Dr. Robin L. Davisson, professor of cell and developmental biology, was appointed to the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review Study Section on Hypertension and Microcirculation for a six year term beginning July 1. The study section reviews applications involving basic and applied aspects of cardiovascular regulation with focus on the physiology of blood pressure regulation, the pathogenesis of hypertension and the microcirculation.
Joshua S. Greene, a fifth-year Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. student, was recently awarded a National Institutes of Health F30 fellowship for his research, "GABAergic Involvement in Caenorhabditis elegans Social Behavior." This project will employ classical genetic techniques, as well as optogenetics and genetically encoded calcium indicators, to study the neural circuitry by which pheromones influence C. elegans exploratory behavior. Greene is conducting his thesis in Dr. Cori Bargmann's laboratory at The Rockefeller University.
Dr. Tomer Mark, the Morton Coleman Assistant Professor in Multiple Myeloma and assistant professor of medicine, was elected co-chair of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research's Plasma Cell Disorders Working Committee in August. The center collaborates with the global scientific community to advance hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy research worldwide. The committee shapes the observational research in order to identify projects worthy of publication.
Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, the Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor of Surgery and chairman of the Department of Surgery, gave the 38th annual Daniel J. Abramson, MD Visiting Professorship Lecture at the University of Maryland School of Medicine as well as the Edwin P. Lehman Lecture in Surgery at the University of Virginia. Dr. Michelassi presented his lecture "Management of Complex Small Bowel Crohn's Disease" at both institutions in June. In addition, on Aug. 27, Dr. Michelassi delivered the State of the Art Lecture at a meeting of the International Society for Digestive Surgery in Helsinki, Finland.
Dr. Mark Souweidane, professor of neurological surgery and professor of neurological surgery in pediatrics, won the 2013 Cristian Rivera Foundation Vision of Hope Award. The award honors Dr. Souweidane's dedication and commitment to curing diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Dr. Souweidane accepted the award on Sept. 30.
Dr. Harel Weinstein, chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, professor of physiology and biophysics and tri-institutional professor, chaired the session on "Structure and Function of Secondary Active Transporters" and presented an invited plenary lecture on "Allosteric Functional Mechanisms of NSS Transporters and the Energy Cost of their Function in the Membrane" at the Benzon Symposium No. 59 on "Membrane Proteins: Structure, Function and Dynamics," hosted from Aug. 19-22 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Benzon Symposia are international conferences on front line research in medical, pharmaceutical and related sciences funded by the Alfred Benzon Foundation. The main purpose of the 59th symposium was to gather leading scientists within different fields of membrane biology to facilitate the exchange of methodologies and conceptual thinking.
Dr. Xi Kathy Zhou, associate professor of public health, gave an invited lecture during the International Chinese Statistical Association 2013 Applied Statistics Symposium/International Society Biopharmaceutical Statistics International Symposium on Biopharmaceutical Statistics Joint Statistics Conference, which took place June 9-12 in Bethesda, Md. The theme of the meeting was globalization of statistical applications. The International Chinese Statistical Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to educational, charitable, and scientific purposes. The International Society for Biopharmaceutical Statistics is an international statistical organization whose primary mission is to organize annual symposiums in order to provide an international forum for statisticians all over the world.