UCSD Health Sciences Awards and Honors

Roger Tsien Receives Neurosciences Prize - 03/07/05

UCSD’s Anthony Wynshaw-Boris Named Executive Editor of Human Molecular Genetics - 04/06/05

UCSD’s Dr. Mark A. Geyer Elected Fellow Of American Association for the Advancement of Science - 10/28/04

UC San Diego Names Thomas J. Kipps to Endowed Chair in Cancer Research - 08/04/04

Scott D. Emr Elected To American Academy of Arts & Sciences - 05/06/04

National Foundation For Cancer Research Names UCSD’s Webster Cavenee NFCR Fellow - 03/23/04

Scott D. Emr Elected To American Academy of Arts & Sciences - 05/06/04

CMM West Named For Nobel Laureate George Palade - 03/19/04

Dr. Dilip Jeste Named Director of UCSD’s Stein Institute for Research on Aging - 03/19/04

UCSD Researcher Douglas Richman Named to Riford Chair for AIDS Research - 03/18/04

UCSD’s Dr. Leon Thal to Receive Potamkin Prize, One of Neurosciences’ Highest Honors - 03/02/04

Dr. Gary Firestein Reappointed Chair Of FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee - 12/01/03

American Heart Association Cites Elizabeth Barrett-Connor With 2003 Research Achievement Award - 11/25/03

UCSD's William G. Bradley Receives Highest Honor from Radiological Society - 07/07/03

UCSD School of Medicine’s Dennis Carson Elected To National Academy of Sciences - 05/05/03

April 4, 2003

Dilip Jeste Cited for Excellence
In Geriatric Psychiatry Practice, Research

Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., University of California, San Diego (UCSD) professor of psychiatry and neurosciences, has been named the recipient of two prestigious professional awards.

In San Francisco in May, he will receive the 2003 Jack Weinberg Memorial Award for "special leadership or outstanding work in clinical practice, training, or research in geriatric psychiatry anywhere in the world," from the American Psychiatric Association. In October, the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT will present Jeste with the 2003 C. Charles Burlingame Award for "outstanding leadership in psychiatric research, education or administration."

A specialist in geriatric psychiatry, Jeste is chief of the UCSD Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, holds the UCSD Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging, and is a geriatric psychiatrist with the VA San Diego Healthcare System. In addition, he edits the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, which recently had the highest percentage increase in total citations in the entire field of psychiatry and psychology, according to ISA Essential Science Indicators, which tracks citations of scientific papers.

UCSD's Division of Geriatric Psychiatry includes the Senior Behavioral Health Program, which offers inpatient and outpatient services for older patients with mental health needs, who also have physical health needs.

Jeste is also principal investigator of the Center for Community-based Research in Older People with Psychoses, a $7.5 million program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The program is a a unique collaboration between UCSD and the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency's Adult and Older Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) to develop effective new therapies for middle-aged and elderly people with schizophrenia and other chronic psychotic disorders.

News Media Contact: Sue Pondrom 619-543-6163 spondrom@ucsd.edu

November 19, 2002

Popular Science Magazine Cites San Diego-Developed
Oral Smallpox Drug For 2002 Best of What's New Award

Popular Science magazine has selected the promising oral smallpox drug developed by UCSD School of Medicine researchers at Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System for a "2002 Best of What's New Award" in the Medical Technology category. The award is announced in the magazine's December issue.

Karl Hostetler, M.D., director, Endocrine and Metabolism Clinic, VA San Diego Healthcare System and UCSD professor of medicine, and James Beadle, Ph.D., VASDHS and UCSD research professor, led the development effort, in collaboration with research groups headed by John Huggins, Ph.D., USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Maryland and Earl Kern, Ph.D., University of Alabama, Birmingham.

The oral drug, called hexadecyloxypropyl-cidofovir (HDP-CDV), blocks the activity of variola, the virus that causes smallpox and orthopox viruses, halting their ability to replicate and spread in tissue culture and animals studies. Developed as part of a national research effort to design antiviral drugs for people infected by smallpox, HDP-CDV is not yet available for human use. The drug must still undergo additional testing in animals and safety trials in healthy people.

For more information, see the March 20, 2002 news release that announced the development of the drug: http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/03_11_Smallpox.html

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News Media Contact:
Sue Pondrom
619-543-6163
spondrom@ucsd.edu

Robert Resnik, M.D., Elected Honorary Fellow of British Royal College - 9/23/02

July 24, 2002

UCSD's Lawrence Goldstein Elected Secretary

Of American Society for Cell Biology

Lawrence S.B. Goldstein, Ph.D., professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been re-elected secretary of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB).

With 10,000 members, the ASCB is a major voice for basic biomedical research in the United States. Its annual meeting, which will be held Dec. 14-18 in San Francisco, is the largest gathering of cell biologists in the world.

Goldstein's research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of intracellular movement in neurons and the role of transport dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, Goldstein was the recipient of a Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research for his work titled "Probing the Role of Axonal transport Disturbance and Transport-mediated Signaling in Alzheimer's Disease."

UCSD's Victor Nizet, M.D., Receives Pediatric Infectious Diseases Award - June 19. 2002

Contact:
Sue Pondrom
(619) 543-6163
spondrom@ucsd.edu

May 13, 2002

Dr. Gary Firestein Named Chair
Of FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee

Gary S. Firestein, M.D., professor of medicine and chief, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, has been appointed to chair the Arthritis Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a term beginning immediately and ending September 30, 2003.

A specialist in rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune diseases, Firestein is also executive director of UCSD's Center for Innovative Therapy, which evaluates innovative therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (cit.ucsd.edu). The goal of the Center is to identify novel therapeutic targets, facilitate their translation from research laboratory to patient care, and design and implement clinical trials of new therapies.

Firestein received his M.D. degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his A.B. in chemistry at Harvard. His post-graduate residencies and fellowships were at UCLA Medical Center, UCSD and the La Jolla Cancer Research Institute. Deputy editor of the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism, Firestein has written more than 150 papers and book chapters and is editor of the Kelley Textbook of Rheumatology.

The FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee helps the agency make sound decisions based on good science in its review of regulated products. The FDA's advisory committees consist of individuals who are recognized as experts in their field from many different sectors including medical professionals, scientists and researchers, industry leaders, and consumer representatives and patient representatives.

UCSD Faculty Elected to Membership In Prestigious Professional Organizations - 5/10/02

UCSD Professor Wins 2002 Heineken Prize for BioChemistry - 4/15/02

Dr. Stephen Stahl To Receive International Prize For Education in Psychiatry and Neurology - 3/26/02

March 18, 2002

National Foundation Honors Dilip V. Jeste For Schizophrenia Research In Elderly

Dilip V. Jeste, M.D.

The National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD) has awarded Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., University of California, San Diego (UCSD) professor of psychiatry and neurosciences, one of its annual Distinguished Investigator Awards for his research, which focuses on schizophrenia in late life and its treatment.

A specialist in geriatric psychiatry, Jeste is chief of the UCSD Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and holds the UCSD Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging.

Jeste is director, UCSD's National Institute of Mental Health-funded Specialized Mental Health Intervention Research Center on Late-Life Psychosis, and he is on the staff of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.

The NARSAD is the largest donor-supported organization in the world devoted exclusively to supporting scientific research on brain and behavior disorders. Jeste will use his award of $100,000 to pursue his studies of the effects of work rehabilitation in older individuals with schizophrenia.

Media Contact: Sue Pondrom
619-543-6163 spondrom@ucsd.edu

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UCSD’s John West, M.D., Ph.D. Receives Top Award From American Thoracic Society - 2/28/02

UCSD Pediatrician Named as An Editor to New Medical Journal - 2/12/02

UCSD's Theodore Friedmann Named Chair of NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee - 2/11/02

November 2, 2001

Jerrold Olefsky Receives 2^nd Prestigious MERIT Award For Promising Diabetes Research

Jerrold Olefsky, M.D., UCSD School of Medicine researcher and professor of medicine, has received a $2.6 million 5-year MERIT Award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to continue highly promising research on the basic mechanisms of insulin action and diabetes.

