Faculty

Dr. Steven Borkan, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Boston University and an attending physician in the Renal Section at Boston Medical Center. His interests include education of medical students and house staff, basic research on the cellular mechanisms of ischemic acute renal failure and the care of patients with both general medical and renal diseases. Dr. Borkan completed a three-year research fellowship in Nephrology at Boston Medical Center with Drs. John Schwartz (Renal Section) and Peter Brecher (Biochemistry) and then joined the Renal Section Faculty in 1989. Dr. Borkan is the senior author of almost 40 peer reviewed publications in the area of the cellular stress response to acute ischemia and has been a Principal Investigator for the NIH for about 20 years. Dr. Borkan has also received several awards for excellence in teaching from medical students, house staff and colleagues at Boston Medical Center. Most recently, he was elected as a faculty candidate to join the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha society. He was a finalist for the Metcalf Teaching Award at Boston University for full-time faculty and received the Grant V. Rodkey award from the Massachusetts Medical Society for significant contributions to medical student education and mentoring. As a teacher, Dr. Borkan is known for his ability to link challenging clinical problems with physiologic principles in manner that is memorable and enjoyable. Dr. Borkan assumed the role of co-director of the MD/PhD program along with Dr. Trinkaus-Randall in July 2016.Evans Biomedical Research Center, 650 Albany St, X-546, (617) 638-7330, sborkan@bu.edu

Dr. Vickery Trinkaus-Randall, Ph.D. is a Professor of Biochemistry and Ophthalmology.  In addition to teaching and conducting research, she had mentored both master’s and doctoral students as well as students in the MD/PhD program. Dr. Trinkaus-Randall grew up in Massachusetts and attended Kenyon College. She earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin in the Neurobiology Program. Dr. Trinkaus-Randall did her Post Doctoral Fellowship in Cornea/Vision Science at the Schepens Eye Institute/Harvard Medical School where she was trained in the laboratory of Dr. Ilene Gipson and in cornea with Dr. Dohlman. During her postdoctoral fellowship she was the recipient of the individual NRSA or current F32 along with a number of smaller postdoctoral fellowships. She arrived at BUSM in 1985 as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Dr. Franzblau and Dr. Leibowitz in the Departments of Biochemistry and Ophthalmology respectively. She was the recipient of the Whitaker Fellowship working with Dr. Forbes Dewey at MIT.  In 1985 she received her first RO1 and has been the recipient of continuous grants for over 29 years. Shortly after, she received a second RO1 on the design of a synthetic cornea and then received an SBIR to continue to work on it. This model was employed internationally and served as the basis for keratoprostheses for a number of years. Dr. Trinkaus-Randall has a love of imaging and has brought 4 confocals to BUSM, the most recent a Zeiss LSM 880 with Airyscan and a FAST module. She has served on numerous study sections at both the NIH and private agencies, and has taught grant writing courses to assist students in the process of applying. Dr. Trinkaus-Randall took over the current Cell and Molecular Biology Umbrella Graduate Program in 1998 and made it into one of the more competitive graduate programs at BUSM. She then became the Chair of Advising for the PiBS graduate program before assuming the role of Co-Director of the MD/PhD Program in July 2016.Room L-904, 617-638-5099  vickery@bu.edu