene is conserved across animal phylogeny. Dr. Ruvkun’s lab is now using functional genomic and genetic strategies to systematically discover the components of the RNAi and microRNA pathways in C. elegans. Most of the genes identified in these screens are conserved across eukaryotic phylogeny, suggesting universality of these 21-22 nucleotide pathways. Some of these components may be developed as drug targets to enhance RNAi in mammals, a technical improvement that may be necessary to elevate a laboratory tool to a therapeutic modality. Dr. Ruvkun’s lab has also discovered that C. elegans uses an insulin signaling pathway to control its metabolism and longevity. The molecular genetic dissection of the insulin pathway has also been important for understanding and treating diabetes, a disease of insulin signaling deficits. The new genes of the insulin pathway that have emerged from these studies represent new targets for diabetes drug development.

Past Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Winners

The Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Professorship Lecture

Established at Columbia University in 1977 by a grant from the Samuel and May Rudin Foundation, the Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Professorship program today serves as an important vehicle for the exchange of scientific knowledge among Columbia University, the greater New York City community, and academic institutions from around the world.

Since the inception of the Rudin visiting professorship program, Columbia has welcomed into the Rudin professorship program nearly 50 leading scholars, scientists, researchers, and medical practitioners, representing thirty-plus world-renowned scientific and medical institutions and nine countries worldwide.

PAST RUDIN VISITING PROFESSORS

1977-78
Bruce N. Ames, University of California at Berkeley
Francis D. Moore, Harvard University
Baruj Benacerraf, Harvard University
David Mechanic, University of Wisconsin

1978-79
Efraim Racker, Cornell University
Leo Sachs, Weizmann Institute
Rozella M. Schlotfeldt, Case Western Reserve University
Paul Lacy, Washington University, St. Louis

1979-80
Charles Scriver, McGill University
Sir Richard Doll, Oxford University
Norman Geschwind, Harvard University

1980-81
Harold M. Weintraub, University of Washington

1982-83
Peter J. Morris, Oxford University
Keith R. Yamamoto, University of California at San Francisco

1983-84
Philippe Coumel, Hôpital Lariboisière, Paris
Joseph Martin, Harvard University

1984-85
Kurt Wüthrich, Eidgenossische Technische, Hoschule, Zurich
Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., University of California at Berkeley

1985-86
Tom Maniatis, Harvard University
Alexander Rich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1986-87
Alexander Borbély, University of Zurich
Piet Borst, The Netherlands Cancer Institute

1987-88
Sir Roy York Calne, University of Cambridge

1988-89
Friedrich Bonhoeffer, Max Planck Institut, Tubingen, West Germany
Marc W. Kirschner, University of California at Berkeley

1989-90
Michael J. Berridge, University of Cambridge
Ira Herskowitz, University of California at San Francisco

1990-91
Geoffrey Thorburn, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
Jonathan Beckwith, Harvard University

1991-92
Jonathan Mann, Harvard Institute of Public Health, International AIDS Center, Boston, MA
Sydney Brenner, Molecular Genetics Unit, Cambridge, England

1992-93
Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Federal Republic of Nigeria
Thomas E. Starzl, University of Pittsburgh

1993-94
C. Thomas Caskey, Baylor College of Medicine
Michael E. Phelps, UCLA School of Medicine

1994-95
Solomon H. Snyder, Johns Hopkins University
Alan Fersht, Cambridge University

1995-96
Laurie H. Glimcher, Harvard University
Francis S. Collins, National Institutes of Health

1997-98
James E. Rothman, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute

1998-99
Robert W. Mahley, University of California at San Francisco
Charles Weissman, University of Surich, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, England

1999-00
Donald A. Henderson, Johns Hopkins University

2000-01
Richard Losick, Ph.D., Harvard University

2001-02
Eric S. Lander, Ph.D., Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2002-03
Dr. Roderick Mackinnon, Rockefeller University

2003-04
Dr. Michael Karin, University of California, San Diego

2004-05
Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., The Salk Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

2005-06
Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., Washington University School of Medicine

2007-08
Thomas C. Südhof, M.D., UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

The Cartwright Lectures

The Cartwright lectureship was established in the late 1870s through a bequest from Benjamin A. Cartwright of Newark, NJ to the Alumni Association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S). In his will, Mr. Cartwright stated that he wished to institute a course of lectures "modeled after the Lettsonian or Croonian Lectures of England"—formal occasions that featured important summaries of existing medical knowledge or, in some cases, reports of cutting-edge investigations in medicine or surgery. The lectures were given regularly from 1881 until World War I, at which time they were discontinued indefinitely.

In 1928, the P&S Alumni Association transferred the Cartwright fund directly to the College, with the recommendation that the bequest remain untouched until the fund could accrue enough to support a lecture series of the highest quality and distinction, in keeping with what Mr. Cartwright had originally indicated and envisioned. Five decades later—and nearly a century after Mr. Cartwright's passing—this long-time goal was finally realized with the reinstatement of a new and improved lecture series in 1974.

