AY 2025 State of the School
September 3, 2024
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,
As we begin the 2024-25 year and welcome our incoming students, I’d like to thank you for your contributions to our progress in the 2023-24 academic year. Our faculty, staff and students have been recognized for their outstanding work with honors and new grant funding (see below). Our staff has provided their expertise and administrative skills in our classrooms, labs, offices, facilities and grounds.
Faculty Honors: Our faculty continue to receive well-deserved recognition. For a list of those who received national and international honors this year, click here.
When you receive an honor or award, please notify Maria Ober, associate dean of communications, so that we can announce and track our faculty, staff and student accomplishments. If you received an honor or award that is not listed, please contact her now to update our list.
Research Publications: Our faculty continue to receive significant mainstream media coverage for their exceptional published research.
- Kimberly Bertrand’s study in the journal Environmental Research reported long-term use of chemical hair relaxers by postmenopausal Black women was associated with increased risk of uterine cancer.
- Neelam Vashi’s study in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology showed social media usage impacts the desire to undergo cosmetic procedures.
- Hugo Aparicio’s American Stroke Association’s abstract presentation found Black women with high blood pressure before age 35 may have triple the risk of a stroke.
- Jesse Mez’s study in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration showed a clear relationship between the amount of CTE pathology and severity of symptoms.
- Elizabeth Pearce’s study in JAMA Network Open found hyperthyroid patients treated with surgery had a lower risk of death and a lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events than patients treated with medication.
- Tuhina Neogi’s study in in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology found calcium crystal deposits in the knee contribute to joint damage.
New Research Grants: Here are our Academic Year 2024’s largest new/renewal grants:
Foundation awards of note:
- Gates Ventures made a grant of $5 million to Rhoda Au, PhD, professor of anatomy & neurobiology and epidemiology, for a brain health technology research center.
- The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute committed $2.8 million to Casey Taft, PhD, professor of psychiatry, to compare Strength at Home, a trauma-informed intervention to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV), with a standard IPV intervention.
- The American Lung Association and LUNGevity Foundation contributed $1 million to Avrum Spira, MD, professor of medicine, pathology and bioinformatics, to intercept lung cancer through immune, imaging, and molecular evaluation.
- The American Cancer Society awarded $792,000 to Jessica Petrick, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine, to study modifiable causes of colorectal cancer in black women.
- The American Cancer Society awarded $660,000 to Rachel Flynn, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics, to lead a post-baccalaureate program to increase diversity in the field of cancer research.
- The Edward N. & Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation awarded $500,000 to Julia TCW, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics, to study the role of cholesterol in neurodegeneration.
- The Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation awarded $400,000 to Mohsan Saeed, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology, to study immune evasion of arborviruses in mosquitoes.
Click here to read the latest news from our associate deans, chairs, center and institute directors.
Best wishes for a successful academic year.
Karen H. Antman, MD
Provost, BU Medical Campus
Dean, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine