AY 2020 Initiatives, Departments, Centers

Associate Deans Office Initiatives

Faculty Affairs

Launched Distinguished Faculty of the Month starting November 2019. Selected faculty are recognized at the BUSM General Faculty meeting, given a pin and profiled in BUSM ThisWeek and on the LCD monitor in the lobby of L-Building.
Launched Distinguished Staff of the Month, starting September 2020. Selected staff are profiled in BUSM This Week and on the LCD monitor in the lobby of L-building.
Twenty Professors and 52 Associate Professors were appointed or promoted during FY19 (including unmodified and modified titles).

Development

BU’s Choose To Be Great Campaign ended in September, with $353M raised for the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. These funds support research, scholarships. professorships, and facilities including the Shipley Prostate Cancer Center and the Dahod Breast Cancer Center.
FY20 Total support (cash & pledges) for Research: $35,760,613 (cash=$24,286,026).
FY20 Total support (cash & pledges) for Scholarships: $3,919,689 (cash=$2,921,638), with 5 new endowed scholarships established.

Graduate Medical Sciences

A 5-year Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) grant was funded by the NIH to provide programming for recent college graduates of underrepresented groups who are interested in pursuing research doctoral degrees. Designed to strengthen students’ research experience and academic skills in a strongly mentored environment, the PREP program complements the NIH-funded Summer Training as Research Scholars (STaRS) program, which provides current undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds with the opportunity to participate in biomedical research and enhance their competitiveness for application to biomedical graduate programs.
The entire 2019 class of the Physician Assistant (PA) master’s program passed their Physician Assistant National Certification Exam (PANCE) on their first attempt.
The Biomedical Forensic Science master’s program was ranked the #1 national program by Forensics Colleges.com.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office rolled out new programming for faculty, staff and students to address current and continuing issues on racism and bias. A Discussion on Race and Inclusion at GMS was organized and hosted by graduate students; Exploring Microaggressions and Their Impacts was an interactive workshop for students to explore microaggressions, their impact and interventions that can be utilized; an interview series called Faces of Diversity was launched to highlight and share the stories of diverse individuals that make up our community.

Medical Education

Innovations Due to COVID-19 – Since March, the Medical Education office has redesigned and adapted the curriculum to ensure continuing education and development of medical students. A new Transition to Fourth-Year Curriculum was developed for all entering fourth years with new content areas that included emergency preparedness, SARS-Cov2 content and subinternship skills. Third-year clerkship faculty redesigned their curricula to prepare students for clinical re-entry virtually teaching in large and small group sessions to prepare students for their discipline specific oral presentation skills, differential diagnosis generation and documentation. More than 100 faculty participated in leading small groups and delivering content. Finally, students participated in a virtual standardized patient assessment for the first time where their communication and clinical reasoning skills were assessed using Zoom technology with faculty, students and standardized patients all remote.
Advancing Clinical Skills – The doctoring courses were redesigned in the 2019-20 academic year. The courses are now taught by an Academy of Medical Educators who teach and advise students and are provided faculty development throughout the year. A simulated patient program using actors was embedded to provide students with more real-life experience with interviewing patients and having difficult conversations. A pilot poverty simulation program using virtual reality was used in doctoring 1 to introduce students to some of the experiences our patients face.
Developing Student Competence in Health Equity – Students and faculty to continue to work on increasing curricular content and experiences related to health equity. Curricular vertical integration groups (VIG) were brought together on the topics of advocacy, gender diversity, social determinants of health, racism in medicine and global health to discuss program objectives and competencies for medical students. A set of draft health equity competencies were created. The racism in medicine and gender diversity VIG’s created reports with specific recommendations for courses and clerkships, which are now being implemented.

