Dr. John Carucci, assistant professor of dermatology, was given a presidential citation last February at the 60th annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) in New Orleans for his exceptional work, leadership and vision as a member of the Academy's Bioterrorism Task Force.
Dr. Roy Gulick, associate professor of medicine and co-director of the Cornell Clinical Trials Unit, will receive the Compañero Award from the Latino Commission on AIDS in May. The CCTU is involved with HIV/AIDS clinical research studies of antiretroviral therapies, immunological therapies, and prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections.
Barry Kappel, a first-year student in the Program in Pharmacology at Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences, has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship in biological sciences. For the 2002 competition, there were more than 1,000 applicants for the program, with 81 fellowships awarded. Piraye Yurttas, a first-year student in the Program in Molecular Biology, received an honorable mention. The Hughes Predoctoral Fellowship is a five-year award providing an annual stipend of $21,000; an annual fellow's allowance of $2,500; and an annual institutional allowance of $13,500, totaling $185,000 for five years.
The Gateways to the Laboratory/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Honors Research Program of Weill Cornell, The Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has selected its first class of four students: Ehrine Manzana, Meta (Linda) Mobula, Allyson Morman and Petra Sander (all Gateways 2001 participants). This Program was developed earlier this year to help further increase the pool of qualified underrepresented minority college students who are seriously considering pursuing the combined MD-PhD degree.
The Gateways to the Laboratory/NIDDK Honors Research Program is a partnership between the NIDDK/National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Gateways to the Laboratory Program, sponsored by the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program. Each year, five alumni from Weill Cornell's summer Gateways program are selected to spend the following summer conducting research in one of the NIH laboratories in Bethesda, Md. At the end of the summer, students participate in Summer Research Poster Day, which provides students with the opportunity to present their work before the NIH scientific community. Students participate in meetings and seminars in their individual laboratories and can also attend formal lectures and symposia, with permission from their preceptors.
Agata Smogorzewska
Agata Smogorzewska, a biomedical fellow in the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, is one of 17 graduate students from North America and Europe to receive the prestigious 2002 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Ms. Smogorzewska, who will graduate from the MD-PhD Program in 2003, studies TRF2, a telomeric protein essential for the protection of mammalian chromosome ends, in the laboratory of Dr. Titia de Lange. She will present her work at a scientific symposium at the Hutchinson Center in May.
Dr. John Wagner, professor of neurology and neuroscience, and Carolyn Hutter, coordinator of the Teaching Outreach Program in Science at the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences, served as judges at the Westchester-Rockland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. The event, which was held at IBM's visitors center on Feb. 9, brought together students who had done independent research with science professionals to present and evaluate the work that they had accomplished. Students completed their projects with the advice and assistance of scientists from as far away as Boston and Washington D.C.
Dr. Sidney Winawer, professor of medicine, addressed physicians at the newly formed International Digestive Cancer Alliance meeting at the Vatican on March 23, in an effort to raise global awareness of digestive cancers. Senior experts from medical organizations in more than 50 countries met to discuss this worldwide problem. The first meeting, which was attended by Pope John Paul II, focused on the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer.