What’s on my mind this month is the new year. Two thousand nine promises to be bumpy in terms of the impact the national economy will have on our finances. However, there are extremely positive events in store for the School of Medicine in 2009, which I believe will help insulate us from some of the economic turmoil occurring in the rest of the country.

In March, the SOM will play host to the annual Fund for Medicine Gala, which is our primary philanthropic initiative to support our medical education, biomedical research, patient care and community service missions. The theme of this year’s event is “Discovery Advancing Better Global Health.” Thus, the Fund for Medicine Gala will highlight our outstanding clinical programs and faculty to national and international donors and the media.

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Maureen Black, PhD

Maureen Black, PhD, the John A. Scholl, MD & Mary Louise Scholl, MD Professor of Pediatrics, gave an invited lecture at Wageningen University in Holland in October 2008. Her lecture was entitled “Child Development: A Neglected Factor in Maternal and Child Undernutrition.”

Timm-Michael Dickfeld, MD, PhD

Timm-Michael Dickfeld, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, presented “Real-Time Computed Tomography for Guidance of Catheter Navigation, Ablation and Lesion Assessment—A New Imaging Paradigm” as a finalist at the 2008 Northwestern University Cardiovascular Young Investigators’ Forum in Chicago, Illinois, in October 2008. Additionally in October 2008, Dr. Dickfeld presented “Use of Imaging in VT Ablation: MRI, CT and PET-CT” at the 3rd Annual International Symposium on Ventricular Arrhythmias: Pathophysiology and Therapy in Miami, Florida.

Howard Dubowitz, MB,ChB

Howard Dubowitz, MB,ChB, professor, Department of Pediatrics, was an invited speaker, presenting “The Health Professional’s Role in Child Maltreatment” at a series of workshops at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and presented “Child Maltreatment: A Curriculum for Physicians” at the 17th International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect in Hong Kong, China, both in September 2008.

Bruce D. Greenwald, MD

Bruce D. Greenwald, MD, associate professor in the Department of Medicine, presented “New Technologies for Ablating Barrett’s Esophagus” at the American College of Surgeons 94th Annual Clinical Congress in San Francisco, California, in October 2008.

Carl A. Soderstrom, MD

John A. Kastor, MD

John A. Kastor, MD, professor, Department of Medicine, presented “Creation of New York Presbyterian Hospital, 1995-2000” to the Heberden Society of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, New York, in November 2008. The Heberden Society sponsors several lectures a year on the history of medicine.

Nancy Ryan Lowitt MD, EdM, FACP

Nancy Ryan Lowitt MD, EdM, FACP, associate dean, Professional Development, and assistant professor, Department of Medicine, developed and moderated a focus session entitled “Faculty Development, Models and Experience for New Schools and New Campuses, New Curricula” for the Association of American Medical College’s Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2008. This year Dr. Lowitt steps down as chair of the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Section of the Group on Educational Affairs (GEA) and begins a one-year term as past chair of the GEA CME Section.

Stuart S. Martin, PhD

Stuart S. Martin, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Physiology and Program in Oncology, presented a lecture, “Metastasis-associated Microtentacles Are Induced in Detached and Circulating Breast Tumor Cells by Expression of the Microtubule-binding Protein, Tau” at the December 2008 American Association for Cancer Research San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Dr. Martin’s talk was presented to the joint session of this national cancer meeting, which had nearly 9,000 attendees with exper-tise ranging from basic cell biology to the clinical treatment of breast cancer. The presented work on Tau was led by Michael Matrone, a PhD student in Dr. Martin’s lab who is studying the Molecular and Cellular Physiology Track in the Program in Molecular Medicine.

Ayse L. Mindikoglu, MD, MPH

Ayse L. Mindikoglu, MD, MPH, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, presented an abstract entitled “Outcome of Liver Transplantation for Drug-Induced Acute Liver Failure in the United States. Analysis of the United Network for Organ Sharing Database” at The Liver Meeting® 2008, which was sponsored by the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco, California, in November 2008. Laurence S. Magder, PhD, MPH, associate professor, Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, is the co-investigator and co-author on this project.

Kevin D. Pereira, MD, MS

Elizabeth Pradhan, PhD

Elizabeth Pradhan, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and Center for Integrative Medicine, presented “Mindfulness Meditation for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Preliminary Findings” at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare and Society’s 6th Annual Conference for Clini-cians, Researchers and Educators held at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Jordan E. Warnick, PhD

Larry D. Weiss, MD, JD, FAAEM

Cynthia Bearer, MD, PhD, FAAP

Cynthia Bearer, MD, PhD, FAAP, joined the Department of Pediatrics in October 2008 as the Cobey Professor in Neonatology and was named head of the Division of Neonatology in December 2008. Prior to her appointment at University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Bearer was a professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Neuro-sciences and Environmental Health Science at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a leader in the fields of clinical neonatology and in the mechanisms of fetal alcohol syndrome, having achieved national recognition for her work, and has a long record of research funding focused on the area of neonatal brain development. Dr. Bearer is board certified in pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine. She received her BA degree in mathematics from Smith College, where she was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, and her PhD in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University. After conducting some post-doctoral research, Dr. Bearer received her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and then completed her pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She then completed a fellowship in neonatology at Harvard Medical School through their Joint Program in Neonatology. She pursued additional post-doctoral training in neona-tology at Washington University School of Medicine.

