Text size:

News Bulletin

  • Dr. Lorraine Gudas gave a research talk on November 13, 2009, at the State of the Science Workshop: Regenerative Rehabilitation, held at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. The title of her talk was: “Retinoids and Stem Cells in Regeneration.” Other speakers included Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda, Deputy Director of Research, Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr. Alan Russell, Director, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine; and Major General George Weightman, currently Associate Director, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Rehabilitation. A picture of some of the speakers and organizers of the conference:

  • Congratulations to Dr. Samie R. Jaffrey, a recipient of an NIH 2009 Transformative R01 Award. Project title: "Novel Fluorescent Sensors for Simple, Sensitive, and Specific Protein Detection". This was a very competitive research award - only 42 were awarded throughout the USA. A press release from NIH occured on September 24, 2009. For more information about the project visit http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_description.cfm?projectnumber=1R01EB010249-01

  • Congratulations to Dr. Geoffrey Abbott and his research team, which included Kerry Purtell, a second year Pharmacology Program graduate student, for their publication in Nature Medicine (2009 Sep 20. [Epub ahead of print]) that linked "genes previously known to be essential to the coordinated, rhythmic electrical activity of cardiac muscle -a healthy heartbeat- to thyroid hormone (TH) biosynthesis! The press release about this publication, which included an interview with Dr. Abbott, can be found at "http://news.med.cornell.edu/wcmc/wcmc2009/09_20_09.shtml" The full paper can be downloaded here.

  • Congratulations to Dr. Miklos Toth, a recipient of an NIH EUREKA (Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) Award for his research project entitled: “Non-Genetic Transmission of Genetic Risk: Mechanism and Relevance to Psychiatric Disorders”. For more information about the EUREKA Awards please visit http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2008/nigms-03.htm

  • Congratulations to Dr. Charles E. Inturris, a recipient of a two year RC2 award for a project entitled: “Comparative Effectiveness of Interventions for Chronic Pain Management”. The project will prospectively and retrospectively examine the long-term outcomes of treatments for chronic cancer and non-cancer pain received by patients at the four local hospital-based outpatient Pain Clinics. Charles E. Inturrisi, Ph.D. Professor of Pharmacology, WCMC has received a two year RC2 award ($1.64 million, direct costs) for a project entitled: Comparative Effectiveness of Interventions for Chronic Pain Management. The project will prospectively and retrospectively examine the long term outcomes of treatments for chronic cancer and noncancer pain received by patients at the four local hospital-based outpatient Pain Clinics. Collaborators include, Sudhir Diwan, MD, (Director of Pain Medicine, Anesthesiology, WCWC, NYPH), Paul Glare, MD (Chief of the Pain and Palliative Care Service, MSKCC), Vivek Malhotra MD, (Anesthesiology , MSKCC), Seth Waldman, MD, (Director Division of Pain Medicine HSS) and Susan Horn, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute for Clinical Outcomes Research, Salt Lake City, UT.

  • Dr. Reidenberg is one of three outside speakers invited by the FDA to speak at an FDA public workshop on Sept. 25, 2009. The workshop, "Educating the Public about Removal of Essential -Use Designation for Epinephrine" is to address anticipated consequences of the removal of the non-prescription asthma inhaler of epinephrine with no replacement by a non-prescription medication.

  • Weill Cornell Medical College held its 10th Annual Celebration of Teaching at the Cornell Club on June 22, to honor 25 outstanding teachers and their contribution to the educational mission of the Medical College. Among those who received this Award were two Pharmacology Program Faculty members, Drs. Lonny Levin and Hazel Szeto. Dr. Levin received this Award for his "Molecules, Genes and Cells" course, and Dr. Szeto received this award for "Host Defenses" course.









  • Congratulations Dr. Geoffrey Ling, the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award Recipient of 2009. On June 1st Dr. Ling gave a special seminar, which was followed by a reception for Pharmacology graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Ling is a 1982 PhD Graduate of the Pharmacology Department. Currently, Dr. Ling is a Professor and Vice Chairman of the Neurology Department at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS).... read more

  • Dr. Miklos Toth has accepted an invitation from the National Institutes of Health to serve as a member of the Pathophysiological Basis of Mental Disorders and Addictions Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, for the term beginning July 1, 2009, and ending June 30, 2013.

