News

Dr. Edward Craig received lifetime achievement award for his prevention, control and cure of arthritis and additional awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the week of Jan. 25 - Feb. 1.

Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital launched the new Joint Clinical Trials Office at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medical College in January, assembling all of the clinical trial activities under the auspices of one structure.

Recognizing that medicine is not "one size fits all," Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital have created the pioneering Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. This new, cutting-edge translational medicine research hub will explore the new frontier of precision medicine, offering optimal targeted, individualized treatment based on each patient's genetic profile. The institute's new genomic research discoveries will help develop novel, personalized medical therapies to be tested in innovative clinical trials, while also building a comprehensive biobank to improve research and patient care.

Alzheimer's disease is one of today's most devastating afflictions, but according to Weill Cornell Medical College researchers, there is reason to have hope. That was the message conveyed at the inaugural Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute Symposium, hosted at Weill Cornell and sponsored by the Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute. The symposium brought together researchers and clinicians from diverse areas of research with the goal of better understanding the disease.

The annual Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference, hosted by the Cornell University Office of Alumni Affairs Jan. 18-20 in Boston, Mass., brought together alumni volunteers from classes, affinity and diversity groups, regional and international clubs, and other organizations to participate in training, share best practices, develop strategic programming and network.

Dean Laurie Glimcher speaks with Dr. Ash Tewari, the Ronald P. Lynch Professor of Urologic Oncology at Weill Cornell and director of the LeFrak Center for Robotic Surgery who is now the founding director of the new Center for Prostate Cancer.

A team of researchers led by Weill Cornell Medical College is calling into question the published statistics, methods and findings of a highly publicized research study that claimed bedside electroencephalography (EEG) identified evidence of awareness in three patients diagnosed to be in a vegetative state.

A research study of more than 600 black patients with uncontrolled hypertension found that less than half were prescribed a diuretic drug with proven benefit that costs just pennies a day, report researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York's (VNSNY) Center for Home Care Policy and Research. The researchers say these new findings should be taken as a serious wake-up call for physicians who treat black patients with hypertension.

Qatar's citizens, from the youngest to the oldest, currently have the chance to help try to create the world's biggest painting in an event organized by Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.

Dr. Barbara Milrod receives an award for innovation in psychoanalysis and additional awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the week of Jan. 11 - Jan. 18.

Health care providers and hospitals are being offered up to $27 billion in federal financial incentives to use electronic health records (EHRs) in ways that demonstrably improve the quality of care. The incentives are based, in part, on the ability to electronically report clinical quality measures. By 2014, providers nationwide will be expected to document and report care electronically, and by 2015, they will face financial penalties if they don't meaningfully use EHRs.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered the molecular switch that allows aggressive triple negative breast cancer cells to grow the amoeba-like protrusions they need to crawl away from a primary tumor and metastasize throughout the body. Their findings, published in Cancer Cell, suggest a novel approach for developing agents to treat cancer once it has spread.

Replacing the combination of brand-name, antiretroviral drugs currently recommended for control of HIV infection with soon-to-be-available generic medications could save the U.S. health care system almost $1 billion a year but may diminish the effectiveness of HIV treatment. A study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Weill Cornell Medical College investigators, appearing in the January 15 Annals of Internal Medicine, examines the potential impact of such a change.

Despite major advances in high-throughput screening and genomic technologies, tuberculosis (TB) drug development remains hindered by a general inability to measure the effective penetration of chemical compounds into Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria (Mtb) which cause TB. To address this gap, the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation has awarded Weill Cornell Medical College funding to support a visiting Weill Cornell microbiologist's two-year research project at the Tres Cantos Open Lab in Spain to measure and analyze the permeability of chemical compounds into Mtb using novel metabolomics technology.

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

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College have established the Center for Prostate Cancer at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, a comprehensive center dedicated to research into and the treatment of prostate cancer.

The relationship between a physician practice's adoption of electronic health records (EHR) and quality improvements in patient care remains unclear. However, a new study published in the January issue of Health Affairs by Weill Cornell Medical College and the Primary Care Information Project (PCIP) of the New York City Health Department shows evidence that EHR implementation can improve patient care in small physician practices in New York City when combined with sustained high-intensity technical assistance.

A cocktail of three specific genes can reprogram cells in the scars caused by heart attacks into functioning muscle cells, and the addition of a gene that stimulates the growth of blood vessels enhances that effect, said researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, Baylor College of Medicine and Stony Brook University Medical Center in a report that appears online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the weeks of Dec. 21 - Jan. 4.

Dr. Matthew E. Fink, a leader in stroke and critical care neurology, has been named chairman of the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College and neurologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.