Student Affairs

Communication and outreach to students – In partnership with the Medical Education Office, we held weekly town halls with each class year via Zoom and have provided frequently updated FAQs. Student Affairs also expanded its office hours, with daily Zoom open office hours, allowing students to drop into a Zoom room for unscheduled conversations with a student affairs dean, in addition to scheduled meetings. Move out, as well as move in, for students living in the Medical Student Residence (MSR) went safely and smoothly, with help from Facilities and Rental Properties. We are focused on student wellbeing, with frequent outreach and check-ins with students.
Career Development – Field Specific Advisors (FSAs) and Student Affairs deans were assigned to all M3s earlier in the academic year, to allow for expanded one on one advising. The M1 class were assigned to their specific AME (who serves as their primary advisor) and had their first meeting during Orientation. M4 sessions with FSAs and Personal Statement workshops were provided via Zoom, and new resources to help students navigate through the virtual residency program interviews have been created.
In addition to a unique virtual Match Day celebration, we graduated our Class of 2020 a month early, at the request of Governor Baker, to expand the workforce to respond to an expected surge of COVID patients.
Student Affairs coordinated and worked with the more than 400 medical students who were actively engaged in volunteer activities in response to the COVID pandemic. Activities ranged from providing childcare and help with errands for frontline workers, grocery delivery to recently discharged patients, telephone outreach to elderly patients, to caring for homeless patients at ENP and Suffolk Downs.
The White Coat Ceremony made a successful transition to a virtual celebration, including the timely arrival of the white coats at the home of each student.

Basic Sciences, Clinical Sciences, Centers and Institutes

Basic Sciences

Anatomy & Neurobiology – Jennifer Luebke

Awards & Accomplishments:
Dr. Chand Chandrasekaran was awarded a Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Professorship, Dr. Monica Pessina was the recipient of the Outstanding Basic Sciences Faculty Award for the Dental School and Dr. Tara Moore was recognized as a Distinguished Faculty of the month for distinguished service to BUSM. Anatomy and Neurobiology faculty received $4.2 million in grants and contracts during the past fiscal year. MD-PhD students Katelyn Trecartin and David Swain each were awarded an F30 NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship.
New Faculty Recruits: We successfully recruited two talented neuroscientists -Dr. Tuan Leng Tay and Dr. Michael Wallace who will join our faculty as Assistant Professors on January 1, 2021.
- Dr. Tuan Leng Tay is a joint recruit between Anatomy & Neurobiology and the Biology Department. Dr. Tay received her PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Freiburg in 2010. She completed 6.5 years of postdoctoral work in neuroimmunology at the University Medical Center of Freiburg with Dr. Marco Prinz. Dr. Tay’s expertise is in central nervous system (CNS) development and neuroimmunology. Her research focuses on the contribution of various glia, in particular microglia, to CNS development and tissue repair following brain injury, neurodegeneration or neuroinflammation. Using novel genetic mouse models, high throughput imaging, single-cell RNA-sequencing and bioinformatics approaches, she aims to develop new concepts for understanding the heterogeneity of glial responses during disease progression across CNS compartments.
- Dr. Mike Wallace received his PhD in Neurobiology from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2014. He received postdoctoral research training the laboratory of Bernardo Sabatini at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wallace’s research interests are largely directed towards understanding how an animal selects what action to do next and how those actions are reinforced or discouraged in the future. He is particularly interested in how the brain circuits of the basal ganglia control this process and how they go awry in disease states known to effect action selection such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, as well as obsessive compulsive disorder and drug addiction. His R00-funded research employs behavioral, optogenetic, molecular and physiological approaches to assess the activity and function of diverse neuron-types during decision-making behavior.

Microbiology – Ronald Corley

John Connor (Micro and NEIDL) received a 5 year, $3,281,792 grant on “Advancement of Poxvirus Inhibitor” from NIAID for work in collaboration with the Center for Molecular Discovery, Department of Chemistry at BU.
Tom Kepler’s laboratory continued their studies on understanding why mammalian reservoir species are tolerant of pathogens, including Marburg Virus, that are deadly in humans, in collaborative studies with the laboratories of Robert Davey and Elke Mühlberger. Publication: Egyptian Rousette IFN-ω Subtypes Elicit Distinct Antiviral Effects and Transcriptional Responses in Conspecific Cells, Front Immunology 2020. Mar 13;11:435. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00435.eCollection 2020
Four NEIDL faculty received grants from the MassCPR (Davey, Muhlberger, Saeed, Corley) for studies on the SARS-C0V-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19 (MassCPR = Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness)

Physiology & Biophysics – David Atkinson

In the 2019-2020 academic year the faculty published 28 peer-reviewed manuscripts. In addition, Lynne Coluccio, PhD served as editor and contributor to a second edition of “Myosins, A Superfamily of Molecular Motors”, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 2020. Springer.
Two members of the faculty received funding for their research programs — Olga Gursky, PhD: Structure and Function of Serum Amyloid A in Health and Disease (R01GM135158) Funding dates 01/01/2020-31/12/2023, $1,402,628; Christopher W. Akey, PhD: “The Structural basis of Protein Biogenesis” (2R01GM045377-24A1) Funding dates 04/01/2020-03/31/2024; $1,551,000.