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg was elected chair of the 17th World Health Organization Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines at its meeting at WHO headquarters March 23-27, 2009. The WHO Essential Medicines Concept is that medicines meeting the priority medical needs of a country must be made available to everyone in that country. The Expert Committee prepares a model list of the medicines it deems essential. Procurement lists of medicines based on this list are then used by all the UN agencies like UNICEF, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), and most of the other non-governmental organizations donating drugs. Many countries' national health services also use this model list for advice for their own procurement systems.

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg, working with Dr. Andrew Walubo of the University of Free State in South Africa, has completed a proposed curriculum for training physicians who wish to specialize in clinical pharmacology. This is part of an international collaborative effort between the International Union of Pharmacology and the World Health Organization to revise the 1970 WHO document on clinical pharmacology.


  • Jan. 9, 2009 - Dr. Francis Lee (far left in photo), a psychiatrist and faculty member of the Pharmacology Graduate Program at Weill Cornell Medical Center, has received a commendation by the president of the United States in the form of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for outstanding scientists and engineers in the early part of their independent research careers.

  • Dr. Lorraine Gudas has been elected to be a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The names of the new AAAS Fellows, including Dr. Gudas, are published in the December 19, 2008, issue of Science magazine.

  • Drs. Alan Paau, Hazel Szeto, Gerald Chan, Dajun Yang, and Bruce Reidenberg discuss Dr. Szeto's startup company, Stealth Peptides, at the CCTEC Bootcamp. This is a workshop, sponsored by Cornell University, to teach students and faculty how to start companies. Dr. Szeto is a faculty member in the Pharmacology Department at Weill Cornell Medical College.

  • Congratulations to Megan Ricard (Gudas Laboratory) who was awarded a Prostate Cancer Fellowship from the Department of Defense!

  • Pharmacology Professor Hazel Szeto was recently elected to serve as President of the Weill Cornell Medical College Alumni Association. She will also serve for a 2-year term as an ex officio member on the WCMC Board of Overseers.

  • A reception was held on October 21, 2008, at the Consulate of Ireland in Manhattan to celebrate the extension of the FÁS Science Challenge Initiative student exchange program to Weill Cornell Medical College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. More details.

  • Dr. Lorraine Gudas has accepted an invitation to rejoin the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry for a second term!

  • Dr. Marcus Reidenberg has been invited to serve on the next World Health Organization Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines, March 23-27, 2009, at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland!

  • Congratulations to Tal Nuriel, who received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute on Aging!

  • Dr. Michael Cohen has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Life Sciences Research Foundation. Congratulations!

  • Dr. Sheldon Segal, adjuct professor of clinical pharmacology, will be awarded the 2008 Prix Galien USA Pro Bono Humanum Award for his role in developing implantable hormone delivery systems.  The awards ceremony will take place on September 24, 2008, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

  • Dr. Michiko Okamoto is a co-author on an article, titled "Histopathological changes of rat brain after direct injection of Hb-vesicles (artificial oxygen carriers) and neurological impact in an intracerebral hemorrhage model," recently published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Resarch Part A.

  • Developmental Cell has published the research of Dr. Anthony A. Sauve and colleagues, titled "Glucose Restriction Inhibits Skeletal Myoblast Differentiation by Activating SIRT1 through AMPK-Mediated Regulation of Nampt."

  • Congratulations to all of the graduates of Weill Cornell Medical College and GraduateSchool of Medical Sciences who received their degrees before a crowd of enthusiastic family and friends at the Commencement Exercises on May 29, 2008, at Carnegie Hall.

    Pictured is Pharmacology graduate Dr. Cristina Fernandez. More graduation photos.

  • Congratulations to Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi who received the first Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences at the Graduate School Convocation on May 28, 2008.

  • Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi became the President of the American Pain Society at the annual scientific meeting on May 10, 2008, in Tampa, FL.

  • The Pharmacology Graduate Program would like to commend all the Pharmacology graduate students who presented their work during the 2008 Vincent du Vigneaud Symposium. We would especially like to congratulate the following individuals who were awarded prizes for their presentations:

    Lisa Placanica - du Vigneaud Award

    M. Carrie Garceau - du Vigneaud Award

    Judy Mesicek - Award of Excellence

    Clare LeFave - Award of Excellence

    Kymora Scotland - Award of Excellence

    Elissaveta Petrova - Award of Excellence

    Christina Crump - First-Year Award

  • During the 2008 Pharmacology Program Retreat, held at Skytop Lodge, Skytop, PA, Jeremy Paige and Vikram Kanda were awarded Best Poster prizes, while Best Talk prizes were awarded to Chad Shelton (1st place) and Eric Salazar (2nd place). Great work!

