Student Prizes and Awards

Dr. Harry S. Altman Award (outstanding achievement in pediatric ambulatory care) ALLISON B. PESTRONK

Alumni Association Award (outstanding service to P&S) JEREMY D. KEENAN
Virginia P. Apgar Award (excellence in anesthesiology and intensive care) JOSHUA H. ATKINS and KEVIN J. BRILLMichael H. Aranow Memorial Prize (best exemplifying the caring and humane qualities of the practicing physician) AMRESH RAINA
Herbert J. Bartelstone Award (exceptional accomplishments in pharmacology) ELIZABETH M. FITELSON
Alvin Behrens Memorial Fund Award (outstanding graduate entering ophthalmology) JEREMY D. KEENAN and CAROLYN Y. SHIH
Edward T. Bello, M.D., Listening Award (to a graduating student who best portrays the art of listening to patients, colleagues, and self in practicing the chosen field of medicine) ELIZABETH C. VERNA
Robert G. Bertsch Prize (emulating Dr. Bertsch’s ideals of the humane surgeon) MEHUL R. KAMDAR
Coakley Memorial Prize (outstanding achievement in otolaryngology) JOEL GUSS
Titus Munson Coan Prize (best essay in biological sciences) VIVEK K. UNNI and CHRISTOPHER M. WILLIAM
Thomas F. Cock Prize (excellence in obstetrics and gynecology) GRETCHEN E. HULTMAN
Rosamond Kane Cummins’52 Award (graduate entering orthopedics with academic excellence, sensitivity, kindness, devotion to patients, and the fine human qualities she exemplified) MARSHALL A. KUREMSKY
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research/Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at CUMC ALEXANDER F. PALAZZO and PAUL JOSEPH PLANET POLOWE
The Endocrine Society’s Medical Student Achievement Award ALEXANDER R. OPOTOWSKY
The Franklin “Jerry” G. Bishop Award (outstanding academic achievements) REBECCA M. BAUER
Frederick P. Gay Memorial Award (achievement in microbiology) JULIE-AURORE LOSMAN
Louis Gibofsky Memorial Prize MOHAMMED ASMAL
Arnold P. Gold Foundation Award (excellence in science and compassion in patient care) ELIZABETH M. FITELSON
Dr. Charles F. Hamilton Award (excellence in pulmonary disease) JULIE-AURORE LOSMAN
Janeway Prize (the highest achievement and abilities in the graduating class) BRYAN J. WINN
Albert B. Knapp Scholarship (awarded at the conclusion of the third year to the medical student with highest scholarship in the first three years) ) ALEXANDER R. OPOTOWSKY
John K. Lattimer Prize in Urology (outstanding essay in urology) SARAH M. LAMBERT
Barbara Liskin Memorial Award in Psychiatry (empathy, scholarship, and excellence exhibited by Barbara Liskin) ELIZABETH A. HANTMAN
Robert F. Loeb Award (excellence in clinical medicine) VATCHE G. AGOPIAN
F. Lowenfish Prize in Dermatology (creative research in dermatology) KRISTIN A. MAGNUSON
Admiral David W. Lyon Award (outstanding academic achievement by a student in the Armed Forces of our country) TANIA Y. DAY
Alfred M. Markowitz Endowment for Scholars (exemplifies Dr. Markowitz’s dedication to patient care, teaching, and scholarship) VATCHE G. AGOPIAN
Dr. Cecil G. Marquez, B.A.L.S.O. Student Award (outstanding contribution to the Black and Latino Student Organization and the minority community) ALICIA SOBERS
Edith and Denton McKane Memorial Award (outstanding research in ophthalmology) BRYAN J. WINN
Dr. Harold Lee Meierhof Memorial Prize (outstanding achievement in pathology) SARA E. BEST
Drs. William Nastuk, Beatrice Seegal, and Konrad Hsu Award (demonstrated successful laboratory collaboration between student and faculty) JOSHUA H. ATKINS
Marie Nercessian Memorial Award (exhibiting care, unusual concern, and dedication to helping sick people) LORELLEN M. GREEN
New York Orthopedic Hospital Award (outstanding performance in research and clinical work) BRIAN W. SU
Joseph Garrison Parker Award (exemplifying, through activities in art, music, literature, and the public interest, that living and learning go together) BENJAMIN T. SHELTON
Samuel W. Rover and Lewis Rover Awards for outstanding achievement in:
Anatomy and Cell Biology—ALEXANDER F. PALAZZO
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics—STAVROS LOMVARDAS
Genetics and Development—ANA KLJUIC and KATERINA A. POLITI
Drs. Robert A. Savitt and George H. McCormack Award (exemplifies Dr. George McCormack’s medical skill, consideration, understanding, and compassion) NATALIE H. YIP
Scholarly Resources and Radiology Creative Collaboration Award COURTNEY A. COURSEY
Rebecca A. Schwartz Memorial Prize (achievement in pediatric cardiology) ALLISON B. PESTRONK
Helen M. Sciarra Prize in Neurology (outstanding achievement in neurology) JOHN N. RATCHFORD
Student Interest Group in Neurology Prize JOSHUA Z. WILLEY
Miriam Berkman Spotnitz Award (excellence in research of neoplastic diseases) NIKHIL V. MUNSHI
William Perry Watson Prize in Pediatrics (excellence in pediatrics) SARAH NOWYGROD
Dr. William Raynor Watson Memorial Award (excellence in psychiatry throughout four years of medical school) ELIZABETH M. FITELSON
Dr. Allen O. Whipple Memorial Prize (outstanding performance in surgery) BRIAN M. PARRETT
Sigmund L. Wilens Prize (excellence in pathology) EFSEVIA VAKIANI
Aura E. Severinghaus Scholar (superior academic achievement) ELIJAH D. OWENS