Clinical Sciences

Anesthesiology – Rafael Ortega

During the last academic year the scholarly activities of the Department have been greatly reinvigorated:

We appointed 2 new faculty to the rank of professor and promoted 3 to clinical associate professor.
The number of IRB protocols has significantly increased, and we had several noteworthy publications, including 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine, and an editorial in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, all related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 20-week-long research seminar was developed to train faculty, residents and medical students on how to get started with research.
The Department of Anesthesiology demonstrated great flexibility, adaptability and commitment in its response to clinical needs across the hospital caused by COVID-19. A mechanical ventilator team was created to manage repurposed anesthesia machines in intensive care units and a highly specialized airway management team was created to intubate patients with COVID-19.

Dermatology – Rhoda Alani

Researchers from the Department of Dermatology, led by Dr. Rhoda Alani, were the first to explore the relationship of the gut microbiome to the incidence of the debilitating skin condition Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X20315773?via%3Dihub. These early results will pave the way for large-scale studies that may allow for the development of novel and effective therapies to treat this debilitating skin disease.
Lisa Shen, Assistant Professor of Dermatology, is developing a new Clinical Trials Unit in Dermatology that will evaluate novel treatments for challenging/complex skin diseases including Hidradenitis Suppurativa and severe Atopic Dermatitis.
Allison Larson was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Dermatology and recognized for her outstanding scholarship on gender equity in medicine.
Several new grant awards were received by the department, which included the following:
- Vladimir Botchkarev, Professor of Dermatology, received a NIAMS-funded grant to study the role of DNA oxidases Tet1/2/3 in the control of epidermal differentiation and hair growth.
- Deborah Lang, Associate Professor of Dermatology, was the recipient of a Melanoma Research Award from The Harry J. Lloyd Charitable Trust to further her fundamental work exploring the molecular determinants of melanoma development and progression
- Muzhou Wu, Assistant Professor of Dermatology received a Karin Grunebaum Cancer Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship Award to support her research in understanding the mechanisms of the development and progression of melanoma and response to targeted therapies.
The Department of Dermatology has established a Naked Mole Rat Facility at BUSM as part of their Center for Skin Aging and Wound Repair. Naked mole rats (NMRs, Heterocephalus glaber) are unique long-lived rodents that are highly resistant to developing cancer and other age-related pathologies (cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration) and maintain an average life-span span of nearly 35 years.

Emergency Medicine – Jonathan Olshaker

Vonzella Bryant, MD was named Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and US News and World Report Hospital Hero for her emergency department work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Edward Bernstein was appointed Professor Emeritus in the Department of Emergency Medicine of BUSM after retiring from a long career as a national and international leader in Emergency Department treatment and referral for substance use disorder.
This year’s Emergency Medicine residency class is 42 percent persons of color (as compared with 8 percent in EM nationally) and 58 percent women (as compared with 37 percent nationally).
Jonathan Olshaker, MD received the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians 2020 Physician of the Year Award for his contributions to the advancement of emergency medicine in Massachusetts.