  • Dr. Geoffrey W. Abbott is an author on a recent article published in Nature, titled "Human cardiovascular progenitor cells develop from a KDR+ embryonic-stem-cell-derived population."

  • Congratulations to Sebastian Shaffer, who was awarded an American Psychological Association Diversity Program in Neuroscience Fellowship! This fellowship was awarded from a National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Training Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg has been selected by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) to receive the 2008 Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award in Therapeutics. The Hunter Award honors individual scientists for outstanding lifetime contributions to clinical pharmacology and therapeutics.

  • Congratulations to Dr. Francis Lee, who was awarded a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research!

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg gave a presentation titled "Mind (And Measure) Your Cytochrome P's" at the American Society of Hypertension's "Hypertension 2008: Advances in Diagnosis & Management" conference on Saturday, April 12, 2008, in New York City. For more information, please contact the ASH-Eastern Regional Chapter.

  • Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi was a member of an NIH Consensus Panel that met in Bethesda, MD, from February 24 to 27, 2008, to review the use of hydroxyurea for the treatment of sickle cell disease (SCD). The panel issued a statement that made a number of recommendations including the increased use of hydroxyurea for the treatment of the nearly 100,000 Americans affected by this disease (http://consensus.nih.gov/).

  • For the first time, functional transcription factor mRNA is found outside the nucleus, at the tip of growing axons. Congratulations to Dr. Samie R. Jaffrey and his co-authors on this research, published in the Feb. 1 issue of Nature Cell Biology.

  • Cornell scientists find how a protein binds to genes and regulates them across the human genome. Congratulations to Associate Professor W. Lee Kraus and his co-authors on this research, published in the Feb. 8 issue of the journal Science.

  • Lungs' mast cells could provide new treatment target for asthma and other respiratory disease according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Pharmacology Professor Roberto Levi, M.D., is a co-senior author on this publication.

  • Dr. Hazel Szeto has received the honor of being asked to serve on the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) National Advisory Council for a 4-year term.

  • The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has awarded a $13 million grant to the Center of Vascular Biology at Weill Cornell. One of the projects on this NHLBI Program Project Grant is that of Dr. Steven Gross who leads a study of mitochondria in the function and dysfunction of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase).

  • Congratulations to Dr. Nigel Mongan and co-investigator Dr. Eric Kauffman for receiving a Pilot Research Award for Translational Cross-disciplinary Studies from the WCMC Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC). Their project is under the mentorship of Drs. Lorraine Gudas, Douglas Scherr, and David Nanus.

  • Kudos to Vasundhra Kashyap for receiving a Department of Defense Predoctoral Prostate Cancer Training Award!

  • Congratulations to Marisa Carbonaro for winning the T32 Predoctoral Translational Fellowship Award with Drs. Paraskevi Giannakakou and David Nanus as her mentors.

  • Drs. Steven Gross and Jochen Buck were both honored in November 2007 for 25 and 15 years of service, respectively.

  • Congratulations to Eric Salazar, who attended the 3rd ASM Conference on Cell – Cell Communication in Bacteria from October 7 - 12, 2007 and was awarded Outstanding Postdoctoral Presentation!

  • Dr. Charles Inturrisi has been selected for the 2007 Excellence in Mentoring Award by the Weill Cornell Medical College Postdoctoral Association. The award recognizes the importance of quality mentoring and exemplary efforts of the WCMC faculty in advising graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty.

  • A new high sensitivity mass spectrometry method of measuring NAD, developed by Tianle Yang, is featured in the article "Nutrient sensitive mitochondrial NAD levels dictate cell survival" published in the September 21st issue of Cell.

  • Dr. Anthony Sauve been selected as a 2007 Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging. The prize is given annually to a select 20 or so young faculty from across the country working on aging related problems. It comes with 4 years of research funding.

  • Sindy Escobar-Alvarez has been awarded the Geoffrey Beene Graduate Fellowship from the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at MSKCC. Congrats!

  • Congratulations to Dr. Derek S. Tan, who was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow for 2007-2009.

  • Shiying Shang has published a paper on the diversity-oriented synthesis of polyketides in Organic Letters.