Genetics as Celebration
P&S CELEBRATED ITS BICENTENNIAL IN 1967 WITH A SYMPOSIUM on genetics. In 2003, P&S helped Columbia University celebrate its 250th anniversary by sponsoring a symposium on the same topic. “The Impact of Genes and Genomes on Medicine and Society,” held Oct. 16 and 17, 2003, on the Morningside campus, was part of the opening weekend of Columbia’s year-long anniversary celebration. Video highlights and transcripts of the event are available on the Columbia 250 web site: http://ci.columbia.edu/ci/c250/symposia/genes_genomes/ genes_vid_archive.html.
Three Nobel Prize winners, several leaders of the Human Genome Project, and other leading researchers and thinkers from a wide range of fields participated in the symposium. The symposium was organized by Dr. Joanna Rubinstein, associate dean for institutional affairs at the medical center, and Dr. Thomas Jessell, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia’s Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and a principal investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The symposium’s first session, “Genes, Genomes, and Evolution,” focused on the history of genes and genomes and the nature of the links among genetics, the development of organisms, their evolution, and the emergence of the human species. The second session, “Genes, Genomes, and Medicine,” illuminated the ways the genomic revolution is likely to influence the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, ranging from cancer to cardiology to abnormal human behavior. The final session, “Genes, Genomes, and Society,” attempted to anticipate some of the consequences that the availability of genetic information may have on modern society.
“Genomes contain a lot of information about disease, and the information is sitting there in databases, if we only knew how to extract it,” said speaker Dr. Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and MIT and a leader of the Human Genome Project.
As an example of how genomic information can uncover clues to even complex diseases, Dr. Lander spoke about a powerful new technique that was used to identify genes linked to Type 2 diabetes. The analysis sifted through huge datasets from the Human Genome Project and from DNA microarrays, which recorded the activity of 22,000 genes inside muscle cells of people with diabetes. The data-crunching determined that only one set of genes explain the greater insulin resistance in diabetics, but surprisingly, those genes are not related to insulin. Instead, the genes are related to a cell’s energy production and point to its mitochondria as a major factor in diabetes.
Though some scientists are delving into the massive datasets from the Human Genome Project to better understand disease, Dr. Cori Bargmann, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, said small, simple organisms like the fruit fly Drosophila are also important resources, even for understanding human behavior. For example, 30 years ago, the first person to make inroads into the genetic influence on behavior, Dr. Seymour Benzer at Caltech, discovered mutations in the Per gene of flies that altered the fly’s circadian rhythms. Subsequent work by others on people with Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome — those who wake up at around 3 a.m. and fall asleep around 6 p.m. — revealed that a mutation in the same gene is responsible for the human disorder.
Epidemiologist Dr. Roy Anderson of Imperial College in London reminded everyone that infectious diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide and that the genomes of most infectious pathogens are now known. The evolution of infectious disease organisms is speeding up, Dr. Anderson said, in part because of the 1,000-fold increase in the contact rate among people since 1918, the year the “Spanish flu” spread around the world. The challenge for infectious disease researchers now is to understand the interplay between the genome of the pathogen and the host, which may help in the development of vaccines against rapidly evolving pathogens like HIV and malaria parasites.
Genomes may also help in the discovery of new ways to treat diseases caused by a collision of genes and the environment, such as one in which people regularly consume cholesterol-laden diets. Nobel Prize winners Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein of the University of Texas talked about their role in discovering how one receptor in liver cells controls the level of cholesterol in blood and the phenomenal impact statins have had on the 30 million people with atherosclerosis who have taken the cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Other speakers at the symposium were Sydney Brenner of the Salk Institute; Svante Pääbo of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany; Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute; Michael Levine of the University of California at Berkeley; Anne McLaren of the University of Cambridge; Colin Renfrew of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, England; and Jonathan Cole, former provost of Columbia University. Other Columbia participants were Dr. Isidore S. Edelman, Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics; Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach, executive vice president and dean; Dr. David Hirsh, Columbia’s executive vice president for research; and Philip Kitcher, professor of philosophy at the Morningside campus.

