BostonUniversity Medicine Boston University School of Medicine
MEDICINE.
SUMMER 2019 • bumc.bu.edu
BUSINESS.
MEET NINE INNOVATORS who intersect all three.
TECHNOLOGY.
Message From The Dean
DEAR ALUMNI, FRIENDS, AND COLLEAGUES,
In this content-rich BU Medicine issue, our cover story highlights nine distinguished BU alums whose careers have combined medicine, business, and technology: Tod Cooperman, Maurice Ferré, Dan Fishbein, Jonathan Gertler, Tonya Hongsermeier, Jeffrey Jay, Reshma Kewalramani, Alex To, and Hatty Tsai. We have been accredited for another eight years thanks to the efforts of hundreds of students, faculty, deans, chairs, and administrators who spent weekends and evenings preparing the materials for our Liaison Committee on Medical Education accreditation site visit in late February, and the 220 individuals who prepped and met with the site visitors during their visit. At the conclusion of a thorough four-day assessment, our site visitors congratulated us for our “emphasis on education with a unified mission, the collegiality and integration of the faculty, attention to detail and a well-organized visit.” We had no citations. We will continue to monitor our learning environment, enhance interprofessional collaboration, and mitigate student debt. Certainly, minimizing student debt is one of our highest priorities. Providing competitive scholarship aid so that students can afford to choose BUSM is particularly difficult for schools like us with no significant clinical income. Substantial educational debt may be manageable for graduates heading into high-paying specialties, but primary care specialists earn considerably lower salaries and such debt can be crushing for them, particularly if they have a family and mortgage. We
recently implemented an initiative to target additional scholarships for students who match to pediatrics and family medicine residencies. To compete for top students, we seek to double our scholarship endowment. We need your help. Your gift, at any level, will help our students who want to pursue these careers in medicine realize their dreams. Please contact busmdev@bu.edu if you would like to help increase our scholarship aid. Our graduating MD students celebrated Match Day 2019 in mid-March, matching in competitive programs across the country. The top specialties chosen were internal medicine (29), emergency medicine (23), pediatrics (18), surgery (20), anesthesiology (10), and family medicine (10). At Commencement on May 16, we launched the careers of another 180 physicians, 26 PhDs, and 348 master’s degree graduates. As the invited speaker for the MD/PhD convocation, Dr. Ann McKee shared her valuable thoughts and advice. There’s some exciting grant news to share with you—the Framingham Heart Study, the nation’s longest-running longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease (it began in 1948), was renewed for an additional six years with $38 million from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The contract will support examination of the cohort study’s older groups to better understand the biology of aging and determinants of health and disease. A $4.9 million grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center awarded to our Center for Translation Neurotrauma Imaging will provide new research MRIs for humans and animals respectively, as well as focused ultrasound, all to improve brain imaging techniques and develop diagnostics and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Boston University Medicine Boston University Medicine is published by the Boston University School of Medicine Communications Office.
Maria Ober Assistant Dean, Communications
design & production
Boston University Creative Services
contributing writers
Lisa Brown, Gina DiGravio, Kathryn Mariano, Morgan Simko
photography
Mark Fleming, David Keough, Holly Lindner, Jackie Ricciardi, Jason Sherer
Please enjoy this issue of BU Medicine. Best Regards,
Karen Antman, MD Provost, Medical Campus Dean, School of Medicine
Please direct any questions or comments to: Maria Ober Communications Office Boston University School of Medicine 85 East Newton Street, M427 Boston, MA 02118 P 617-358-7869 E mpober@bu.edu 0719
Boston University School of Medicine
Contents
SUMMER 2019
Members of the Class of 2019 celebrate their match results.
PHOTO BY DAVID KEOUGH
FEATURE
14
DEPARTMENTS
More than Medicine
2
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Campus News
30
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Giving to BUSM
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Faculty News
32
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Breaking Barriers into Business
8
Alumni News
22
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Research
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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CAMPUS
News
MATCH DAY 2019
Ready, set, GO! Students pick up their match letters.
The Next Chapter Begins
R
ed and white balloons. A champagne toast. The clock strikes twelve. A white envelope. Nervous and excited fourth-year students, some
who feel like they’re moving in slow motion and others, at warp speed.
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Boston University School of Medicine
Just another Match Day at Boston University School of Medicine. At noon on the third Friday in March, the Class of 2019 learned which residency program they will attend and where they will spend the next three to seven years of their lives. “Your class has matched all over the US and Canada, in 30 states from Maine to California. We are delighted that we will be keeping 20 of you who matched at BMC, and five more who will join us in our combined BMC-Children’s Pediatric residency,” BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, told the assembled students.
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The 2019 class photo.
Match Day: Matched Specialties Internal Medicine
PHOTOS BY DAVID KEOUGH
Students proudly display their match results.
The class matched in a range of programs. This year’s top specialties include Internal Medicine (29); Emergency Medicine (23); Pediatrics (18); Surgery (20); Anesthesiology (10); and Family Medicine (10). Many class members will be staying in Massachusetts (55), with New York (22) and California (21) popular destinations as well. All of their hard work has paid off and the Class of 2019 is ready for the next chapter. Congratulations! n
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Emergency Medicine
23
Surgery
20
Pediatrics
18
Anesthesiology
10
Family Medicine
10
Neurology
9
Psychiatry
9
Otolaryngology
7
OB/GYN
6
Dermatology
5
Radiology/Diagnostic
5
Urology 5 Child Neurology
4
Ophthalmology
4
Orthopaedic Surgery
3
Plastic Surgery
3
Med/Peds
2
Neurosurgery
2
Radiation Oncology
2
Pathology
1
Physical Medicine/Rehabilitation 1 Dean Antman addresses the Class of 2019.
Vascular Surgery
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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3
CAMPUS NEWS
Congratulations to new physicians Neha Gangasani, Dan Dwyer, Katerine Weber, and Yeon Woo Lee, who are all smiles after the ceremony.
Celebrating a Milestone Surrounded by Family & Friends
O
n May 16, faculty in colorful regalia welcomed the MD/PhD Class of 2019 to the scientific and medical communities. Tears of joy and the
occasional howl of relief were audible at Boston University’s Track & Tennis Center as 206 students receiving their degrees shared the occasion with family and friends. BUSM conferred 168 medical degrees, seven MD/PhDs, three MD/ MBAs, one MD/MPH, one MD/JD, and 26 PhDs. Twenty-six students earned Latin honors: 18 cum laude, six magna cum laude, and two summa cum laude, Nicholas Zampariello and Julia Peay (the first MD/JD recipient).
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Boston University School of Medicine
“We gather together today to publicly recognize and celebrate the credentials that these degree candidates have earned and this major life transition,” said Boston University Medical Campus Provost and BUSM Dean Karen H. Antman. “The diploma you get today is the credential that grants you entry to the next stage of your education: residency for MDs, postdocs for PhDs, and then, lifelong learning.” Timothy Norman, Jr., who received his PhD in Molecular and Translational Medicine, based on his dissertation on lymphatic development in the embryonic and early post-natal lung, was the PhD student speaker. During graduate school, Norman became the father of two children. After graduation, he will join the Center for Regenerative Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow. “During all this, we have written papers and grants, given countless presentations, and forged strong relationships. This is the end of an important chapter in our lives, but also the beginning of a bright future for each and every one of us!” he told his fellow graduates.
PHOTOS BY DAVID KEOUGH
Dr. Ann McKee tells graduates, “be the voice for the voiceless“
Convocation speaker Dr. Ann McKee
2019 EDUCATORS OF THE YEAR
MD graduates celebrate after the ceremony.
Pre-Clerkship Melissa D. DiPetrillo, MD Assistant Professor of Medicine/GIM
PhD Karen Symes, PhD Associate Professor of Biochemistry
Clerkship Stephen Borkan, MD Associate Professor of Medicine/Nephrology
Clinical Sciences/Kaiser Regional Campus Leon Castaneda, MD, MDiv Assistant Professor of Medicine
MA/MS Kathleen Swenson, MS, MPH Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences & Education Program Director, Master of Science in Genetic Counseling PhD candidates Sanae ElShourbagy Ferreira, Amanda Bolgioni-Smith, and Ahmad Al-Moujahed await the ceremony’s start.
MD student speaker Michael Ghio helped found a student professionalism and ethics group, co-chaired a program that mentors high school students interested in careers in science and medicine, and volunteered at a Boston women and children’s shelter. “Your success cannot exist without failure just as good cannot exist without evil. . . . On those days ahead when you will go home feeling like a failure, feel isolated, or that you aren’t cut out for this field, remember this means you have also succeeded, that peers who you can rely on surround you, and that you are destined for the success you work so hard to cultivate. Celebrate your successes and cherish your failure, and forever value this amazing ride we have all been on together,” Dr. Ghio, who accepted a general surgery residency at Tulane University, told the assembled crowd. In keeping with custom, the graduating class selected their own graduation speaker: Ann McKee, MD, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, professor of neurology and pathology, BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center director, and neuropathy core and chief of neuropathology for the VA Boston Healthcare System. Dr. McKee directs the brain banks for the Alzheimer’s Disease and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Centers and the Framingham Heart Study. McKee and her team have published groundbreaking research on repetitive head trauma in athletes and soldiers. In 2017, she was named Bostonian of the Year by the Boston Globe, in 2018 one of Time magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People, and this year, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and received the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Research from the Alzheimer’s Association.
Clinical Sciences/Affiliates Katherine Ruiz-Mellott, MD, MPH Instructor in Psychiatry Bournewood Hospital, Brookline, Mass.
“I cannot imagine a greater honor than to be asked by the students for words to carry them into their future. It made me look back at my life and realize how much medicine and science have meant to me. . . . What would my life be like if I hadn’t taken this path? And the truth is, I simply cannot imagine it,” Dr. McKee said. “Being a doctor and a scientist have been the singularly most meaningful aspects of my life. . . . Medicine has defined my life in ways I could never have imagined when I was young. Being a physician scientist is like being on a magical mystery tour—a wild, unpredictable tour through the mysteries of the human body, the enigmatic human brain, the awe-inspiring human mind, and the limitless human spirit.” Dr. McKee noted that determination and perseverance led her to challenge the NFL “to speak up—speak up for the voiceless, speak up for the patients and families who suffered and the patients and families who would suffer in the future if nothing were done. I worked incessantly because I believed and still believe that if I could provide enough data, people would see the light.” In closing, Dr. McKee told the class, “Believe in yourself. People will judge you. Don’t let those people define you. Believe in yourself and push forward. Work hard. Success isn’t a matter of luck; know what you want and go after it. Tell the truth. Let the truth be your guide, even if it is uncomfortable, unwelcome, and inconvenient. Tell the truth even if it’s hard to do and people don’t want to hear it. Stand up and speak the truth for your patients because they will not have your knowledge or your power. Be the voice for the voiceless. Tell the hard truth, tell it over and over and over, tell it until it is heard and people listen. Make the world a better place.” Congratulations, Class of 2019! n
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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CAMPUS NEWS
GMS Graduates Encouraged to Embrace Teamwork Moving Forward “It’s all about the team”
T
he Boston University Track & Tennis Center was a sea of red robes on May 16 as Associate Provost for Graduate Medical
Sciences (GMS) Linda Hyman, PhD, addressed 348 master’s degree candidates at their convocation ceremony.