Family Medicine – Steve Wilson

In April 2020, the Department welcomed its new Chair Stephen A. Wilson, MD, MPH, FAAFP from the University of Pittsburgh/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and UPMC St. Margaret.
The Department of Family Medicine was ranked #11 in the US News & World Report medical school specialty ranking by deans and senior faculty from the medical schools surveyed.
DFM Responds to COVID-19 Surge – Faculty and residents utilized the scope of family medicine training as they multitasked to satisfy broad needs: staffed one-third of inpatient COVID teams caring for floor and IMCU patients; staffed Influenza Like Illness clinics at Boston Medical Center and affiliated community health centers across Boston; coordinated transitional and helped staff intermediate/subacute care sites, e.g., Recuperation Unit on East Newton Street, to safely decompress the hospital and open beds for the more acutely ill; helped staff palliative care counseling service for patients and families; partnered with internal medicine to equip OB-Gyn, pediatric, and psychiatry faculty and residents to care for hospitalized COVID-19 patients; and embraced telehealth to maintain access to outpatient care.
Kirsten Austad was recognized by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times for her work with Maya Health Alliance to build a cervical cancer prevention program in rural Guatemala. The program helps overcome linguistic and geographic barriers facing indigenous Maya women, the most likely to die from cervical cancer in Guatemala, by training nurses to provide in-home cervical cancer screening and education to thousands of women each year. Dr. Austad conducts global health research within the program while training nurses, developing curriculum, and caring for patients.

Medical Sciences & Education — Hee-Young Park

Obtained funding from Vertex Foundation for the Introduction to Careers in Medicine, a summer program partnered with BAHEC.

Obstetrics and Gynecology – Aviva Lee-Parritz

Elizabeth A. Stier, MD was promoted to Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is best known for developing new knowledge pertaining to diagnosis and management of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) in patients infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Her seminal work focuses on HPV-associated ano-genital disease. She is a first and a champion in our field by taking clinical expertise originally used in women’s health (screening and treatment of cervical dysplasia to prevent malignancy) to positively impact the health of men using high resolution anoscopy to prevent anal malignancy in HIV infected men. Her work has influenced policy and impacted clinical care nationally and internationally.
We have started the first ever Maternal Health Addiction Fellowship. Graduates of a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology will enter into advanced training to build a foundation in general addiction medicine with a unique concentration in complex obstetric care. The fellowship will have multidisciplinary faculty from the Grayken Center for Addiction and Project RESPECT (Boston Medical Center’s nationally-recognized perinatal substance use disorder treatment program). The fellowship is hosted by the Department of OB/GYN and the Grayken Center for Addiction.
Advancing Diversity and Equity: 40% of the 10 new faculty recruited this year are from under-represented groups, and 80% of the incoming interns are from under-represented groups . We have formed a departmental Health Equity Committee with a funded Director to guide anti-racism initiatives in clinical care, training and research; with a focus on reducing health outcome inequities for women of color and promoting reproductive justice for all.

Ophthalmology – Stephen Christiansen

The American Academy of Ophthalmology awarded the 2019 Commitment to Advocacy Award to the Department of Ophthalmology in recognition of the Department’s enduring legacy of support for the Academy’s Advocacy Ambassador Program. The award was presented to Dr. Stephen P. Christiansen, MD, Chair, and Dr. Jean Ramsey, Program Director, at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology in Rancho Mirage, CA, February 2020.
Peeler C, Villani C, Fiorello M, Lee H, Subramanian M for the ORVIS study group. Patient Satisfaction with Oral versus Intravenous Sedation for Cataract Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Ophthalmology. 2019 Sep; 126(9):1212-1218.PMID: 31002834. This ground-breaking publication from the Department of Ophthalmology showed that patient satisfaction and safety were preserved with oral sedation rather than more traditional intravenous sedation prior to and during cataract surgery. This may lay the foundation for moving cataract surgery into more peripheral surgical venues where costs can be reduced and ease of access improved. Lead investigator for the project was Dr. Manju Subramanian.

Orthopaedic Surgery – Paul Tornetta III

Received DOD funding for a clinical/translational study on protein assessment of fracture healing (award 1.9 million). PI Dr. Lou Gerstenfeld and Paul Tornetta.
Surpassed 1,000 patients enrolled in novel SAFE program to minimize operative risk in elective surgery.

Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery – Gregory A. Grillone

Research
- Lauren Tracy, MD, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, and Cara Stepp, PhD, Associate Professor of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, received an Hariri Institute Research Incubation Award of $41,280 to investigate the use of interactive biofeedback for improvement of voice masculinity in transmasculine speakers. Tracy and Stepp were also awarded a $6500 grant from the BU Clinical Translational Science Institute’s COVID-19 Related Research Fund to study “The validity of acoustic measures of voice via telehealth platforms”.
- Jess Pisegna, PhD, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, was awarded a $14,000 grant from BMC’s Department of Quality and Patient Safety to study how to use Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems to empower expression for patients in the acute care setting.
- Greg Grillone, Professor of Otolaryngology, Gintas Krisciunas, MPH, MA, Research Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology and Irving Bigio, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering have been awarded a a five year, $3.6 million R01 grant from the NIH-NIDCR (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research) to study elastic scattering spectroscopy for intra-operative margin guidance during oral cancer resection.
Honors and Accolades
- Jess Levi, MD Associate Professor of Otolaryngology, has been appointed chair of the Student Evaluation and Promotion Committee at BUSM.
- Anand Devaiah, MD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology, has been selected to deliver the John Conley, MD Lecture on Medical Ethics at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
- Michael Platt, MD, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology, has been nominated for the position of President-Elect of the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy
- Chris Brook, MD, Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, was selected for membership to the BUMG Clinical Excellence Society to recognize his exceptional contributions to the clinical mission during his first 3 years of service at BUSM and BMC.

Pathology and Laboratory Medicine – Christopher Andry

Nancy Miller, MD, and Grace Zhao,MD, PhD, in collaboration with George Murphy, PhD, of the CReM, led the department of pathology & laboratory medicine faculty and support staff teams, and over 20 volunteers, in a response to the COVID-19 pandemic by bringing on line a number of testing platforms to provide pcr tests for SARS-CoV-2. As of March 2020, the department has supported providing over 35,000 tests to Boston Medical Center (BMC) patients, staff, BU faculty and a number of Boston-based community health centers. The department also was involved in supporting the BU initiative to provide testing to its community.
Elizabeth Duffy, MA, was instrumental in providing biobanking infrastructure to establish a COVID-19 biobank, for discard specimens, while working with a number of BU and BMC PIs on a Mass CPR longitudinal study.
Yachana Kataria, PhD, along with support from Elizabeth Duffy and the biobanking team and dept of pathology & lab medicine management group, led a BMC funded SIG-COVID seroprevalance study and enrolled over 1,700 employees for COVID IgG antibody testing.
The Autopsy Team, led by Eric Burks, MD, and the Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Residents, provided autopsy services to patients who had died from COVID-19 and collected biospecimen material from consented families for future research studies.
Dennis Jones, PhD, was named the Ralph Edwards Career Development Professor at BU in Fall 2019, his research focuses on “the immune-evasion mechanisms cancer cells use to persist in lymph nodes and spread to distant organs and works to identify strategies and molecular targets to enhance anti-tumor immunity and prevent metastasis”. He was also appointed as the Inaugural Early-Career Representative by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). Dr. Jones is actively expanding his laboratory based on the BU Medical Campus.

Pediatrics – Bob Vinci

The Department of Pediatrics has received a three-year, multi-million dollar award to transform our clinical practice by incorporating community-based partnerships and resources that are designed to mitigate the impact of toxic stress. In partnership with our Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family and Children’s Health Watch, both based in our Department, this project will develop a framework to identify risk factors that predict future health care utilization.
Our pediatric primary care program has distinguished itself again as a leader in meeting the medical and social needs of underserved kids and families. In response to the pandemic of 2020, we have developed a nationally recognized model for providing mobile pediatric care designed to improve vaccination rates in low-income families. As part of this effort, the Department has developed Project REACH and is providing support to our families and providing fresh food, diapers and other resources, housing support and behavioral health services to many of the 13,000 children who receive care at Boston Medical Center.
Through a collaborative partnership between Boston Medical Center Child-Witness to Violence Project and Vital Village Network, we have developed a program called Supportive Trauma Interventions for Educators (STRIVE). STRIVE aims to help schools and early education systems of care increase their capacity to identify, respond to, and optimally support the unique needs of young children who have been impacted by trauma exposure. STRIVE has provided training and consultation to early childhood providers in all 14 counties across Massachusetts.
The pediatric residency continues to be proud of its role as a national leader in pediatric residency training. With a continued focus on developing academic leaders and a robust structure for professional development and mentorship, our pediatric residents published >50 peer-reviewed publications in the last academic year with numerous opportunities to present at national presentations. Two residents of under-represented groups in medicine were also selected into the prestigious, national New Century Scholars program that aims to increase the diversity of the academic pediatric workforce. Our now widely disseminated Health Equity Rounds curriculum was also published with Editors Distinction in MedEdPortal.