Amber L. Beitelshees, PharmD, MPH

Amber L. Beitelshees, PharmD, MPH, joined the Department of Medicine in November 2008 as an assistant professor. Previously, Dr. Beitelshees worked in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Florida. In 2001, she earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Florida and, in 2005, she earned a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Florida’s College of Public Health and Health Professions. Her research interest is in the pharmacogenomics of car-diovascular disease. Dr. Beitelshees brings a K23 award entitled “Uncoupling Protein Polymorphisms and Cardiometabolic Responses to b-blockers” with her.

Vincenzo Casolaro, MD, PhD

Vincenzo Casolaro, MD, PhD, joined the Department of Pediatrics in August 2008 as a visiting associate professor. Dr. Casolaro will collaborate with Alessio Fasano, MD, professor, Department of Pediatrics, and director of the Mucosal Biology Research Center, in a recently-funded pilot study on the effect of a microbial probiotic on several parameters of human asthma, including the regulation of memory T-cell responses. The project, “VSL#3,” to date is the first and only probiotic that was granted an Investigational New Drug Approval by the Food & Drug Administration.

Anuj Gupta, MD

Anuj Gupta, MD, joined the Department of Medicine in October 2008 as an assistant professor. Dr. Gupta is an interventional cardiologist and has been appointed director of Peripheral Interventional Cardiology within the department’s Division of Cardiology. He received his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1998. He then completed a research fellowship at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and then went on to complete his cardiology training at Temple University Hospital. Immediately following, Dr. Gupta completed an interventional cardiology fellowship at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital where he was an instructor in the Department of Medicine. While teaching, he also completed a fellowship in peripheral vascular interventions.

Ziv J. Haskal, MD

Ziv J. Haskal, MD, joined the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine as a professor in November 2008. Dr. Haskal will also function as the department section chief of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and will serve as vice chair of Strategic Development. He received his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine. After a transitional internship at Framingham Union Hospital, in Framingham, Massachusetts, he completed a residency in diagnostic radiology and a fellowship in vascular and interventional radiology at the University of California, San Francisco. He held academic and clinical appointments at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine before his appointment as a professor of radiology and surgery at the Columbia Hospital of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, New York. Dr. Haskal serves on several national committees that address standards and guidelines for interventional and image-guided procedures. He is a frequently invited guest speaker on these and other topics. He has been named a fellow of the American Heart Association, the Society of Interventional Radiology and the American College of Radiology.

Kristen M. Hurley, PhD, MPH

Kristen M. Hurley, PhD, MPH, joined the Department of Pediatrics in August 2008 as an assistant professor. Dr. Hurley received her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health and her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. While at Johns Hopkins she studied in the Department of International Health and the Center for Human Nutrition. During her doctoral training, she won three very competitive awards, The Harry D. Kruse Award, The Richard and Barbara Hall Award and The Elsa Orent Keiles Fellowship. Recently, Dr. Hurley completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Growth and Nutrition Program run by Maureen Black, PhD, professor, Department of Pediatrics. She has an undergraduate degree in nutritional science from California Polytechnic State University. After graduating from California Polytechnic, she spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer working on strategies to prevent malnutrition and diarrhea among young children in the Philippines. She also spent a year working with the Navaho Nation on similar topics. Dr. Hurley has an extremely rich set of experiences in public health nutrition and maternal and child health.

Hilda K. Ramirez-Medina, PhD

Hilda K. Ramirez-Medina, PhD, joined the Department of Pediatrics in July 2008 as a research associate. Dr. Ramirez-Medina holds both a masters degree and a PhD in cell biology from the University of Sinaloa, located in Mexico. Dr. Ramirez will play a major role generating results for several major Center for Vaccine Development grants funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a new measles vaccine. She also is involved in research in the neonatal biodefense vaccine program supported with National Institutes of Health funding under the tutorship of Marcela Pasetti, PhD, associate professor, Department of Pediatrics.

Susan K. Fried, PhD

Susan K. Fried, PhD, professor, Department of Medicine, was interviewed by USA Today reporter Nanci Helmich for an article about fat cells and obesity that ran on October 10, 2008. The title of the article was “Think Fat Just Hangs Around and Does Nothing? It Doesn’t.”