“You are all different, so it’s not easy to address you in sweeping terms,” she told the assembled students. “You are a heterogeneous group who have become—or will become—experts, but what you have in common is what it takes to be successful in graduate school: smarts, perseverance, grit, and passion for what you do.” In keeping with tradition, Dr. Hyman cited a Latin phrase. “Non Omnia Possumus Omnes: ‘We can’t all of us do everything,’ in other words, it’s all about the team,” she reminded them. “No matter how smart, hardworking, and resilient you are, you could have not done it alone; there is strength in your heterogeneity, and, moving forward, you will not be truly successful working in silos.”
PHOTOS BY DAVID KEOUGH
Master’s degree candidates listen as the ceremony begins.
Associate Provost for Graduate Medical Sciences Linda Hyman and School of Medicine Dean Karen Antman enjoy a moment together.
6
Boston University School of Medicine
Master’s candidates, from left, Geeranan Chuersanga, Samantha Patrick, Hannah Bailey, Madisen Brown, and Sedona Koenders prepare to line up for the processional into the ceremony.
Student speaker and Master of Science in Anatomy & Neurobiology candidate Nick Nicoletti told his classmates, “Today we are here, celebrating milestones. Preparing for a transition in our own human experience, whatever that may be. Let us use this transition to actively set an example that learning . . . is cool! Learning is vital. “As graduates, we understand what it takes to excel in scientific learning: an intense motivation to understand, the willingness to learn from others, and a passion to discover the unknown. This . . . if used to learn about our world and all its people, would foster a new wave of inclusion and equality.” Josee’ Muldrew, a Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling candidate, spoke to the crowd of their collective journey: “To our professors, thank you for being amazing mentors and exceptional examples of what it means to not only be great professors, but great clinicians in the field. To my cohort, thank you for seeing me at times when I didn’t even see myself. I think this is a testament to the good work that you will continue to do in the future.
“To the Class of 2019, if I could leave you all with anything today, it would be to trust. Trust in our training, trust in our ability to hold the dialectic, trust that the debt was worth it, and trust that where we are in this moment is exactly where we are supposed to be. Congratulations, Class of 2019!” Master of Science in Medical Sciences candidate Neya Vishwanath added, “It’s wonderful to see all the [GMS] programs sitting together, perhaps for the first time since orientation two years ago. And so exciting to think about all the amazing people who will leave this field and set out to make positive changes in this world. As I was writing this speech, I started thinking about how our education is nothing if we don’t do something with it, if we don’t do some good with it. . . . It’s good people and positive actions that make the world go round. Between the future forensic scientists, dentists, mental health counselors, researchers, doctors, genetic counselors, and every future profession that is represented here, I have no doubt that great things will come out of this class.” n
One of three student speakers, Nicholas Nicoletti addresses his classmates, faculty, and guests.
Rachel Farthing celebrates with her grandmother after the ceremony.
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
7
News Left to right: Hee-Young Park, Marcelle Willock, and Rafael Ortega
Marcelle Willock Appointed Professor Emerita
M
arcelle Willock, MD, former professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, has been appointed Professor Emerita, the first African American woman at Boston University School of Medicine to achieve this status in recognition of professors for lifetime contributions—to a university, their field, or both—upon their retirement. Serving as department chair from 1982 to 1998, Dr. Willock was among the first women of color to lead an academic and clinical department in the United States. Leah Lowenstein, MD, a former professor and associate dean at the school, encouraged Dr. Willock to apply for the position. Dr. Lowenstein has since joined Jefferson Medical School (now the Sidney Kimmel Medical College) in Philadelphia, becoming the first female dean of a co-ed medical school in the United States. At this year’s annual MLK Celebration, Rafael Ortega, MD, associate dean for diversity & inclusion, recognized Dr. Willock’s appointment. After accepting her certificate, Dr. Willock stressed how Dr. Lowenstein’s 8
Boston University School of Medicine
encouragement impacted her own journey. “I want the students and junior faculty to realize the tradition, the legacy, what you can accomplish, and to never forget your roots and those who helped you.” Dr. Willock is an active member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and one of the leaders of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology in Schaumburg, Ill., where she is featured in The John W. Pender Collection of the Living History of Anesthesiology, an honor bestowed on selected anesthesiologists for their outstanding contributions to the specialty. While serving in the former Boston University Medical Center Hospital and Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center), Dr. Willock’s noteworthy accomplishments included accrediting the BUSM residency program and modernizing the administration of anesthetics from professional and technological standpoints. She was responsible for standardizing guidelines related to patient safety and for the introduction of pulse oximetry, capnography, and transesophageal
echocardiography (among other innovations) into operating rooms. In the early 1980s, some dentists still provided anesthesia care at Boston City Hospital; one of her most significant achievements was to end this practice and assure that only qualified physician anesthesiologists could provide anesthesia care, following the care team model promulgated by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. She served on several committees on the Medical Campus, as president of both the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists and the Society of Academic Chairs, and held a variety of leadership positions within the American Society of Anesthesiologists. She continues her presidency of the Louis and Martha Deveaux Foundation, a charitable organization in the Republic of Panama. Dr. Willock also has consulted for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, served as a member of the board of directors for the Boston Police Athletic League and as a trustee for the College of New Rochelle, and worked in the office of the chief medical examiner in New York City. After departing BUSM, Dr. Willock became the first female dean of Charles Drew University College of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, where she retired in 2005. A civil rights and diversity advocate, she has collaborated with many programs addressing healthcare disparities and fair treatment of minorities. “How fitting it is to be recognized at Martin Luther King’s event,” Dr. Willock remarked after receiving her certificate from Dr. Ortega and Hee-Young Park, PhD, BUSM associate dean for faculty affairs and chair of medical sciences & education. “You are living history,” Dr. Ortega said. “As Professor Emerita, Dr. Willock enriches our roster of faculty who have made great contributions to our School of Medicine. This appointment sends a strong message that we value her contributions and that we recognize her as a role model for our students, residents, and faculty alike.” n
PHOTO BY DAVID KEOUGH
FACULTY
Christine Reardon Receives 2019 Stanley L. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching Associate Professor of Medicine Christine Campbell Reardon, MD, has been recognized with the Stanley L. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching, the School of Medicine’s highest teaching honor. Established in recognition of the exceptional teaching and devotion to students exemplified by Stanley L. Robbins, MD, former
professor and chair of pathology, the annual award honors an outstanding educator and acknowledges the importance of teaching skills and commitment to students and education. According to one BUSM student nominator, “Dr. Reardon is an exceptional educator and physician. She has a way of teaching and encouraging participation, making you feel like a key player on the team. She takes time for individual feedback and is all-around just wonderful. I remember her being one of my favorite lecturers during my first two years of medical school, and working with her clinically was the same. She is just fantastic.” Reardon’s expertise is patient care related to intensive care, lung cancer, and neuromuscular disease. She is a faculty member in the Pulmonary Thoracic Oncology Program at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Her research interests include mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit, ventilator associated pneumonias, and lung cancer.
Genevieve L. Preer Receives 2019 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award Genevieve L. Preer, MD, has received the 2019 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to faculty who best demonstrate the foundation’s ideals of outstanding compassion in the delivery of care; respect for patients, their families and healthcare colleagues; and clinical excellence. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, Preer attended the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and completed her residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston Children’s Hospital. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM.
Since 2009, Preer has worked as a BMC primary care pediatrician; her interests include immigrant health, health advocacy and equity, medical-legal partnerships, children who have experienced adversity, and children in foster care. She is a member of the hospital’s Child Protection Team, which works with patients, families, and staff to protect children from abuse and neglect. In this role, she consults on cases of suspected abuse and neglect across clinical departments and supervises fourth-year medical students who rotate with the team. She also serves as a co-leader for the pediatric subcommittee of the hospital’s Immigrant Health Task Force and is physician leader for Schwartz Center Rounds at BMC. In 2016, she was selected as a member of the hospital’s Peer Supporter program and the next year received the Excellence in Care Award from the Boston University Medical Group.
After graduating in 1988, Reardon completed her residency at the former Boston City Hospital (now BMC) and subsequently became a pulmonary and critical care medicine fellow there. At BUSM, Reardon developed and instructs simulation training programs in airway management, bronchoscopy, tracheostomy, and ventilator training for pulmonary fellows, as well as teaching procedural training for internal medicine residents. She is also director of respiratory care services at the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in Canton, Massachusetts (formerly the Massachusetts Hospital School), where she provides pulmonary consultative services to its pediatric neuromuscular disease clinic. “I am originally from Dorchester, grew up in the neighborhood of BMC, and attended BUSM, so I understand the honor of receiving the Stanley Robbins Award,” Reardon said. n
One student nominator wrote, “Dr. Preer’s elegance, efficiency, and efficacy at navigating . . . complex situations was amazing to see as a young medical student interested in pediatrics, and lit a spark in my life.” A colleague wrote, “What really makes her a hero is that she runs into the fire when everyone else runs away. . . . Dr. Preer has saved children’s lives, aided in the rescue of young boys and girls who were being sexually, mentally, and physically abused, and compassionately rendered excellent clinical care, all while maintaining her own panel of primary care patients.” A public, nonprofit organization founded by Drs. Arnold and Sandra Gold to perpetuate the tradition of the caring doctor by emphasizing the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation seeks to support physicians-in-training who combine the high-tech skills of cutting-edge medicine with the high-touch skills of effective communication, empathy, and compassion. n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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FACULTY NEWS
Julie Palmer Named Director of the Slone Epidemiology Center
D
avid W. Kaufman, ScD, professor of epidemiology, stepped down as director of the Slone Epidemiology Center effective June 30. Julie R. Palmer, ScD, Karin Grunebaum Professor in Cancer Research and Slone’s associate director, has been named the new director. A Medical Campus epidemiology research center (formerly located on the Charles River Campus) founded in 1975, Slone’s initial focus on medication use in relation to cancer, heart disease, birth defects, and rare drug-induced conditions has expanded to include behavioral, psychosocial, socioeconomic, environmental, and genetic factors. Current major projects include the Black Women’s Health Study, pharmacoepidemiologic examinations of birth defects, and infant care practice studies. In keeping with its multidisciplinary approach, Slone faculty members have
appointments at the BU School of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology, the BUSM Department of Medicine (sections of hematology/oncology and preventive medicine), and the BUSM Department of Pediatrics. The center also collaborates with the BU-BMC Cancer Center, which Dr. Palmer co-directs. Slone moved to the Medical Campus in 2017. After devoting many years of his career to the center, Dr. Kaufman assumed the directorship in 2016 and oversaw its successful transition to its current location in the BUSM Instructional Building. He will continue at Slone with a reduced schedule of research activities and in his role as chair of the BUMC IRB Panel Orange. Dr. Palmer joined Slone and the faculty of the Department of Epidemiology after receiving her doctorate from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 1988. Her research focuses on cancer health disparities
Julie Palmer
and includes collaborations with investigators across BUMC. Her primary faculty appointment is in the Department of Medicine’s hematology/oncology section. n
BU-BMC Cancer Center Leadership Announced Julie Palmer, ScD, Matthew Kulke, MD, and Gerald Denis, PhD, were appointed co-directors of the BU-BMC Cancer Center, effective February 1. Dr. Palmer also is director of Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center, professor of epidemiology at BU School of Public Health, and associate director for population sciences at the BU-BMC Cancer Center. Dr. Kulke also is Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine at BUSM, chief of the section of hematology/oncology in the Department of Medicine at BUSM-BMC, and medical director of the Clinical Cancer Center at BMC. He
previously served as deputy director of the BU-BMC Cancer Center. Dr. Denis also is associate professor of pharmacology and medicine (hematology and oncology). These leaders will bring together their respective expertise in population sciences and clinical and basic research to foster interdisciplinary investigation and collaboration among engineers, chemists, biologists, and computer scientists, deepening the University’s community of investigators who focus on cancer. Dr. Denis also will direct the center’s administrative activities. n
Gerald Denis
Matthew Kulke
10
Boston University School of Medicine
Ann McKee Named Warren Distinguished Professor
A
nn McKee, MD, has been appointed a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, the highest recognition Boston University bestows on a faculty member. Dr. McKee’s appointment brings the number of active Warren Professors to 13. A professor of neurology and pathology, director of the BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center, and associate director of the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Dr. McKee also serves as director of neuropathology for the VA Boston Healthcare System and chief neuropathologist for the National VA ALS Brain Bank. She was the first scientist to report a link between motor neuron disease and CTE,
and her research has been critical in establishing the clinical and pathological spectrum of trauma-induced neurodegenerative disease. Much of her current research focuses on the long-term consequences of traumatic brain injury from contact sports and military service. She has written widely on many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body disease, and Parkinson’s disease, and has received the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Research from the Alzheimer’s Association. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, she was named Bostonian of the Year in 2017 and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2018.
