DoM Faculty Appointments and Promotions – May 2024

Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.

Associate Professor

Christopher Heaphy, PhD, Medicine/Hematology & Medical Oncology, focuses on cancer biomarker discovery and validation with the aim to utilize novel tissue-based biomarkers to improve individualized prevention, detection and treatment strategies. In particular, he specializes in abnormal telomere biology as it relates to cancer initiation and tumor progression. His seminal study published in Science demonstrated the association between inactivating somatic mutations in two chromatin remodeling genes, ATRX and DAXX, and the activation of the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) phenotype, a telomerase-independent telomere maintenance mechanism. His laboratory also is working to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, as well as to understand how the interactions between the cancer and its tissue microenvironment may facilitate this process.

Zoe Weinstein, MD, MS, Medicine/GIM, specializes in two models of addiction care: Office Based Addiction Treatment (OBAT) and Addiction Consult Services. Her retrospective study of Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) OBAT program resulted in one of the largest and longest evaluations of treatment duration for patients on buprenorphine, which now has been cited 180 times. She currently is conducting a mixed methods prospective cohort study on the impact of COVID-19 on BMC’s OBAT population and has been invited to be first author on a manuscript, in development, on a NIDA clinical trials study on predictors of retention in addiction treatment. Dr. Weinstein helped establish and grow one of the leading Addiction Consult Services in the U.S., which serves as a national model, attracting trainees as well as attendings from around the country to learn from its work. From 2019-23 she served on the board of directors for the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction, the leading national interdisciplinary organization in the field of addiction.


Clinical Associate Professor

Sohera Syeda, MD, Medicine/Pulmonology, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine, specializes in COPD readmission prevention. Based at VA Boston Healthcare, she created the VA Boston COPD readmission reduction program. She is director of the pulmonary diseases module of the medical student PISCEs course, associate director of the pulmonary, sleep and critical care fellowship program and VA site director for the pulmonary and critical care medicine fellowship. In addition, Dr. Syeda is director of VA Boston’s Coordinated Care and Case Management Program for High-Risk Veterans with Heart Failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and director of VA Bedford’s Enclave Pulmonary Clinic.