News

The hard work and success of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar's Class of 2012 was celebrated May 6 as the Medical College's latest graduates earned the right to call themselves doctors for the first time.

Dean Laurie H. Glimcher interviews 2012 student commencement speaker David Nissan about what inspired him to become a doctor, his aspirations for the future and what his impending graduation means to him.

Cancer researchers have known for well over a century that different tumor types spread only to specific, preferred organs. But no one has been able to determine the mechanisms of organ specific metastasis, the so-called "soil and seed" theory of 1889. New details that could help shed light on this hypothesis have been provided by a team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and their collaborators, proposing a new mechanism controlling cancer metastasis that offers fresh diagnostic and treatment potential.

First-year students Avinash Maganty and Jenny Jin have each received a summer fellowship from the St. Baldrick's Foundation to conduct pediatric oncology research this summer. Maganty and Jin follow in the footsteps of second-year student J. Bryan Iorgulescu, who last year was the first Weill Cornell student to receive the foundation's fellowship.

Awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the week of May 18 - May 25.

Five members of the Weill Cornell Medical College faculty have been selected as the inaugural class of the newly established Weill Cornell Healthcare Leadership Fellows program.

Dr. Ashutosh K. Tewari, director of the Lefrak Center for Robotic Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, will be awarded the prestigious Gold Cystoscope Award from the American Urological Association for outstanding contributions to the field of urology and urologic oncology. He will receive the award May 23 at an awards dinner during the Association's Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Ga.

Up to half of all prostate cancer cells have a chromosomal rearrangement that results in a new "fusion" gene and formation of its unique protein -- but no one has known how that alteration promotes cancer growth. Now, Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have found that in these cancer cells, the 3-D architecture of DNA, wrapped up in a little ball known as a chromatin, is warped in such a way that a switch has been thrown on thousands of genes, turning them on or off to promote abnormal, unchecked growth. Researchers also found that new chromosomal translocations form, further destabilizing the genome.

After a quarter-century of advocacy from surgical oncologists, the American Board of Surgery will begin offering a new subspecialty certificate in complex general surgical oncology next year.

A collaborative expedition into the deep genetics of prostate cancer has uncovered a distinct subtype of the disease, one that appears to account for up to 15 percent of all cases, say researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Over the past decade, research in the field of epigenetics has revealed that chemically modified bases are abundant components of the human genome and has forced us to abandon the notion we've had since high school genetics that DNA consists of only four bases.

Awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the week of May 11-18.

As a reporter and public health expert, Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News' chief health and medical editor, clearly understands the importance of open communication, particularly amid crisis management. It's a point he emphasized as a guest speaker during Pediatric Grand Rounds May 1 at Weill Cornell Medical College. Titled, "A View from Both Sides of the Camera," his presentation strove to remind doctors, residents and medical students the power they have in shaping Americans' understanding of health issues and behaviors.

Researchers and clinicians are facing watershed moments in the field of autism, manifested in basic science studies and new clinical therapies that may pave the way for greater understanding of autism spectrum disorders, and improved care for children with these disorders.

The Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is hosting a graduation ceremony for its first class of Faith-Based Ambassadors of Health. After participating in a 12-week training course this group of pastors and ministers from churches and ministries in Brooklyn, Queens, Harlem and Staten Island are now prepared to educate their congregations about reducing the risk factors for heart disease.

Awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the week of May 4-11.

The Hartwell Foundation named Cornell University among its Top 10 Centers of Biomedical Research for the sixth straight year. The Foundation also selected a clinical scientist from Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school to receive an Individual Biomedical Research Award that will fund research for three years. Four investigators nominated by Cornell are eligible for the Hartwell competition held each year. The Hartwell Foundation also gave Cornell a two year Fellowship to fund a postdoctoral candidate of their choice that exemplifies the values of the Foundation. Since 2007, Cornell has won a total of eight Individual Biomedical Research Awards and received five Hartwell Fellowships.

A coalition of interdisciplinary researchers from four institutions -- including Weill Cornell Medical College and Hospital for Special Surgery -- has won a prestigious award recognizing the team's success in translation of research discoveries pertaining to perioperative outcomes in orthopedic surgery into clinical practice.

Standing before leaders entrenched in health, science and medicine at the annual TEDMED conference hosted at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. last month and simulcast via live streaming to medical schools -- including Weill Cornell -- and universities across the nation, Dr. Gregory Petsko, a professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell, warned of the coming onslaught of Alzheimer's disease if nothing is done to stem the tide.

A new article from Weill Cornell Medical College researcher Dr. Tara Bishop published in the American Journal of Managed Care, suggests that financial incentives and public reporting on quality measures alone may have little impact on physicians to improve quality of care.