John Polk Appointed Associate Dean for Diversity & Inclusion John Polk, MD, EdM, was appointed associate dean for diversity & inclusion, effective July 1. He succeeds Rafael Ortega, MD, professor and chair of anesthesiology, who has stepped down to focus on his department chair responsibilities. An assistant dean for student affairs for the past 12 years, Dr. Polk also has worked as a professional coach for physicians focused on career development, leadership, and workplace conflict management. Dr. Polk received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Temple University, his MD from the School of Medicine in 1974, his EdM from Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development in 2012, and a Certificate in Coaching from Boston University School of Social Work in 2014. He completed a residency in general surgery at University of California-Irvine and affiliates, and in cardiothoracic surgery at BUMC. He also was a fellow in pediatric cardiac surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital. Prior to joining BUSM, he served for three years as an adult and pediatric cardiac surgeon at Michigan State University and was
Ann McKee
Dr. McKee completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and received her medical degree from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. n
a thoracic oncological surgeon in southeastern Massachusetts for 20 years. He will lead the BUSM Diversity & Inclusion staff and a team of assistant deans, working closely with their counterparts at the School of Public Health and Goldman School of John Polk Dental Medicine and with Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion Crystal Williams. Dr. Polk is committed to recruiting, supporting, and promoting a diverse group of students, staff, and faculty by creating an environment that nurtures the growth and development of each and every member of this community as they pursue the study and practice of medicine, biomedical research, and public health. n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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FACULTY NEWS
Will continue to support the community she’s spent a lifetime serving By Joel Brown
P
ediatrician Nicole Prudent grew up in a large, deeply religious family “of limited means” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She vividly remembers her visits to the city’s hospital with her Seventh Day Adventist Church youth group. “We had to do something good for another human being, and my team decided to go to the hospital,” recalls the assistant professor of pediatrics. “There were a lot of babies being born, and we watched women suffering due to labor pain. We could get water for them, but we didn’t have anything to give them. The hospital conditions were very poor. Sometimes there were two women on one bed, two women and the babies. So I always wanted to do something. I didn’t know what, but that touched me.” The experience was an early inspiration for Dr. Prudent to become a pediatrician. After nearly three decades of serving the local Haitian community through her work at Boston Medical Center, Dr. Prudent has retired. Dr. Prudent never expected to remain in Boston for 28 years. “When I arrived, I was going to be here for one year,” she says with a smile. “I am just grateful to be able to have had such a long practice and grateful also that I was in the right environment so my work would have some impact.” In Haiti, older siblings often parent the younger ones. When Dr. Prudent’s parents and their two older children decided to immigrate to the United States they entrusted the care of their five youngest children to Dr. Prudent—then a teenager— and an aunt. Still determined to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor, Dr. Prudent later attended medical school at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico, before moving to the United States. Over the course of her career, she has dedicated herself to serving the Haitian community in Massachusetts, the third 12
Boston University School of Medicine
Most satisfying, she says, are the ones who have graduated college or even completed an advanced degree and report back to her: “I’m a doctor here.” “I’m a nurse.” “I’m a lawyer now.” “This feels very good, when you see your patient who came from a very poor country, where the circumstances are very hard, and they overcame the difficulty,” she says. “They tell me that I have contributed to their success. . . . It gives me deep happiness to witness their positive contributions to society today.” “At a time when people were not paying attention to the multicultural nature of the Boston community,” Robert J. Vinci, Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor of Pediatrics and departPediatrician Nicole Prudent is a legend in Boston’s Haitian community for her work at Boston Medical Center and the ment chair and BMC chief School of Medicine. of pediatrics, says, “Nicole has been innovative and ahead of others in saying we really need to think much more about largest in the United States, after Florida and New York, with approximately 46,000 cultural humility and build programs that immigrants, most living in the Boston area. benefit the patients that we’re seeing.” Many of those new immigrants Dr. Prudent Many have fled violence, poverty, and cortreated arrived with numerous issues, ruption, as well as natural disasters like from preexisting medical conditions to hurricanes and earthquakes. limited literacy. Things taken for granted In her years at BMC, Dr. Prudent here, like prenatal care, were unfamiliar cofounded the Haitian American Public to many of her patients. At the request of Health Initiatives and Youth and Famthe Massachusetts Department of Public ily Enrichment Services (YoFES) to help Health, she launched a campaign to help newly arrived Haitian immigrant families get more pregnant Haitian women to seek thrive and raise healthy children while prenatal care at what was then Boston struggling to find work, learn a new lanCity Hospital. It was just the first of many guage, and deal with health issues like successful initiatives she oversaw. sickle cell disease. And she’s done all of “Nicole’s a legend in the Haitian comit under the radar, preferring even now to munity,” Dr. Vinci adds. “She’s seen as a deflect credit. leader, a very thoughtful clinician, and her Dr. Prudent says she’s seen many of her patients just adore her.” n pediatric and adolescent patients grow up and bring their own children to her office.
PHOTO BY JACKIE RICCIARDI
After Nearly Three Decades, Nicole Prudent Retires
Ann Zumwalt displays her office artifacts.
Office Artifacts: Ann Zumwalt Collects Anatomical Treasures By Amy Laskowski
PHOTO BY JACKIE RICCIARDI
H
ow do you get a sheep to exercise? Just ask Ann Zumwalt, an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology, who has sheep bones on display in her office. As a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Zumwalt wrote her dissertation on the effect exercise has on muscle attachment sites. As part of her research, she put sheep on treadmills to exercise, and then compared their bone morphology, or structure, to those of sheep that had not been exercised.
It wasn’t easy to convince her subjects to cooperate, Dr. Zumwalt says, until she learned that there are two tricks to sheep cooperation. The first is that grain food is roughly equivalent to dog treats for pooches, and second, sheep don’t like to be alone. “So if you put them on a treadmill and you put a mirror in front of them, they don’t feel alone anymore. They think, I’m with a buddy,” she says. Dr. Zumwalt, who came to BU in 2007, is the course director for the biomedical sciences and medical gross anatomy courses, where she oversees teaching. She describes the latter course as a “rite of passage” for medical students since it’s where they dissect
their first human body. She says it’s her job to help them think and emotionally process this ordeal. “It’s weighty in the sense that we’re not just dealing with anatomy, but helping the students through one of their first experiences with death and dying,” Dr. Zumwalt says. “It’s a lot of navigating some of the gray area of being in medicine, where they have to learn how to do something that’s difficult but necessary, which is a lot of what being a doctor is. You have to do things that most people don’t normally do in regular life. I consider it to be a really important part of my job.” n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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COVER STORY | MEDICINE, BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY
MEDICINE.
BUSINESS.
MEET NINE INNOVATORS who intersect all three.
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Boston University School of Medicine
TECHNOLOGY.
BY KATHRYN MARIANO
For some, becoming a doctor after medical school was always the plan: complete medical school, begin a residency, follow up with a fellowship, and join a medical practice or hospital faculty. For others, the journey wasn’t that linear. In this story, you’ll meet physicians who veered toward finance and investing, care management, research consulting, and healthcare technology. Some knew before applying for their residencies that they wanted to be in medical business, while others went into clinical practice. But each recognized the significance of medicine and business intertwining. The world will always need physicians to care for patients, but medical expertise and leadership are crucial for healthcare administration, insurance, medical devices, and wellness. As technology advances and healthcare transforms on a daily basis, medicine and business must intersect more than ever. And these BU alumni are showing us how it’s done.
DR. TOD COOPERMAN (MED’87)
President & Founder | ConsumerLab.com and PharmacyChecker.com
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hen Dr. Tod Cooperman’s friends and classmates learned on Match Day that he hadn’t applied for residencies, they gaped at him— what on earth was he going to do? But he wasn’t worried—he’d taken a job at the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers (now Bristol-Myers Squibb) as a business development analyst for a new biotech company they’d acquired. As he progressed through medical school, he realized that he was interested in changes occurring within healthcare, including the latest technology and new medical services and products. By his third year, he was hoping something would click during his rotations and he’d find a field of medicine he was passionate about. But nothing did, and he started to think about going into business instead. Upon graduation and after several positions in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and consulting
industries, Dr. Cooperman found the perfect way to marry his business aspirations and medical knowledge by founding the websites ConsumerLab.com and PharmacyChecker.com (he is also president of both). Nearly 20 years old, ConsumerLab.com provides independent test results and information to help consumers and healthcare professionals identify the best quality health and nutrition products, while PharmacyChecker.com helps them find the best drug prices from verified online pharmacies. Although he doesn’t provide patient care, he points out that his medical degree is being put to excellent use: “I know that I’m helping thousands of people each year, whether it’s helping them avoid problems with their supplements or helping them find products and prescriptions they can afford.” Dr. Cooperman resides in Westchester, New York.
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COVER STORY | MEDICINE, BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY
DR. MAURICE R. FERRÉ (CGS’81, MED’92, SPH’92) CEO & Chairman | INSIGHTEC
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olitics may run in his family, but Dr. Maurice R. Ferré saw an opportunity and found his calling in a different type of public service—medical entrepreneurship. By taking this path, Dr. Ferré has amassed nearly 20 years of experience in the medical device industry, receiving the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and BioFlorida’s Lifetime Achievement awards along the way. Between his second and third years of medical school, Dr. Ferré took two years off to start his own company, using supercomputers to map the brain. When he resumed his studies, he considered residency in surgery or neurosurgery. Dr. Richard H. Egdahl, leader and founder of the former BU Health Policy Institute, played a key role as a mentor, offering him a fellowship in entrepreneurship; Dr. Ferré took his medical school project and launched a technology company, Visualization Technology Inc. (VTI), for mapping and tracking instruments inside the brain. VTI became the world leader in Ear, Nose and Throat navigation and was sold to GE—all through work that came from BU. His next endeavor was as CEO and chairman of MAKO Surgical Corporation, a transformational robotic surgical company he co-founded, which was acquired by Stryker Corp in 2013. With more than
one million knee replacement procedures performed with the MAKO robot, it is well on its way to becoming the standard of care. Today, Dr. Ferré is embarking on his most ambitious endeavor yet, as CEO and chairman of INSIGHTEC, a medical technology innovator developing a transformative platform for performing incisionless surgery, strategically focused on the brain. “The healthcare system is changing so rapidly. Technology will have an enormous impact on the way we manage our healthcare, but it’s important we remember the human aspect of medicine and why we entered this field. Be compassionate and have empathy—always remember it’s about helping people and saving lives,” he says. Dr. Ferré’s endowed scholarship, the Ferré Family Scholarship Fund, supports incoming MD students in need of financial aid. Dr. Ferré is a member of the BU Board of Trustees and the BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board. He resides in Miami, Florida.
