Academic Honors & Events

Honorable Mention—Dr. Allan Wolkoff has been selected to receive the 2015 Physician of the Year Award from the American Liver Foundation (ALF). The honor reflects his extraordinary record of service to the ALF, which includes long-term leadership as a member of the board of directors and serving as past chair. "Dr. Wolkoff's vision has strengthened our organization and helped us make a difference to those living with liver disease," noted Lisa Gallipoli, executive director of the ALF. Dr. Wolkoff is professor of medicine and of anatomy and structural biology, as well as director of the Marion Bessin Liver Center and chief of gastroenterology and liver diseases. He also holds the Herman Lopata Chair in Liver Disease Research.

Chemistry Kudos—Dr. John Blanchard has received the 2015 Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes. Given by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Biological Chemistry, this honor recognizes outstanding contributions to the understanding of biological processes with particular emphasis on structure, function and mechanism. With regard to Dr. Blanchard’s research, he is recognized for his studies that have vastly improved understanding of enzyme mechanisms in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) – the bacterium that causes TB – and why Mtb acquires resistance to antibiotics. His findings are currently being translated into development of novel therapies for the treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Dr. Blanchard is professor of biochemistry. 

Foundation for Research Efforts — The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) has awarded Dr. Tamar Rubinstein its Career Development Award, given to recent medical school graduates to conduct lupus research. The award, open annually to rheumatology, nephrology and dermatology fellows, was created to support the transition of early career clinicians to independent clinician-scientists. The LFA established the award to support the field of lupus research during a time when other opportunities for funding may be difficult to obtain. Dr. Rubinstein is a pediatric rheumatology fellow at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

Honor Supports Research — The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) awarded Dr. Xingxing Zang the Lustgarten-eBioscience Award, given to advance the career of mid-career scientists. The award was established in honor of Dr. Joseph Lustgarten, a cancer immunologist who passed away in 2011, and recognizes an outstanding abstract in the field of immune regulation submitted to IMMUNOLOGY2015^TM, the AAI annual meeting. Dr. Zang is associate professor of microbiology & immunology and of medicine. 

Nephrology Awardees—At the New York Academy of Medicine’s annual New York Society of Nephrology Fellows’ Night, three senior Einstein pediatric nephrology trainees received accolades for research they present to professionals from nephrology programs in the metropolitan area. Dr. Natalie Uy was awarded both best abstract and best basic science abstract for her research on biomarkers and dysregulation in chronic kidney disease. Dr. Janice Desir was awarded the 2015 Alison Norris Research Award for her research following up on long-term pediatric patients in the inner city who have a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks the kidney. Dr. Lauren Becton received recognition for the best translational research abstract detailing her research on microRNAs in models of kidney injury. Their honors, collectively, represented four of the five awards presented at the meeting.

Contributions Recognized—The International League Against Epilepsy and the International Bureau for Epilepsy awarded Dr. Aristea Galanopoulou the Ambassador for Epilepsy Award, which is given biennially to recognize major contributions in epilepsy research or service to the epilepsy community at an international level. Dr. Galanopoulou was selected in honor of her research into understanding how changes to the developing brain increase risk for seizures and for her efforts to improve therapies for controlling seizures. Dr. Galanopoulou is professor in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology and associate professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience.

Celebrating Narrative Medicine—Dr. Paul Gross was the invited guest poet-physician at the 33rd annual William Carlos Williams Poetry Contest award presentation and reading, held at Northeastern Ohio Medical University. The competition selects top poems written by students attending allopathic or osteopathic schools of medicine in the U. S. and Canada. Dr. Gross was recognized for his commitment to teach reflective writing and his role as founding editor-in-chief of the weekly e-magazine Pulse: voices from the Heart of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Gross and Diane Guernsey, executive director of Pulse, were selected to present the workshop “Taking on Goliath: Writing for Our Lives” at The Examined Life Conference, held at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. The annual conference focuses on the links between the arts and the science of medicine. Dr. Gross is assistant professor of family and social medicine and a family physician at Montefiore Medical Center.

Highlighting Stellar Studies — Dr. Pamela Stanley was recently an invited speaker at the prestigious NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS), hosted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). WALS invitees are outstanding researchers who are specifically chosen by the intramural NIH community to keep NIH researchers abreast of new findings that will guide the future development of various fields. Dr. Stanley’s talk described how Notch receptor signaling, which controls cell fate decisions that are key to the development of many organs, is regulated by the addition of different sugars to Notch receptors. The work of her laboratory could lead to novel targets for therapies directed at diseases, including cancer, associated with irregular Notch signaling. Dr. Stanley is professor of cell biology and holds the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Chair.

Recognizing Research Excellence — Dr. Lauren Becton, a third-year nephrology fellow at the Children’s’ Hospital at Montefiore, was awarded the 2015 American Society of Pediatric Nephrology Trainee Research Award in Basic Science. Dr. Becton received the honor at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies. During the award ceremony, she presented her work on microRNAs in a mouse model of glomerulonephritis − a disease that causes inflammation of the filtering units in the kidney. Dr. Becton’s research mentors were Drs. Beatrice Goilav and Chaim Putterman. Dr. Goilav is assistant professor of pediatrics; Dr. Putterman is professor of medicine and of microbiology & immunology, as well as chief of the division of rheumatology.  

Biomedical Research Leader — Dr. Richard Lipton was noted among the top-400 core biomedical researchers in a listing of the most highly influential researchers published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. The list of was generated based on the number of published articles by an author between 1996 and 2011, along with all citations to those articles and an index of scholarly productivity, known as the h-index. To date, Dr. Lipton has published eight books and more than 650 original articles and reviews. He is internationally recognized for his research on headache disorders, cognitive aging and the special challenges of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Dr. Lipton is professor and vice chair in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology, as well as professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of epidemiology & population health. He also is director of the Montefiore Headache Center and of the Einstein Aging Study, and holds the Edwin S. Lowe Chair in Neurology.