  • Marisa Carbonaro, of Dr. Paraskevi Giannakakou's lab, was awarded the 2007 Vincent du Vigneaud Award of Excellence for "HIF-1 mRNA Complexes Associate and Traffic on Interphase Microtubules for Efficient Protein Translation." Great work!

  • Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi is the president-elect of the American Pain Society (APS), the national organization dedicated to improving pain management through research, education and clinical practice.

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg was a mentor of junior faculty and post-doctoral fellows at the small group mentoring sessions at the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians with the American Society for Clinical Research, April 13-15, 2007, in Chicago.

  • Dr. Samie Jaffrey has been awarded a March of Dimes Foundation research grant for his project "Role of Local RhoA mRNA Translation in Spine Formation and Mental Retardation." Congratulations!

  • Dr. Marcus M. Reidenberg was elected Chairman of the World Health Organization Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines at its meeting at W.H.O headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 19Ð23, 2007. The WHO Essential Medicines program was started in 1976 and Dr. Reidenberg was appointed, with U.S. government approval, to its Expert Panel and Expert Advisory Committee in 1989.

  • Congratulations to Dr. Steven Gross on being awarded an N.I.H Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award from N.H.L.B.I. The award extends funding for his research project to determine whether hyperglycemia-induced uncoupling of mitochondrial NO synthase plays a central role in triggering the pathogenesis of diabetic vascular complications.

  • During the 2007 Pharmacology Retreat, Elissa Petrova, Marisa Carbonara, Alex Stessin and Jimcy Platholi were honored with Best Talk and Best Poster prizes. Great work!

  • Congratulations to Jeremy Paige (as seen with fellow Dr. Jaffrey lab members Alyssia and Rachel) on being awarded the PhRMA fellowship for predoctoal research in Pharmacology.

  • Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi gave the Allan and Phyllis Treuer Lecture in Pain Research, on December 12, 2006, in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

  • Congratulations to Dr. Samie Jaffrey for winning the 2006 Award for Excellence in Mentoring, from the Weill Medical College Postdoctoral Association. The award honors Principal Investigators who provide superior guidance of individual research, and make profound contributions to the professional development of their trainees.

  • Welcome to our new faculty members: Dr. Paraskevi Giannakakou and Dr. David Gin!

  • Dr. Marcus Reidenberg was one of a small group invited to participate in a 2 day meeting (September 28-29) with senior staff from the F.D.A. and A.H.R.Q. The goal of the meeting was to promote research and identify new methods of educating the media, healthcare professionals, and the public about risks from medical products.

  • A paper published in J. Biol. Chem. by Alex Stessin, entitled "Soluble adenylyl cyclase mediates nerve growth factor-induced activation of Rap1," was highlighted in the Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment (STKE).

  • Congratulations to Christopher C. Shelton, who was recently awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award fellowship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

  • The Pharmacology Graduate Program would like to commend all the Pharmacology graduate students who presented their work during the 2006 Du Vigneaud Symposium. We would especially like to congratulate the following individuals who were awarded prizes for their presentations:

    • Justin S. Potuzak - Du Vigneaud Award

    • Jeanne Farrell - Award of Excellence

    • Cristina Fernandez - Award of Excellence

    • Ann M. Gregus - Award of Excellence

    • Dan Su - Award of Excellence

    • Eleanor Allen - First-Year Award

  • On April 8th, 2006, Dr. Charles E. Inturrisi will receive a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy.

  • On January 27th, 2006, Dr. Gavril Pasternak gave the "1st Annual Machaskee Memorial Lectureship" at the Cleveland Clinic.

  • Dr. Rose Xing has finished her post-doctoral training in Dr. Richard Kolesnick's lab and has taken a position as Assistant Professor in Pathology at the University of Chicago.

  • Dr. Richard Kolesnick gave the John H. Blaffer Visiting Professorship Lecture at MD Anderson on March 9, 2006.

  • Dr. Anthony Sauve received five year R01grant on Feb 15th 2006 from NIDDK National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases entitled "Sir2 Regulation and Chemical Modulation".

  • Justin Potuzak is a coauthor on a paper just published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society describing a new reaction to synthesize stereochemically diverse spiroketals:  Moilanen, S. B.; Potuzak, J. S.; Tan, D. S.* "Stereocontrolled synthesis of spiroketals via Ti(Oi-Pr)4-mediated kinetic spirocyclization of glycal epoxides with retention of configuration." J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 1792Ð1793.

Top of page