DR. DAN FISHBEIN (MED’85, CAS’85) President | Sun Life Financial (US)
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hile studying in the School of Medicine’s sixyear program, Dr. Dan Fishbein found himself drawn to employee benefits and health plan management—fields
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in which he has more than 25 years of leadership experience today—more than to the actual clinical practice of medicine. When it came time for Dr. Fishbein to secure a clerkship, then-Associate Dean of Academic Affairs g
Dr. John McCahan connected him with Dr. Richard Egdahl, leader and founder of the former BU Health Policy Institute. During his subsequent four months clerking there, the institute was preparing a bid to the US Department of Health and Human Services to develop the resource-based relative value scale (which eventually became the way Medicare is reimbursed), sparking his interest in health policy and the emerging field of managed care. Following Dr. Egdahl’s career advice, Dr. Fishbein decided not to pursue a residency. “I realized that in medicine, the closer you follow the ‘recipe,’ the better care you’re delivering. Whereas in business, there’s not a lot of recipes to follow. I found that really appealed to my creative side,” he explains.
Instead, he applied to insurance and pharmaceutical companies, universities, and consulting firms. Upon graduation, he took a job at MassMutual; since then, he’s held leadership positions at New York Life and Aetna and helped create and develop Maine’s first managed Medicare and Medicaid programs. He now leads a team of nearly 4,000 employees at Sun Life, a $5 billion US business that includes employee benefits and medical stop-loss insurance, where he oversees continued development of digital innovation and new business strategies. He advises students who may be interested in medicine and business to explore ways of getting experience in a business environment. Dr. Fishbein resides in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
DR. JONATHAN P. GERTLER (QUESTROM’99)
Co-Founder, Managing Partner & CEO | Back Bay Life Science Advisors
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fter training as a vascular surgeon at Yale University and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Dr. Jonathan Gertler was on his way to being division chief and department chair. “I knew my career goal would always be to serve patients, I just didn’t know how many paths there are to get there,” he says. As the field of medicine began to shift in the late 1990s, Dr. Gertler pursued a health policy & management degree at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, recognizing that knowledge in this field would be in demand by chiefs and chairs. He worked full time at MGH and Harvard University while completing his studies. In 2001, an international investment banking group recruited him as head of healthcare investment banking, where his clinical expertise was invaluable. Applying a surgeon’s sensibilities to complex business challenges has led to “a fascinating entrepreneurial life at the intersection of technology, clinical medicine, and business,” he reflects. Inspired by the promise of combining medicine and business, Dr. Gertler founded Back Bay Life Science Advisors, a consult-
ing and investment banking group that guides global life science companies in developing novel technologies and treatments for some of the most pressing health concerns. “The work is fulfilling and never stops,” he says. “Entrepreneurs are constantly striving to balance creative vision with a responsibility to those around us. I work for my clients and my staff—and ultimately, we all serve the patient.” While advising global biotech companies, he also founded an emerging biotechnology company focused on aortic diseases, a healthcare IT company, and Cardiovascular Technologies, which successfully exited in 2001 and is now part of Boston Scientific. “If you put economic success aside as a sole driver, a career that integrates medicine and business can be incredibly rewarding,” he points out. “Positively impacting patient health, contributing meaningfully, and finding passion and purpose in work makes for great business leaders.” Dr. Gertler is a member of the William Fairfield Warren Society and BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board and resides in Weston, Massachusetts. g
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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COVER STORY | MEDICINE, BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY
DR. TONYA HONGSERMEIER (SARGENT’81, MED’87, QUESTROM’96) Vice President & CMIO | Lahey Health System
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fter medical school, residency, and a clinical nutrition fellowship, Dr. Tonya Hongsermeier went into internal medicine practice at Boston clinics. “It became really clear to me that managed care was really managing the money, not managing care. I saw clinicians feeling pressure to make decisions that weren’t in the best interest of their patients and I wanted to understand how we could shift the system to focus on care,” she recalls. After one of her department chiefs suggested she study management, she chose BU in order to work full time as she pursued her degree. “I was not in any way a technologist, but I could see that clinical information systems were going to be an underpinning and could solve the problem of making
quality of care tangible to patients and purchasers alike. The HITECH act drove adoption of electronic health records, but these systems are still maturing, so a significant focus of my work now is improving usability and quality of life for our clinicians,” she explains. While predicting health systems will deploy further innovation and become more efficient out of necessity, she cautions students who may want to go into business during or after medical school to “be patient and don’t get an MBA for the sake of it. Study management so you can solve a problem and build teams to productively produce outcomes.”
Dr. Hongsermeier resides in Dedham, Massachusetts.
DR. JEFFREY JAY (MED’83, CAS’83)
Senior Managing Member, Founder & Chairman | Great Point Partners, LLC
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r. Jeffrey Jay’s academic résumé includes the prestigious London School of Economics, where he spent his third year of the School of Medicine’s six-year medical program. After earning his MBA from Harvard, he used his medical education as a foundation for a career in healthcare investing. He joined Dr. Richard Egdahl at the BU Health Policy Institute and held several other summer jobs in healthcare finance and management. Upon graduation, he worked at firms including Solomon Brothers, Canaan Partners, and J.H. Whitney & Co.—a partnership managing $7.5 billion—where he led the healthcare effort and invested approximately 20 percent of the firm’s capital. In 2003, Dr. Jay co-founded Great Point Partners, which manages successful private (buy-out) and public (hedged) equity investment funds and has invested more than $1.6 billion in rapidly growing healthcare businesses. “Everything we do is a blend of finance and healthcare. I’m meeting with a range of people, CEOs 18
Boston University School of Medicine
to scientists, who are changing the world as we know it. For example, we provided the capital for the company that obtained the very first gene therapy approval from the FDA to treat a genetic disease causing blindness. The businesses we provide money to are led by great entrepreneurs who are often PhDs or physicians, and who have a passion about improving care or curing a particular disease or illness. It is really fascinating and inspiring to be dealing with these people who are developing drugs that save lives or treat previously untreatable diseases,” he says. “I don’t feel like I work. I love every minute of what I do. It’s a passion, and it’s part of the reason why I think I’m successful at it.”
Dr. Jay is a member of the BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board and resides in Greenwich, Connecticut.
DR. RESHMA KEWALRAMANI (MED’98, CAS’98)
Executive Vice President & Chief Medical Officer | Vertex Pharmaceuticals
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eshma Kewalramani has always been deeply committed to improving the lives of patients and their families beyond the typical medical visit. As a graduate of the Seven-Year Liberal Arts/Medical Education program, she had a humanities foundation that gave her the groundwork to successfully build teams, lead change, deliver results, and put people first. Dr. Kewalramani graduated with honors and began her career as a physician and nephrologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, eventually transitioning to industry. She spent more than 12 years at Amgen, holding a variety of roles across research and development, and in 2015, completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School. Today at Vertex, she oversees clinical development, global regulatory affairs, medical affairs, drug safety, and other related functions. She is responsible for developing, advising, and executing the company’s clinical programs.
“Vertex captured my heart and imagination when I saw the opportunity to help create medicines that could potentially have a huge impact on people’s lives. I was impressed with Vertex’s model of working in serious diseases where we have a deep understanding of causal human biology and validated targets, because it gives us a higher chance of success when making the leap from the lab bench to a patient,” Dr. Kewalramani explains. Much like her career path, her work is fast-paced and dynamic: “Drug discovery is like a relay race—a race against time. Even before the research team is ready to pass the baton to the clinical team, we are doing everything we can to clear the road ahead so the transition is as fast and seamless as possible.” Dr. Kewalramani resides in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
DR. ALEX TO (CAS’87, MED’91)
Founder & Managing Member | Cross Current Research, LLC
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r. Alex To has always valued research and the ever-expanding possibilities it offers. While he first considered an academic career, he recognized there was opportunity in medicine for commercial application through his business degree. After graduating from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. To started his career in life sciences and healthcare investments when he joined Castle Group in 1991. He subsequently achieved great success in positions at Wall Street companies including Deutsche Bank, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and Duquesne Capital LLC. In 2009, he founded Cross Current Research, an independent sell-side research firm providing in-depth analysis of companies, competitors, and industry trends. And while most medical professionals specialize in one field, Dr. To must stay current in every
specialty in order to provide the most accurate and influential research data to his clients. “To a large degree, we get to influence the resource allocation in drug development,” he says. “We play a large role in advocating the right drugs to be developed by helping companies access funding.” Noting that people will always need money, he predicts longevity in the finance industry but foresees medical changes coming with artificial intelligence developments: “We expect it to reshape a significant portion of the industry, from drug development to delivery of care.” Dr. To resides in Florida.
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COVER STORY | MEDICINE, BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY feature
DR. HATTY TSAI (MED’85, CAS’85)
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ometimes, life presents challenges that you have to meet in creative ways. Dr. Hatty Tsai, a graduate of the six-year medical program, completed her internal medicine residency at a BU-affiliated community hospital and eventually made her way to the suburbs north of Boston for about seven years. She paused her clinical career due to hip replacement surgery. “I was practicing at a community hospital without residents, so if you were the attending, that was it,” she explains. “I wasn’t able to take off that much time because, in primary care, it’s hard to be gone.” After a second hip replacement surgery, she realized she would probably need a desk job; she found a
job in utilization review and, eventually, a career path in life insurance underwriting, which she discovered was “a very interesting way to use my medical knowledge and training.” She has held medical director and leadership roles at companies including Sun Life Financial, Metropolitan Life Insurance, and John Hancock, providing clinical input and expertise to help underwriters assess medical risks. After working in life insurance underwriting for 12 years, she transitioned to a company that helps commercial health payers manage their payment policies. “I think I sort of accidentally landed in the business path, but I was able to find a different way to use my medical knowledge,” she notes. Dr. Tsai resides in the metrowest area of Boston.