Psychiatry – David Henderson

Michelle Durham, MD, received a Mental and Behavioral Health Education and Training Grant from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Titled Achieving Culturally Competent and Equitable Substance Use Services (ACCESS), its purpose is to enhance community-based experiential training for individuals preparing to become behavioral healthcare professionals with a specific focus on substance use disorder (SUD) prevention and treatment. ACCESS will train emerging behavioral healthcare leaders in the provision of SUD prevention, screening, treatment, and recovery support in medically underserved communities (MUCs). This is a three years project with the total budget of $1,254,234.
Andrea Spencer, MD, received a CTSI grant for her project, Training Addiction Physician Leaders to Prevent and Treat Addiction and its Consequences Among Vulnerable Populations. Dr. Spencer will conduct a 6-month, longitudinal study to determine both the acute and ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of urban, school-age children. The primary outcome measure will be the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17), a widely used and well-validated 17-item parent-report psychiatric screening tool that identifies children at risk for psychiatric dysfunction and in need of additional services.
Ann Rasmusson, MD, received an R01 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. This is a five-year project titled Facilitation of Extinction Retention and Reconsolidation Blockade by IV Allopregnanolone in PTSD with a total budget of $4,050,378. This study tests whether allopregnanolone (Allo) treatment in Allo-deficient individuals facilitates learning and memory processes critical to the efficacy of trauma-focused therapies for PTSD.
The Department of Psychiatry received a $3,907,751 award ($974,895 in FY20) from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for a project entitled, “BOAT: Boston Outpatient Assisted Treatment Program for Individuals with SMI.” Tasha Ferguson is the Principal Investigator on this award.
The BMC/BUSM Department of Psychiatry and the Liberia College of Physicians and Surgeons (LCPS) have collaborated to create the country’s first Psychiatry Residency Program at the University of Liberia A.M. Dogliotti School of Medicine. The goal of the LCPS Psychiatry Residency Program is to develop an indigenous mental health workforce whereby native practitioners will be able to implement best practices in clinical care, education, and research. With support from the BMC/BUSM and University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, the first psychiatry residency cohort started in September 2019.
The BUSM Department of Psychiatry was ranked #25 in the U.S. of the 2020 Best Graduate Schools Rankings.
The BUSM Faculty Affairs Office announced the following as Distinguished Faculty of the Month this past year: Christina Borba, PhD – November 2019; and Stephen Brady, PhD – February 2020.

Surgery – Jennifer Tseng

We established the Boston Trauma Institute, and recruited a Research Director, Dr. Sunday Clark, from Weill Cornell, where she was the Director of Research for the Emergency Medicine Department. She has already collaborated with BUSM/BMC faculty including Dr. Peter Burke in submitting competitive research grants.
We recruited Daniel Roh, MD, PhD as the Tauber Assistant Professor at BUSM and he has already set up his basic science laboratory with a focus on wound healing in BUSM space, with strong collaboration and mentorship from Dermatology and Surgery research faculty.

Centers and Institutes

Amyloidosis Center – Vaishali Sanchorawala

Lawreen Connors, PhD, Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and Director of the Amyloidosis Center Gerry Laboratory has been named the Charles J. Brown Research Professor in Amyloidosis, established by the estate of Charles J. Brown.
The Wildflower Foundation has been supporting our groundbreaking research for many years. The Wildflower Foundation committed a $1 million multiyear pledge to the Amyloidosis Center in 2018. Wildflower gift challenge has met its “Year 2” goal well before the end of “Year 2” on August 31, 2020. Gifts from this foundation are dependent on other donors joining to support the mission of the Center. New or increased gifts are matched by The Wildflower Foundation through the matching challenge.
Vaishali Sanchorawala, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Amyloidosis Center, was elected secretary of the International Society of Amyloidosis. She will serve in this role for a term of two years.