The Cartwright lecture series has since become a major forum for the exchange of scientific knowledge, attracting scholars, researchers, and clinicians from the world's premier medical, scientific, educational, and policymaking institutions to speak and participate (among them: top officials from the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health, one United States Senator, and nine Nobel Laureates).

PAST CARTWRIGHT LECTURERS

1881 Prof. Robert Bartholow, Jefferson Medical College
1882 Prof. John C. Dalton, College of Physicians and Surgeons
1883 Prof. W.T. Belfield, Rush Medical College, Chicago
1884 Prof. Burt G. Wilder, Cornell University
1886 Prof. William Osler, University of Pennsylvania
1888 Prof. William H. Welch, Johns Hopkins University
1890 Dr. John S. Billings, United States Army
1892 Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborne, Columbia University
1894 Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, Yale University
1896 Prof. George H. Huntington, Columbia University
1898 Prof. William W. Keen, Jefferson Medical College
1900 Prof. John G. Curtis, Columbia University
1902 Dr. Richard Cabot, Boston
1904 Baron Kanehiro Takaki, Surgeon General, Japanese Navy
1906 Baron Kanehiro Takaki, Surgeon General, Japanese Navy
1908 James Ewing, Cornell University
1910 Dr. Adolf Magnus Levy, University of Berlin
1912 Dr. Ludwig Aschoff, Freiburg, Germany
1916 Prof. Richard Mills Pearce, Philadelphia
1974 Dr. Paul B. Beeson, Oxford University
1975 Dr. Charles B. Huggins, University of Chicago
1976 Sir George White Pickering, Oxford University
1977 Dr. George L. Engel, University of Rochester
1978 Dr. John R. Hogness, University of Washington
1979 Dr. DeWitt Stetten, Jr., National Institutes of Health
1980 Sir Peter Medawar, Clinical Research Center, Harrow
1981 Dr. Joshua Lederberg, Rockefeller University
1982 Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek, National Institutes of Health
1983 Dr. Arnold Relman, New England Journal of Medicine
1984 Dr. Matthew Stanley Meselson, Harvard University
1985 Dr. George Palade, Yale University
1986 Sir Bernard Katz, University College, London
1987 Dr. Michael J. Bishop, Univ. of California, San Francisco
1988 Dr. Luc Montagnier, Pasteur Institute
1989 Dr. David Baltimore, The Whitehead Institute
1990 Dr. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., University of California, Berkeley
1991 Dr. W. French Anderson, National Institutes of Health
1992 Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, University of Texas, Dallas
1993 Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, National Institutes of Health
1995 Dr. Bruce M. Alberts, National Academy of Sciences
1996 Dr. Norman E. Shumway, Stanford University
1997 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, State of New York
2000 Dr. Judah Folkman, Harvard Medical School
2001 Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, University of California at San Francisco
2002 Dr. Elaine Fuchs, University of Chicago
2003 Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2004 Sir Paul Nurse, Rockefeller University
2008 Bert Sakmann, M.D., Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research

The David Seegal Alpha Omega Alpha Visiting Professorship Lecture

2008-2009 Events
Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:30 p.m. P&S Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor	"Graduate Medical Education at the Crossroads"
	Dr. L. D. Britt, a proud native of Suffolk, Virginia, has strong southern roots and is the product of the public school system.  He attended the University of Virginia and was named to the Dean’s List each of the eight semesters.  He received his Baccalaureate of Arts with Distinction.  Dr. L. D. Britt, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, is the Brickhouse Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School.  He is the author of over 180 scientific publications.  In addition to being a reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine, he serves on numerous editorial boards, including, the Annals of Surgery, Archives of Surgery, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, the American Journal of Surgery (Associate Editor), Surgery, the Journal of Trauma, Shock, Journal of Surgical Education, the American Surgeon and others.  Dr. Britt, a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, is the recipient of the nation’s highest teaching award in medicine – the Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award, which is given by the AAMC in conjunction with AOA.  He was honored by the Association of Surgical Education with its lifetime achievement award – the Distinguished Educator Award – given annually to one person, considered by his peers, to be a true master.  Over 130 institutions throughout the world have invited him to be their distinguished visiting professor.  Dr. Britt is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons.  He is the past President of the Society of Surgical Chairs and the past Chairman of the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Surgery.  Also, Dr. Britt is Secretary of the Southern Surgical Association, the Recorder/Program Chair for the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, President of the Southeastern Surgical Congress, President of the Halsted Society, and Chairman of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons.  He was recently elected Director of the American Board of Surgery and was also appointed to the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Program National Advisory Committee.  The National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Medicine (in collaboration with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture) recently featured Dr. Britt for his contributions to academic surgery.  President George W. Bush recognized Dr. Britt’s leadership role in medicine and nominated him to the Board of Regents of the Uniformed Services University (confirmed by the United States Senate).  At the end of his tenure, Dr. Britt was awarded the coveted Distinguished Service Medal.  An active participant in the community, Dr. Britt has received numerous awards for public service.

 

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