TODAY’S CURRICULUM
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s one of only 17 Broadening Experience in Scientific Training (BEST) schools chosen by the National Institutes of Health, Boston University is enhancing biomedical career development curricula for PhD and postdoctoral trainees in a way that explores careers both inside and outside of standard academic research. The Graduate Medical Sciences curriculum is informed by market needs. BU works closely with industry partners to align courses of study with industry demands, ensuring students are trained not only for jobs that are open now but for future careers that may not yet exist. The BEST program is open to all biomedical graduate and postdoctoral trainees and holds regular events, including site visits, industry panel discussions, and career preparation workshops. MD students with an established interest in business and medicine may wish to enroll in the five-year Health Sector MBA+MD program. Students complete the first three years of the medical school curriculum and spend their fourth year taking core management classes through Questrom School of Business; the fifth year is spent completing their
remaining medical courses and seven management course credits. Students are required to complete a 400-hour field placement, which helps develop the connections and expertise crucial to a career search. Aspects of healthcare delivery, life sciences, and health information technology are covered to help students gain a broad understanding of the exciting and emerging health sector. N. Stephen Ober (MED’86, CAS’82), who runs the dual degree program, seeks students who can compellingly relate why they want to pursue this pathway. “It’s about connecting the dots. There has to be a passion in our candidates for seeing the big picture when combining medicine and business. It’s all about making a substantial contribution to improving not only a student’s life, but, most importantly, a commitment to impacting the lives of others on a global scale.” Dr. Ober foresees business training making its way into the standard curricula of US medical schools. “It is the only way practicing physicians, physician administrators, and those in industry will be prepared to meet the future challenges facing healthcare, and BU has taken an active role in exposing our students to these critical issues.” n
Dean Antman Hosts Reception for Alumni, Parents, Faculty & Friends
PHOTOS BY HOLLY LINDNER
On a beautiful June evening more than 60 alumni, parents, faculty, and friends gathered for a reception at the home of Dean Karen Antman and Elliott Antman, MD. Amid the lush backdrop, guests mixed, mingled, and heard a short school update from the dean.
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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Research
Spotting Ebola in the Crowd BUSM prof & colleagues have a new field test that can rapidly discern the real thing from lookalike fevers BY KAT J. MCALPINE
John Connor says the SERS-based diagnostic system is easy to carry: “I’ve put it in my backpack just to see."
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Boston University School of Medicine
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t a clinic in Liberia, people trickle in from the surrounding neighborhoods, shivering despite the warm air, reporting varying degrees of headaches and nausea. Many of them are anxious—it’s 2014, an Ebola outbreak is underway, and they fear the worst: that they, like some of their neighbors and loved ones, have contracted the highly fatal disease. One by one, they wait to be examined by a clinician, all the while mosquitoes float and buzz in the thick evening air. During the early stages of Ebola, symptoms are often hard to distinguish from another disease endemic to the region, malaria, a mosquito-borne blood infection caused by a parasite. Without an instantaneous way of screening a patient’s blood, people sick with malaria, instead of being treated with antimalarial medication, could be placed into quarantine and surrounded by other ill people who ultimately might, in fact, have Ebola and be highly contagious. That danger of being unable to diagnose Ebola—or malaria—in seconds or minutes, rather than hours or days, is one of the major deficiencies that contributed to the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola crisis, according to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. “The standard diagnostic tests that exist are very good, but they’re hard to do out in the field in the middle of an outbreak like we saw in West Africa,” says John Connor, associate professor of microbiology. Instead, samples need to be sent to a facility capable of running the tests. “It could be several days between taking a sample and getting a diagnosis.” When dealing with a fast-spreading, contagious, deadly disease like Ebola, those several days could mean the difference between containing an outbreak—or not. Learning from the past Dr. Connor, in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University and the National Institutes of Health Integrated Research Facility and clinical partners from Senegal and the Hemorrhagic Fever Lab at Université Gamal Abdel Nasser de Conakry, Guinea, as well as BD (Becton Dickinson), a global
PHOTO BY MARK FLEMING
BUSM
medical technology company, teamed up to do something about it. The international team, led by BD, proposed an idea for a new kind of diagnostic that would bridge critical gaps in the field. The Allen Family Foundation agreed to fund the idea. “We set out to create a rapid, point-ofcare diagnostic that could look for malaria, Ebola, and other pathogens that are often found in these regions,” says Dr. Connor, a virologist at the BU National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), which contains a Biosafety Level-4 laboratory that has been working with Ebola virus since August 2018. As he reflects on the West Africa outbreak that prompted the last two years of his research efforts, Dr. Connor says better diagnostics are needed now just as much as ever. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he says, is “a smoldering outbreak . . . the largest outbreak that Congo has ever had and it’s looking like it’s not under control.” Ray of light for remote clinics While there are myriad ways to design rapid, portable diagnostics, the solution the team pursued was based on a test that could be stored without refrigeration, which is typically hard to maintain along supply routes to rural outbreak areas. That’s why a compact diagnostic system built on magnetic beads and glass-encased gold nanoparticles was so appealing for the job. The system, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), is based on the idea that light scatters off of different types of molecules in distinct ways. Specific molecules have distinct light-scattering signatures, or unique bar codes, that can be detected. Although the bar codes can be weak on their own, adding gold particles makes the bar code easier to detect by boosting the light signal. “Gold amplifies the bar code by about a million times,” says Dr. Connor. Partnering with BD, which had developed SERS for other global health–related applications, Dr. Connor and his collaborators helped design a system that would be able to differentiate between various bar codes of the
malarial parasite and Ebola virus, as well as Marburg and Lassa viruses, two other deadly hemorrhagic fevers found in the same regions of Africa where Ebola outbreaks occur. At the start of the test, a small sample of blood is mixed with magnetic beads coated in antibodies that attract each of the four infectious agents. If the blood con-
Ebola virus, pictured here, can cause fevers that are hard to distinguish from malaria and other infections at their outset. A new diagnostic system could make it easier for clinicians working in remote locations to quickly weed out who really has Ebola and who doesn't. Image courtesy of NIAID
tains malaria-causing parasites or Ebola, Marburg, or Lassa viruses, the pathogens glom onto the magnetic beads. At the same time, similar antibodies on glass-encased gold nanoparticles also attach to the pathogens, creating a link between the magnetic and gold beads. Then, inside a small machine, the materials are concentrated into one spot by magnetic force and hit with a small laser beam. Diagnosis in a flash Analyzing the bar code of light that flashes back from a sample, the machine provides a readout of the presence of malarial parasites or Ebola, Marburg, or Lassa viruses. If a sample contains more than one infectious agent, the test is able to identify them all. From sample-taking to final readout, the entire process can be completed in a half hour or less. The development of the system, and experimental data showing its efficacy in animal and human blood samples, was published in Science Translational Medicine December 12, 2018. According to one of the study coauthors, Yanis Ben Amor of Columbia University, who partnered with lab technicians in
Africa to test the device in the actual field, a great benefit is that “once the sample is added to the tube, there is no need to reopen the tube since all the reagents are already inside.” For the technicians carrying out the testing, “this was seen as a tremendous advantage in the context of highly infectious samples.” Designed to go anywhere, the system’s components can be battery operated and can fit inside a backpack. How does Dr. Connor know that? He’s stuffed them inside his own standard-sized backpack to test out their portability. “The implications for getting good diagnostics to remote places are huge,” says Dr. Connor, who is a corresponding author of the study. He says that the value of the diagnostic goes beyond identifying who has a contagious illness and who does not. It’s also about building stronger relations with the communities at risk of becoming infected. During an outbreak, “there is a strain between clinicians who are trying to assist with limited resources and the local community that is losing trust in their healthcare workers because they don’t have the appropriate tools and, therefore, can’t help to their fullest capability,” says Dr. Ben Amor. If patients can rapidly be diagnosed and treated for illness, it can foster trust while immediately helping clinicians identify who should be quarantined and who should be sent home with antimalarial medicines. The best scenario would be that clinicians are able to limit the time patients wait in crowded rooms and, therefore, decrease transmission opportunities, says Dr. Ben Amor. Dr. Connor adds that the system could be custom-tailored to detect and differentiate virtually any combination of pathogens—bacterial, viral, fungal, or parasitic. “The reason I find this system so promising is that it can diagnose more than one thing, which is important in the real-world context of infectious diseases,” he says. “The disease landscape is complicated and pathogens aren’t operating in isolation from one another.” n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM Research
How Virtual Reality Might Help Fight Recurring Nightmares Virtual reality could benefit people, particularly children, suffering scary dreams
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ou might say that Patrick McNamara is in a frightening line of work. As a sleep researcher, he’s hunting for new ways to treat people with nightmare disorder (also known as dream anxiety disorder). Being chased by a malevolent entity, Dr. McNamara says, is one of the most common recurring nightmares that patients report experiencing over and over again. “Very often, people with chronic nightmares report dreaming about being chased or attacked by supernatural or demonic beings,” says Dr. McNamara, associate professor of neurology. “They can’t really see their attackers’ faces, but they know their intent is to harm them. People also report being chased by animals like snakes or bears. Bears are very frequent in these types of dreams, where you’re trying to get safe, throwing up obstacles between you and the attacker, feeling like you’re about to be attacked.” A nightmare like that might give anyone a bit of anxiety. But terrifying dreams, if they keep happening, can induce far more than just fleeting fear. Dr. McNamara says recurring nightmares can have profound long-term effects, especially for children who experience them. In the United States, between half and two-thirds of children and up to 15 percent of adults have frequent nightmares.
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Boston University School of Medicine
Two BU professors have teamed up to design a pilot study examining whether virtual reality therapy could help people with recurring nightmares.
“Recurring nightmares are really significant predictors,” he says. “They foretell mental health trouble.” For children, that trouble can come in the form of adolescent and adult psychosis, including anxiety, depression, stress, and suicidal ideation. In adults, distressing nightmares can often be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the documented
“The hardest thing to grasp is the idea that recurring nightmares never lose their strength. It’s a really painful problem to have nightmares that are just as bad the hundredth time you’ve had them.” —Wesley J. Wildman
clinical effects of nightmares—including distress, loss of sleep, and generalized anxiety— Dr. McNamara says we still lack easy-to-use, effective treatments for nightmare disorders. Imagery rehearsal therapy, the current gold standard for treatment, attempts to teach patients to replace nightmare imagery with less frightening versions. According to Dr. McNamara, the success of the treatment is varied and typically shortterm because it relies on a person’s ability and willingness to conjure up realistic nightmare imagery in their mind’s eye, which some patients can do better than others. Naturally, most young children are even less capable of willfully controlling an imagined visual narrative than adolescents or adults. How can you stop recurring nightmares? Research in the last decade has hinted that modern technology may enable a more tangible approach to treating nightmare disorders. In 2010, Grant MacEwan University psychologist Jayne Gackenbach found that people who played video games before bed may have better awareness and control in their dreams, which could help prevent distressing nightmares. Then, in 2011, Gackenbach found that soldiers who played warfare-themed video games were less likely than nongamers to suffer from
PHOTO BY LUX INTERACTION/UNSPLASH, EFERLI/ISTOCK, BUNHILL/ISTOCK
BY KAT J. MCALPINE
feeling distress and helplessness in their dreams. The takeaway from those studies? Platforms like video games that exercise a person’s ability to control and manipulate simulated imagery—rather than imagery conjured up in their mind’s eye—could have therapeutic benefits for people with nightmare disorders. Looking out to the next evolution of visual technology, Dr. McNamara became very interested in whether virtual reality could be an even more effective tool. “Virtual reality immerses you in a 3-D environment and the imagery is quite intense,” Dr. McNamara says. How intense? The sensory inputs can be so all-consuming that “even for people who do it often, you can get nausea because it destabilizes the inner brain mechanisms about balance.” Virtual reality programs place users into artificial environments where they experience and manipulate visuals that seemingly exist right in front of their own eyes. In this way, Dr. McNamara says, virtual reality is able to take the burden of imagery generation off of the patient, immersing them in nightmarish imagery through interactive systems like Oculus Rift. Teaming up with Wesley J. Wildman, a BU School of Theology professor of philosophy of religion and an expert in artificial, computer-simulated environments, Dr. McNamara designed a pilot study to
“We think that they learn these imagery control skills and then over a couple of weeks, those skills get transferred from their conscious state into their dream state.” —Patrick McNamara
examine if virtual reality therapy could help people with recurring nightmares. The two are cofounding directors of the Center for Mind and Culture and have previously worked together to explore how religious experiences are processed in the brain. When Dr. McNamara reached out to Dr. Wildman for help with the virtual reality component of the study, Dr. Wildman says, the idea struck him as a “genius-level intervention.” For people who don’t experience recurring nightmares, “the hardest thing to grasp is the idea that recurring nightmares never lose their strength,” he says. “It’s a really painful problem to have nightmares that are just as bad the hundredth In a virtual reality environment, study time you’ve had them.” participants were Ultimately, Dr. Wildman directed to make intense imagery says, unrelenting nightmares less scary, such as can make people truly afraid using a drawing to go to sleep. tool to cover up this
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DREAMING
great white shark’s teeth as it swam toward them.