Genome Science Institute – Nelson Lau

The GSI in collaboration with the Dept of Biochemistry has recruited Michael Blower, PhD, for an associate professor position starting in September 2020 in the Genetics and Genomics search. Michael Blower is coming to BUSM from the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he has been studying how cell division changes gene expression in mitotic and meiotic cells, and how the process of transcription affects chromosome segregation.
The GSI hosted the 11^thannual research symposium in November 2019 and completed a second round of Single-Cell RNA-sequencing (scRNAseq) pilot project awards to the Mullen lab, the Zeldich lab, the Emili lab, the Varelas lab and the Hawkings lab to deploy scRNAseq technologies to their various cell population systems.
The GSI Director Nelson Lau, and GSI Co-director Alla Grishok, were both awarded each new 4-year R01 grants starting in August 2020 from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences.

Military Health – Glenn Markenson

The Center is developing a Military Personnel database of BU/BUSM faculty, staff, and students with a background in the military. We hope to build a community for service members in order to: 1) foster mentorship opportunity between faculty and students with military background, 2) provide a platform for military networking opportunities within the BU community, 3) attract attention of investigators from within this group towards research areas in the military health, and 4) increase awareness among this group about all ongoing military health research at BU/BUMC and facilitate potential participation opportunities. So far, we have received 123 entries from BU faculty, staff, and students across many different departments. You can find more information and the database registration form here<https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/center-for-military-and-post-deployment-health-2/upcoming-events/military-personnel-database-outreach/>.
The Center for Military Health collaborated with Representative Steve Stivers (Ohio) to successfully insert an amendment to the S.1790, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. In 1999, Congress authorized the Millennium Cohort Study to evaluate data on the health conditions of all members of the Armed Forces throughout their enlistments. This amendment to the NDAA FY 2020 directs the Secretary of Defense to submit an annual report on the “findings of the Millennium Cohort study relating to women’s health. The Secretary must also identify areas for improvement and courses of action to address shortcomings. Both the report and courses of action must be submitted every year for three years.” The Millennium Cohort Study is being conducted by study staff members based out of the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego. This approved amendment thus has facilitated a relationship between the Center for Military Health and the NHRC with the goal to collaborate on future grants. To read more about this amendment, please visit the following link<https://stivers.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=402880>.

Pulmonary Center – Joseph Mizgerd

The most profound changes in the Pulmonary Center during 2019-20 were due to COVID-19. Our Center’s physicians faced enormous immediate challenges when COVID-19 patient numbers surged in March and the following months. The ICU teams worked together to develop new and effective practices to lead us and the community through that initial crisis, while demonstrating selflessness, compassion, flexibility, open-mindedness, strength, and dedication.
Our Center’s researchers faced challenges from this onslaught of pulmonary disease as well. The immediate response of the Center to the COVID-19 surge was to ramp down research in order to maximize public health and safety. Because COVID-19 is a pulmonary disease, our researchers used that time to pivot and face this new challenge directly. Researchers from diverse disciplines across the Center built new collaborations and forged new research directions to engage this new biomedical adversary. Pulmonary Center researchers are now actively engaged in addressing the COVID-19 questions most pressing for science and medicine.
The Pulmonary Center was excited to add three new faculty in 2019-20: Andrew Berical, MD, Nicholas Bosch, MD, and Kari Gillmeyer, MD. All were outstanding fellows in the Pulmonary Center who excelled in research. As Assistant Professors, they will build and lead new research groups.

Regenerative Medicine (CReM) – Darrell Kotton

Modeling COVID with SARS-CoV-2 infections of human lung and intestinal organoids
COVID testing for Boston Medical Center during the pandemic.
A few (3) high profile publications in Nature Communications and Cell Stem Cell are below.

Slone Epidemiology Center – Julie Palmer

Shanshan Sheehy was awarded an R01 from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities entitled “Pregnancy complications in relation to stroke risk in African American women.” In addition to its focus on a novel risk factor for stroke, preeclampsia, the grant will lay the foundation for future stroke research in the Black Women’s Health Study. Dr. Hugo Aparicio from Neurology, DOM, is a co-investigator.
Julie Palmer published results of the first large study to evaluate breast cancer risk in African American women who are carriers of BRCA1, BRCA1, and the additional predisposition genes that are included on current testing panels. The paper, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Palmer JR et al. Contribution of germline predisposition gene mutations to breast cancer risk in African American women. J Nat Cancer Inst 2020), was accompanied by an editorial highlighting the importance of the findings for increased referral of African American women for testing.