The Essence of a Medical Education Jeanne Baer’64, P&S associate clinical professor of radiology at St. Luke’s and widow of Leslie Baer’63, sent the poem at right to Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, the Edgar M. Leifer Professor of Clinical Medicine and senior associate dean. “I came across this poem while cleaning up and thought you might like to share it with the students,” she wrote. Dr. Leslie Baer, associate professor of medicine at P&S, died Nov. 26, 2002, after spending most of his career at Columbia. “Dr. Baer’s poem is worthy of publication for its recitation of many of the fundamental values for clinicians,” says Dr. Tenenbaum, a member of the P&S Journal’s editorial board. Medical Rounds and Education By Leslie Baer, M.D. A privilege it is on the medical service to attend, With students, interns and residents who mend Their patients’ complex diseases, Heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and sneezes. Who probe the body to its very core, With an alphabet soup of tests galore. MRI, ERCP, ECHO and CT, V/Q scan, EMG, TEE and LP. Altogether, they shed light on diseased organs’ plight, Whose future is determined by scientific insight. Procedures that allow biochemical and mechanical repair, And treatment programs for hypertension called step-care. No matter how sophisticated our approaches may be, A careful physical examination and clinical history Remain the basis of solving problems with logic, Guiding laboratory data which fall into line like magic. What is the essence of an outstanding medical education? Long study, listening, good mentors, prayers and perspiration.

At Birthday Bash, Love of Baseball Supports ALS Research

A NOVEMBER FUND-RAISER IN OBSERVANCE OF THE CENTENNIAL of Lou Gehrig’s birth generated funds for research into the disease that killed him and recognized the importance of Gehrig’s success to the history of Columbia University as it celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Columbia University and the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Research Center sponsored a celebration Nov. 3 at the Low Library Rotunda on the Morningside campus. Gehrig, a Columbia College alumnus who became a baseball legend, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The event, one of several planned to celebrate Columbia’s 250th anniversary, featured rare Gehrig memorabilia on loan from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Among the speakers were Dr. Hiroshi Mitsumoto, director, Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Research Center, and Ted Spencer, vice president and chief curator, National Baseball Hall of Fame. John Sterling, announcer for the New York Yankees was the master of ceremonies. The keynote speaker for the evening was Ray Robinson, Columbia alumnus and author of “Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time.” The memorabilia included Gehrig’s complete 1939 New York Yankees uniform, the bat he used in 1934 when he won the American League batting championship; his last baseball glove; and the plaque given to him by his teammates on Lou Gehrig Day. Proceeds from the event will benefit the research center, established by the Gehrig estate in 1987.