Teaching control over dream imagery For the pilot study, Drs. McNamara and Wildman designed moderately frightening virtual reality imagery—such as an underwater environment where a great white shark seems to swim closer and closer to the virtual reality user—to elicit a manageable level of fear in
participants. “To treat nightmare disorders, you want to expose the person to arousing and disturbing images, but you don’t want to expose them to very scary images,” Dr. McNamara says. The goal is to treat distress rather than inflict more. They enrolled 19 study participants who reported having frequent nightmares. Using joystick and gesture controls, participants were able to modify the threatening visuals to make them less scary. Dr. McNamara says they could, for example, use a drawing tool to cover up the shark’s teeth or a sizing tool to shrink it down. Afterward, participants were also asked to write a narrative about their newly edited visual experience. Someone might say, “When I looked [at the shark] more closely it turned out to be a great white tuna that was going to swim by me,” Dr. McNamara says. “Suddenly that tremendous force is not after you and it’s not so threatening.” Over the course of a month, participants continued visiting Dr. McNamara’s lab twice a week to use an Oculus headset and its joystick controls to alter scary visuals and create new narratives. Each visit, they were monitored for anxiety, nightmare distress, and nightmare effects. By the conclusion of the study, participants reported significantly lower levels of all three. The results were published in the journal Dreaming. “We think that they learn these imagery control skills and then over a couple of weeks, those skills get transferred from their conscious state into their dream state,” Dr. McNamara says. Although the results of the pilot are exciting, Dr. McNamara says the next step is to design a double-blind clinical trial to really test the effects of virtual reality therapy. To rule out placebo therapy effects, he says, such a study could involve a group of participants who do virtual reality therapy and another group of participants who do standard imagery rehearsal therapy. “The most exciting thing about this is the potential to bring this to kids suffering from nightmares,” Dr. McNamara notes. “Kids are fantastic with adopting technology, and if we can treat their nightmares earlier, we might slow down or prevent conversion into psychosis. That could save lives.” The pilot project was funded by the Center for Mind and Culture and the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center. n
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM Research
Toward Diagnosing CTE in Living People Researchers find that experimental brain scan reveals abnormal tau proteins in former NFL players BY KAT J. MCALPINE
“We need to study larger numbers of people with greater variability in their history of being hit [in the head] repeatedly and in their history of CTE-related symptoms.” Robert Stern
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or the time being, the only way for scientists to detect whether a person has CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is to examine their brain tissue after death. But to get any closer to being able to treat or even prevent CTE, researchers must first find a way to diagnose it in the living. That critical goal may finally be within sight, according to a new study published April 10, 2019, in the New England Journal of Medicine, by Robert Stern, director of clinical research at the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, and collaborators from Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, and the University of Arizona. Their findings reveal that an experimental positron emission tomography (PET) scan on living people is able to detect abnormal brain tissue—called tau protein—in patterns similar to those found in the brains of deceased people diagnosed with CTE after death. Tau protein—a hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases including CTE, Alzheimer’s, and certain kinds of dementias—“becomes toxic and destroys brain tissue” as it accumulates, says Dr. Stern. In 26
Boston University School of Medicine
—Robert Stern
their study, the researchers found evidence of abnormal tau proteins in living people by comparing experimental PET scans of 31 control subjects without any history of head trauma or psychological symptoms against 26 former National Football League players who have self-reported cognitive, mood, and behavioral symptoms associated with CTE. The experimental PET scan detected greater amounts of abnormal tau protein buildup in the group of living former NFL players compared to the control group. “It can’t yet be used for individual diagnosis,” Dr. Stern cautions. “We analyzed group data, not individual findings.” Yet, after a decade of doing CTE research himself, he admits it’s a crucial step toward the ultimate goal of diagnosing CTE in living individuals. “From day one,” he says, “I had hoped for there to be a tau tracer for PET scans in humans. It’s such an important thing . . . to be able to see and quantify tau.” Dr. Stern says scientific data suggests that it’s not necessarily concussions that cause the neurodegenerative disease known to have affected hundreds of military veterans and former NFL stars, including Aaron Hernandez, Dave Duerson, Junior Seau, and Andre Waters, among others.
“CTE is a buzzword these days, but a lot of people are confused about what it is, what causes it. There’s a lot of misconception out there that it’s caused by concussions.” Instead, repetitive subconcussive hits to the head—like you commonly see in tackle football—appear to be the root of the disease. Studying the brains of deceased NFL players, other athletes, and veterans—BU CTE center scientists have amassed nearly 700 such brains—has yielded new clues to what drives CTE. But Dr. Stern says there are still a lot of unanswered questions, such as how common CTE is, why some people get it and others don’t, and how it can be treated and possibly prevented. To find those answers, he says researchers need to be able to diagnose CTE in the living. “Most importantly,” to best learn about how and why the disease develops, “it would be great to detect it early before it progresses to the point where there’s too much destruction of brain tissue,” says Dr. Stern, who is also director of the clinical core of the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center and professor of neurology, neurosurgery, and anatomy & neurobiology. The experimental PET scans in the new study were done using two different tracers—radioactive compounds designed to be injected into the bloodstream, after which they travel into the brain and glom onto specific proteins. The two types of tracers used by Dr. Stern’s team, one an experimental tracer designed to detect tau and the other an FDA-approved tracer for detecting amyloid proteins, have been used over the past several years by researchers looking for signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Once these tracers, delivered one at a time during two different PET scans, reach the brain and get stuck to any existing tau and amyloid proteins, the PET scans can pick up their radioactive glow, illuminating their exact location and pattern inside the brain structure. The FDA-approved amyloid tracer is intended “to be used in people in their 60s and above who have cognitive difficulties,
but their doctor isn’t sure if it’s Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Stern says. “If they have the PET scan and it comes back negative [without any elevated amyloid], the doctor can’t assume the person has Alzheimer’s.” Because of tau’s role in Alzheimer’s— which affects more than 5.5 million Americans and is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the National Institute on Aging— researchers raced to develop tau tracers for use with PET scans. Dr. Stern says the combination of the two scans, amyloid and tau, may help detect the specific brain tissue patterns that make CTE unique from other neurodegenerative diseases. “At the beginning of CTE, tau is found in patchy areas around small blood vessels located deep in the valleys of the cortex,” he explains. From there it can spread throughout other areas of the brain, until the whole brain can become “devastated.” In contrast, Alzheimer’s disease starts off “almost backward from CTE
development,” he says. Deep in the brain, “amyloid buildup seems to kick off first and then tau becomes abnormal,” forming protein tangles along the spreading amyloid network. In CTE, then, you would expect to find a smattering of tau protein without the presence of elevated amyloid. The results from the experimental PET scans in the study seem consistent with those facts. Although both tau and amyloid tracers were used in the study, only abnormal tau was detected in the group of former NFL players. As would be expected with CTE, there were no abnormal signs of amyloid buildup. Looking at the group results as a whole, Dr. Stern points out that there’s no way to interpret whether any individual person in the study has CTE, but says, “It’s likely that there are people in the group who have CTE.” Ultimately, these early results are a step—a significant one—in the journey
toward one day being able to diagnose individuals with CTE while they are still alive. “We need to study larger numbers of people with greater variability in their history of being hit [in the head] repeatedly and in their history of CTE-related symptoms,” he says. By the end of 2019, Stern and collaborators expect to complete tau and amyloid scans of up to 240 additional people. “In the next five years or so, we will be able to diagnose and detect [CTE] during life.” But whether or not the experimental PET scans on this group detected signs of CTE, or some other abnormality, won’t become clear unless the study participants’ brains are examined after death. To make that possible someday, Dr. Stern says, “Most of them have agreed to donate their brains.” This study was supported by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense. n
“CTE is a buzzword these days, but a lot of people are confused about what it is, what causes it. There’s a lot of misconception out there that it’s caused by concussions.” IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
—Robert Stern
These images show areas of the brain where an experimental brain scan detected higher abnormal tau protein in a group of former NFL players than compared to a group of control subjects. The former football players in the study have self-reported cognitive, mood, and behavioral symptoms that are thought to be associated with CTE.
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM Research
RESEARCH AWARDS
Framingham Heart Study Awarded $38 Million for the Next Six Years Will explore how different organ systems age in older people
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he Framingham Heart Study (FHS), the nation’s longestrunning longitudinal analysis of cardiovascular disease, has been renewed for an additional six years with $38 million from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The contract will support examination of the cohort study’s elderly groups starting later this year to better understand the biology of aging and determinants of health and disease in older people. Studies in the older cohort will include looking at liver fat, platelet function, arterial stiffness, the heart and great vessels, and patterns of thousands of circulating blood proteins in participants. The younger generation of the FHS—those a few years in—will also be revisited. “With the rapidly increasing number of Americans over the age of 65, comprehensive studies of older individuals are invaluable,” notes Vasan Ramachandran, MD, FACC, principal investigator and director of the FHS and professor of medicine. “The opportunity to perform comprehensive analysis of phenotypic abnormalities in older individuals using state-of-the-art scientific technology is unparalleled. Serial follow-up of the younger cohorts also will yield critical insights into the development of cardiovascular disease over the life course.” The funding also allows for continued maintenance of FHS operations—including data and bio-sample collection as well as follow-up and surveillance of all cohort participants and continued data analysis—and facilitates integration of newer, cutting-edge ancillary studies in core protocols. In its seven decades, the FHS has been responsible for numerous research breakthroughs, including smoking’s contribution to heart disease risk (1960); identifying fundamental risk factors for heart
disease (1961); the benefit of physical activity and the risk posed by obesity with regard to heart disease (1967); heightened stroke risk from high blood pressure (1970); and the importance of so-called “good” cholesterol in reducing death risk (1988). Researchers now are studying the children and grandchildren of the original participants, which has led to groundbreaking discoveries in other domains, including neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, lung abnormalities, and pulmonary fibrosis. Over the last two decades, the FHS reported definitive evidence that parental occurrence of heart disease or stroke by age 65 increased the risk of heart disease and stroke two- to three-fold in their children. Ongoing collaborative genetic research with other groups in large consortia have identified hundreds of new genetic loci that contribute to the risk of developing risk factors and heart disease and stroke. Under the direction of the National Health Institute (now the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) in 1948, FHS researchers recruited 5,209 men and women between the ages of 30 and 62 with the goal of identifying the common factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease by following its development—over a long period of time—in participants who have not yet developed overt symptoms or suffered a heart attack or stroke. “The study’s ambitious mission not only educates the public on the implications of their research findings, but also provides the next generation of scientists with vital training opportunities,” says Karen Antman, MD, BU Medical Campus provost and BUSM dean. Boston University has administered the FHS since 1971. n
BU Receives Massachusetts Life Sciences Capital Grant Funding will develop new brain imaging techniques to better understand diseases like CTE, Alzheimer’s
T
here is currently no way to track the subtle brain changes caused by traumatic head injuries or degenerative neurological diseases—but that’s finally poised to change. A $4.9 million grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) has been awarded to the Center for Translation Neurotrauma Imaging (CTNI) at the Boston University School of Medicine. With support from the grant, the CTNI will improve brain imaging techniques and open doors to developing diagnostics and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. In addition to the MLSC grant, the CTNI has received additional in-kind donations valued at $6.3 million, and will collaborate with clinicians and researchers at Boston Medical Center,
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which has the busiest Level 1 trauma and emergency services in the region. Center co-directors Stephan Anderson and Lee Goldstein say that the CTNI’s efforts will bridge a critical imaging gap and lead to better clinical care for people with diseases like Alzheimer’s, which is difficult to diagnose in its early stages and currently has no cure. The researchers are also interested in developing imaging techniques to be able to see signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which cannot yet be detected in living people, but has made news headlines for being found in hundreds of brains from deceased National Football League players and military g
servicepeople who sustained repetitive hits to the head during their lives. The gap in imaging technology must be filled before emerging treatments for brain injury can be successfully tested and used clinically in humans, says Dr. Goldstein, associate professor of psychiatry, neurology, ophthalmology, pathology & laboratory medicine, and radiology, and a College of Engineering associate professor of biomedical engineering and of electrical and computer engineering. The CTNI will also research new ultrasound imaging and focused ultrasound applications. “The use of focused ultrasound is an emerging area in neuroscience, enabling fundamental discoveries in neurotrauma as well
Framingham Heart Study Inspires Researchers to Hit the Road New $21.4 million RURAL study will examine rural, southern US communities to find out why people there have more disease, shorter lives Traveling in a mobile examination van, researchers will examine 4,000 study participants over the course of six years in 10 rural counties across Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Image courtesy of BU School of Medicine
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asan Ramachandran, BU School of Medicine professor of medicine and epidemiology, chief of preventive medicine and epidemiology, and leader of the Framingham Heart Study at Boston University, is about to embark on the ultimate road trip with 50 other scientists—but not for adventure and sightseeing. The research team is part of the Ramachandran-led Risk Underlying Rural Areas Longitudinal (RURAL) study, which aims to learn why people in rural areas of the southern United States tend to live shorter, less healthy lives compared to the rest of the country. With $21.4 million in funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Dr. Ramachandran and his team plan to use their know-how from the Framingham Heart Study—the longest-running
as the potential development of novel, acoustically enabled therapeutics,” says Dr. Anderson, professor of radiology and an ENG professor of mechanical engineering and a faculty member of both the Nanotechnology Innovation Center and the Photonics Center. MLSC received 45 applicants for grants, ultimately awarding a total of $30.5 million to 11 proposals. The MLSC Competitive Capital Program is designed to provide grants for capital projects that support the life sciences ecosystem in Massachusetts by enabling and supporting life sciences workforce development and training, research and development, commercialization, and/or manufacturing in the commonwealth. n
heart disease study in the country—to ask the question: What causes the high burden of heart disease, lung disease, and stroke in the rural South? To find out the answer, the researchers will travel by a custom van, or “mobile examination unit,” to examine 4,000 study participants over the course of six years in 10 counties across Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Throughout the US, heart disease is the number-one killer of both men and women, but rates are worse in southern states. People living in these areas also have higher rates of lung, blood, and sleep disorders compared to the national average. “We hope that what we do [in RURAL] changes the lives of common human beings who live in these communities, who are robust individuals like you and me,” Dr. Ramachandran says. “The burden of [health] risk is high, in part because of geospatial characteristics that we don’t fully understand.” He notes that the most crucial aspect of the study involves listening. Partnering with 16 institutions, including universities in all four states, the researchers will work with participating communities to organize active discussions, working groups, listening groups, and community advisory boards. According to Dr. Ramachandran, the plan is to take the “science to the people and study these health issues at their doorstep.” The mobile exam unit will be constructed after the team consults with community partners and participants to ensure that the space will be comfortable, accessible, and customized to the needs of specific areas. Once fully operational, the van will spend time in each of the 10 counties, with the group’s first stop in Alabama to conduct baseline examinations. Once the RURAL van completes its trip through all 10 counties, the cohort will continue working with the communities through advisory boards and participant networks. After the data is collected and analyzed, the team intends to share the results with district health officials and provide health recommendations based on their findings. “We do hope to build relationships within these communities to understand them better beyond the 4,000 people [who will participate] in RURAL,” Dr. Ramachandran says. n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM
Giving
bu.edu/supportingbusm
Dean’s Advisory Board Gathers for Spring Meeting Top row (from left): Douglas Macdonald, PhD (MED’98); Jane Clark, MD; David Edelstein, MD (MED’80); Richard Catrambone, MD, DMD (MED’92); George Waters, MD (MED’94); Susan Caron (Parent MED'21); Sarkis Kechejian, MD (MED’63); and Maurice Ferré, MD (MED’92). Bottom row (from left): Horace Wu, MD (MED’92); Mary Jane England, MD (MED’64); Ann Cea, MD (MED’67); DAB Chair Lee Silver, MD (MED’82); Dean Karen Antman, MD; Shamim Dahod, MD (MED’87); Burton Golub, MD (MED’65); Elizabeth Brown, MD; and Christine Hunter, MD (MED’80)
On May 3, the Dean’s Advisory Board held its spring meeting in Hiebert Lounge on the Medical Campus. Board members engaged with faculty and students on various issues and initiatives, including round table discussions
on professionalism, ethics, and well-being with Ken Grundfast, MD; curriculum and student life with Priya Garg, MD, Angela Jackson, MD, and Barbara Schreiber, PhD; and industry opportunities with Linda Hyman, PhD, and N. Stephen Ober, MD,
MBA (MED’86, CAS’82). The meeting also featured a conversation with fourth-year MD students and a panel discussion on addiction medicine. The day culminated with a tour of the new student study space on L13. n
Top 8 Reasons Why We Donate to BUSM Every Year
2. It’s how we show our thanks for the outstanding education we received during our cumulative 14 years at BU. 3. It’s how we demonstrate our sincere gratitude for the lifelong friends we made at BU, most importantly, each other (our three sons are grateful as well!). 4. It’s how we fulfill our responsibility to invest in the institution that invested in us many years ago.
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Boston University School of Medicine
5. It’s how we can ensure that BUSM remains a leader in medical education for generations to come. 6. It’s how we help support exceptional BUSM initiatives, including research and community outreach programs. 7. It’s how we help relieve the financial stress on students who are embarking on a long, admirable, yet expensive journey. 8. It’s how we lead by example, showing our three children the importance of supporting what we deeply believe in.
With much gratitude, Craig and Rachel Title
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TITLE FAMILY
1. It’s how we stay connected to our alma mater.
Giving
BUSM
Keefer Society Dinner
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embers of the Boston University School of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Board and the Chester S. Keefer, MD, Society—which recognizes donors who have supported the school with lifetime gifts totaling $50,000 or more—gathered at Boston’s Museum of Science for the society’s 26th annual dinner. This year Dean Antman inducted the following new members into the society: Bronze Members Rod F. Hochman, MD (MED’79) and Nancy J. Hochman; Gerald and Patricia Treece; Mercury Members Captain Russell K. Carney and Geraldine Carney; Thomas J. Moore, MD, and Mary C. Moore; Harold S. Schell, MD (MED’70) and Antoinette M. Schell; Brian and Beth Levine; the estate of Lillian A. Luskis, MD (MED’49); Allen and Kelli Questrom; Ralph L. Sacco, MD (MED’83); and Richard L. Simmons, MD (MED’59).
Left to right: Ashraf M. Dahod; BU trustee and BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board member Shamim A. Dahod, MD (MED’87, CGS’76, CAS’78); Muriel Nichols; BU overseer and BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board member Christine S. Hunter, MD (MED’80, CAS’80); and Senior Vice President, Development & Alumni Relations, Scott G. Nichols
Left to right: BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board chair Lee B. Silver, MD (MED’82, CAS’82); new Keefer inductees Antoinette M. Schell and Harold S. Schell, MD (MED’70); and Dean Karen H. Antman, MD
Left to right: BUSM Dean’s Advisory Board chair Lee B. Silver, MD (MED’82, CAS’82); Geraldine Carney; Captain Russell K. Carney; and Dean Karen H. Antman, MD
PHOTOS BY ILENE PERLMAN
Left to right: Karen G. Konefal; Masis K. Parunyan (MED’22); and Deborah W. Vaughan, PhD
Left to right: New Keefer inductees Captain Russell K. Carney and Geraldine Carney; new Keefer inductee Harold S. Schell, MD (MED’70); and Provost, BU Medical Campus and Dean Karen H. Antman, MD
PHOTO BY DAVID KEOUGH
Commemorating the Gitta and Saul Kurlat Chair, Hematology/ Oncology
D Left to right: Dr. Matthew Kulke and Saul Kurlat
r. Matthew Kulke, left, and Saul Kurlat commemorate the Gitta and Saul Kurlat Chair in Hematology/Oncology at BUSM, which Mr. Kurlat has established in his estate. Dr. Kulke, chief of hematology/oncology in the Department of Medicine and co-director of the BU-BMC Cancer Center, will be the first chair. Dr. Kulke treated Mr. Kurlat’s late wife, distinguished Boston University alumna Gitta Kurlat (LAW’65, Questrom’63). Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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Alumni DEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS,
CONTACT US If you have news, announcements, or creative works you’d like to share with your fellow alumni, please write to the BUSM Alumni Association at 72 E. Concord Street, L120, Boston, MA 02118 or email alumbusm@bu.edu.
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Boston University School of Medicine
Whether it’s been a few months or several years, chances are a lot has happened since the last time you were on campus! In May, we graduated 168 MDs, seven MD/ PhDs, three MD/MBAs, one MD/MPH, one MD/JD, 26 PhDs, and 348 from Graduate Medical Sciences. One of our recent graduates, Jason Sherer, MD, helped present gifts to our newest BUSM alumni during the ceremony. As always, Match Day was an exciting and successful event. Thank you to all our alumni who shared “Words of Wisdom” with the class—we posted your inspiring thoughts around the school and also provided them to students in a digital collection. The recently renovated Hiebert Lounge (come see it!) offered a lovely, enhanced space for students and guests to mingle and enjoy the celebratory day. The Class of 2019 gift committee exemplified community building with their decision to designate the class gift to provide the student lounge with new equipment, and to cover first aid books for randomly selected second-year medical students. Thank you to all class gift donors, both faculty members and students. Our newest BUSM alumni are already learning what it means to give back—very impressive! The second annual Early Medical School Selection Program Weekend will be held in conjunction with Boston University’s Alumni Weekend on September 21 & 22. We’re looking forward to hosting these particular BUSM alumni and students again—they understand what it means to support and mentor new (and future) alums, and are an inspiration to all of us! The Campaign for Boston University, Choose to Be Great, will host its campaign celebration that weekend as well. MED Alumni Weekend will take place on October 4 & 5. The ever-popular reunion dinners will be hosted at the Boston Sheraton Hotel on Saturday evening and are sure to be
NEWS
alumbusm@bu.edu
part of a memorable night. Our newest featured event is Town Hall with the Deans, a great opportunity for alumni to learn firsthand how BUSM has changed in recent years. We also will recognize the Class of 1969 as our special guests and honor our Distinguished Alumni Award recipients during a congratulatory luncheon. There’s a lot going on, and I invite you to stay connected! I hope you’ve been following all BUSM alumni updates in our monthly BUSM Alumni e-Newsletter (please contact us if you are not receiving it, and we will ensure that your current contact information is on our distribution list). We work hard to meet the needs of busy professionals, and it’s a fun and efficient way to stay connected. There are many other ways for you to stay connected to BUSM. Recent BUSM alumni regional engagement activities included one in Long Island—hosted by Alan Multz, MD (MED’85, CAS’81 [Par CAS’22, MED’21])— and another in Chicago, at which Howard Bauchner, MD (MED’79 [Par COM’15, CGS’11]), senior vice president and editor in chief of scientific publications at the American Medical Association, was the guest of honor. Let us know—we would love to plan a regional alumni activity in your area!
Jean E. Ramsey, MED’90, MPH’08 Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs Associate Professor, Ophthalmology and Pediatrics Vice Chair of Education and Program Director, BUSM and BMC Department of Ophthalmology
Students, Faculty & Alumni “Wine” Down at Annual Mixer
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early 200 students, faculty, and alumni gathered in Hiebert Lounge on January 28 to network at the second annual “Wine Down After Rounds,” a student-driven initiative designed as a way for medical students to interact with faculty and alumni in order to learn about different career pathways. “We are excited to be part of this event and thank the students for inviting alumni to participate,” said Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs Jean Ramsey (MED’90, MPH’08). “Alumni appreciate the opportunity to meet students and share their stories. It’s always great to see students past and present together under one roof!” “Networking is an important part of any profession, so I’m happy to return to BUSM to talk with students about where their medical career path can take them,” explained alumni board member Robert Najarian (MED’05), currently the medical director of the Pathology Center at University Gastroenterology in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and an associate pathologist at Metrowest Pathology Associates, PC, in Framingham, Massachusetts. Exceptional faculty members who teach, guide, and mentor throughout the year were recognized with student-voted awards through the Student Committee on Medical School Affairs. This year’s winners:
PHOTOS BY DAVID KEOUGH
The Patient Whisperer Clinical faculty member who inspires and educates with their enthusiasm and experience in teaching clinical medicine: Ryan Chippendalet, MD, Assistant Professor The Challenger Faculty member who continuously inspires and challenges students to do better both academically and within
the community: Priya Garg, MD, Associate Dean, Medical Education The Extra Miler Faculty member who goes “the extra mile” both within and outside the walls of classrooms to improve the overall experience: Omar Siddiqi, MD, Assistant Professor The Unsung Faculty or staff member who has made a positive impact in the lives of medical students both within and outside the classroom, but has largely gone unrecognized: Erin Taylor, PrISM Curriculum Coordinator The Advocate Faculty member who consistently inquires about the interests of students and is diligent about making these interests known to the administration: Ann Zumwalt, PhD, Associate Professor The Illustrator Faculty member who goes above and beyond the classroom by using illustrations, visual and otherwise, to ensure understanding of lecture concepts: R. J. Rushmore,PhD, Assistant Professor n
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM Alumni
CLASS NOTES
Alum, Students Recognized at Second Annual GMS Distinguished Alumni Awards Event
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raduate Medical Sciences held their second annual PhD Distinguished Alumni Award Reception on May 3 as faculty, staff, current students, and alumni gathered in Hiebert Lounge for a late-afternoon celebration to honor a GMS alum who has made outstanding contributions to scientific research and medical treatment.
Assistant Dean for GMS Alumni Affairs Barbara M. Schreiber, PhD, introduced this year’s Distinguished Alumnus, Steven Treon, MD, PhD. A quadruple Terrier, Dr. Treon earned a BA in biology, an MA in biochemistry, a PhD in microbiology, and an MD with honors. A professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), he directs the Bing Center for Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia and chairs the Macroglobulinemia Clinical Trials Group at DFCI. Dr. Treon identified genetic bases for Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia and devised a treatment that resulted in the Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the US Food and Drug Administration, a drug that was the first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency to treat Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia. Dr. Treon described his research and his career trajectory to a packed audience that included his family, the daughter of his PhD mentor (Dr. Selwyn Broitman), and his coworkers (many of whom are BU alumni as well). “It is such an honor for me to be back home at BUSM and to be able to see so many friends and colleagues,” he told the crowd.
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Boston University School of Medicine
Alicia Wooten, left, and Katharine Babcock
handle the fragile specimens but were not allowed to do so. Alicia Wooten, a PhD candidate in the Molecular & Translational Medicine/Program in Biomedical Sciences, was awarded second place for her work with Atomic Hands, an organization she co-founded to unite the deaf STEM community and showcase the world of science in an entertaining and manageable way. By increasing public accessibility to STEM through American Sign Language, they aim to foster collaboration and networking opportunities among current and future deaf STEMists. Following the award ceremony, students networked with faculty and alumni in the research, business, communication, law, policy, and teaching fields. The ceremony was sponsored by BU’s BEST program. n
PHOTOS BY DAVID KEOUGH
Steven Treon, MD, PhD
Dr. Treon recently was elected a fellow by the Royal College of Physicians in London. Last fall, BU’s BEST named a new award in honor of alumna Dr. Erika Ebbel Angle and her efforts in developing Science from Scientists, an organization whose mission is “to teach and inspire the next generation to identify and solve real-world problems by improving STEM literacy.” The awards recognize current predoctoral trainees and postdoctoral scholars actively engaged in STEM community service and/or outreach. Associate Provost Linda Hyman, PhD, introduced this year’s recipients and announced, “We are delighted to have this award in her honor. She has been a true inspiration to our students.” Katharine Babcock, a PhD student in the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, was awarded first place for her work, Embedding Brains to Inspire Minds, a program that will create a permanent collection of normal and pathological brain specimens to use at various outreach events in the community. She was inspired to apply for this award after her experience providing brain demonstrations at Boston's Museum of Science in 2018, where it was clear that members of the public wanted to
Students, Alumni Celebrate Inaugural EMSSP Weekend
S
PHOTOS BY JASON SHERER
tudents and alumni of the Early Medical School Selection Program (EMSSP) gathered in Boston last October for an inaugural reunion weekend, sponsored by the BUSM Alumni Association. EMSSP is a nationally recognized, early assurance program that offers students a supportive environment and gradual transition into the medical school curriculum during the summer terms after sophomore and junior years and the final undergraduate year. Students who meet all program requirements can expect to be promoted to Boston University School of Medicine upon completion of their undergraduate education. EMSSP alumni traveled from Florida, Georgia, and parts of Massachusetts to attend the reunion. The weekend kicked off with a social hour at Café ArtScience in Cambridge, where Associate Dean for Diversity & Inclusion Rafael Ortega, MD, and Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs Jean Ramsey, MD (MED’90, MPH’08), welcomed the group. Energy was high throughout the night, especially when Malissia Evans, the administrative coordinator of the Diversity & Inclusion office, arrived. “It was precious. So many memories, so many tears, and so many hugs . . . seeing these amazing, incredible, and beautiful people took my breath away,” said Evans, who has worked in the EMSSP office for decades and knows every student.
Alumni, current students, staff, and friends gather at the inaugural EMSSP alumni soiree at Café ArtScience in Kendall Square. Shown clockwise from top left: Harry Fitzherbert, Erin Jones, MD (MED’13), Adam Johnson, MD (MED’18), Monique Meade, MD (MED’19); Erkeda DeRouen, MD (MED’12) with Malissia “Miss” Evans; Miss Evans, Babafemi Onabanjo, MD (MED’14), Bernadatte G. Gilbert, MD (MED’08), Carolee Estelle, MD (MED’12); Alexis Gadson, MD (MED’16), Monique Meade, MD (MED’19), Erin Jones, MD (MED’13), and Erkeda DeRouen, MD (MED’12); the Doctors Onabanjo—Asia Matthew-Onabanjo, MD, PhD and Babafemi Onabanjo (MED’14).
The next morning, students and alumni gathered for a networking brunch and panel discussion in Hiebert Lounge moderated by Dr. Jason Sherer (MED’16). For some, this was their first time being back at BUSM since graduation. Panelists included Aliyah Gaines (MED’21) and Drs. Alexis Gadson (MED’16) and Babafemi “Femi” Onabanjo (MED’14). They answered student questions about lessons learned, finding your “community,” and negotiating contracts. Other alumni in the audience volunteered advice, giving students the opportunity to hear a wide range of experiences. Attendees also included Samantha Kaplan, MD, assistant dean for Diversity &
Inclusion and EMSSP director; Lance Martin, administrative assistant for Diversity & Inclusion; and Jennifer Mompoint from Student Affairs, who left BUSM last fall to start her own business. She received a warm welcome and reflected on the festivities, “The weekend was exactly the send-off I didn’t know I needed! The whole weekend filled my heart with so much joy, appreciation, and love. I know many of the alumni felt the same way.” Dr. Sherer expressed optimism regarding the EMSSP/Alumni Association partnership. “My heart is still full from seeing so many of my classmates and catching up. The feedback I’ve received from the EMSSP alumni has been great! Everyone seems excited about future events.” n Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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BUSM Alumni
CLASS NOTES
Joshua Wynne Named Interim President at University of North Dakota
J Joshua Wynne
oshua Wynne, MD (MED’71), MBA, MPH, was named interim president of the University of North Dakota (UND) effective July 1 while a permanent successor is sought for President Mark Kennedy, who is leaving the Grand Forks school to become president of the University of Colorado. Currently, Dr. Wynne is UND vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine & Health Sciences. He will retain his present duties while serving as interim president. A magna cum laude, Alpha Omega Alpha, 1971 graduate of BUSM’s Six-Year
Liberal Arts/Medical Education Program, Dr. Wynne completed an internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In 2000, he earned an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago and, in 2002, an MPH from the University of Michigan. Among his accolades, in 1998 Dr. Wynne received BUSM’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and, in 2002, the F. Dewey Dodrill Award for Excellence from the American Heart Association, Michigan Affiliate. n
Alumni Donor Spotlight Emily Holick, MD Class Year: 2014 Specialties: Physical medicine and rehabilitation Current Practice: Acupuncture and myofascial release; inpatient acute rehabilitation for stroke, spinal cord injury, major functional changes Fond Memories of BUSM: • Alan Hwang (’14) was so loved at Andre’s Café that they created a burger named after him. • DJ Galdeta’s (’14) intricate wood art, which he made faithfully as gifts for his friends and family, made me realize the multitalented side of BUSM kids. • Creating a yoga group with Steph Shaw (’15), Caroline Mullin (’14), Faiza Yasin (’15), Allison Bond (’14), and others under Dr. Saper’s mentorship. It amazed me how MED students of all years made time to come to community classes on the beautiful 14th floor.
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Boston University School of Medicine
Emily Holick, MD (MED’14) with husband and fellow alumnus Ben Nelson, MD (MED’16)
• Late-night study sessions with my best friend, Sneha Sundaram (’14). I remember our mantra from cardiology second year: “When in doubt, amiodarone!” n
Summer 2019 | bumc.bu.edu
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Calendar 2019
september 19
Annual Scholarship Dinner with Dean’s Advisory Board Hotel Commonwealth, Boston
october 4-5
Alumni Weekend