The Olefsky grant is one of the few times that the NIDDK has given a MERIT award twice to the same researcher. Olefsky’s first MERIT award, which ended in 1997, covered clinical research and insulin resistance in patients.

In the NIDDK letter to Olefsky, the Institute noted that “the MERIT award acknowledges your consistent and excellent contributions to scientific knowledge.”

MERIT (Method to Extend Research In Time) awards are designed to provide a few outstanding investigators with the opportunity for long-term stable support, which will enhance their continued scientific creativity and lessen the administrative burdens associated with the preparation and submission of competing grant applications.

Affecting more than 16 million Americans, diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone needed to convert the body’s main source of sugar – glucose - into energy needed for daily life. Glucose is carried to each cell through the bloodstream, with the help of insulin.

For nearly 15 years, Olefksy’s research has focused on insulin and insulin resistance. He was one of the first researchers to show that insulin resistance is one of the prominent causes of diabetes. His current work explores the basic mechanisms of insulin action with a particular focus on the insulin signaling pathway leading to stimulation of glucose transport.

“We need to know how insulin works normally in the body to better understand what goes wrong,” he said. “Our new research will utilize new scientific methods such as specially bred mice where genes have been manipulated to express specific insulin-action characteristics and microarray chip technology that allows us to explore abnormalities at basic DNA levels.”

A member of the Institute of Medicine, Olefsky is chief of UCSD’s division of endocrinology and metabolism at UCSD and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and scientific director of the Whittier Institute for Diabetes in La Jolla. Among his seminal contributions to the basic understanding of insulin action has been the identification of the role of human insulin resistance as a primary cause of Type II (non-insulin dependent, adult-onset) diabetes. He has helped define the intracellular pathways for insulin and growth factor action, and helped develop insulin-sensitizing drugs that are now standard therapies for Type II diabetes.

October 19, 2001

UCSD’s Lawrence Goldstein Receives
Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research

Lawrence Goldstein, Ph.D., professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine in the UCSD School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, has been awarded a Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research from the Ellison Medical Foundation.

Goldstein’s research involves the role of axonal transport disturbance and transport-mediated signaling in Alzheimer’s disease.

The Ellison Senior Scholar Award Program is a nationally competitive, peer-reviewed award program that provides $600,000 over four years to support basic biomedical research on aging relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. Of some 300 proposals submitted, 10 scholars were named.

October 19, 2001

UCSD Researcher Receives Grant
To Study Problems in Manic-Depression Patients

William Perry, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the UCSD School of Medicine, has received an Independent Investigator grant from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) for a project titled “Gating Deficits in Bipolar Manic Patients With and Without Psychosis.”

A two-year award of $94,712, the grant will fund studies of sensorimotor gating problems, which may account for the overwhelming input of stimuli that many bi-polar (manic depressive) patients are unable to filter. Perry will investigate the impact of medication on the sensorimotor gating deficits experienced in psychotic bipolar patients compared to schizophrenic patients.

NARSAD is the largest donor-supported organization funding research in brain disorders worldwide. Their Independent Investigator Program provides support for scientists at the critical juncture between initiating independent research and achieving sustained funding.

New Lab Test Could Speed Development of New Class of AIDS Drugs - Richard Kornbluth, M.D., Honored for Discovery - 12/17/01

UCSD Faculty Elected to Institute of Medicine - 10/16/01

UCSD Pediatric Ophthalmologist David B. Granet Named
Inaugural Anne Ratner Endowed Chair in Pediatric Ophthalmology - 9/18/01

UCSD Neuroscientist Mark Tuszynski Honored for Alzheimer’s & Spinal Cord Research - 9/18/01

UCSD Psychiatrist Dilip Jeste Appointed To Levi Memorial Chair in Aging - 9/18/01

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Selects Allen L. Gifford, M.D. For Generalist Physician Scholar Program - 7/27/01

San Diego’s Doctors Are Tops in America - 7/19/01

Dr. Daniel Masys Appointed To Institute of Medicine’s Board on Health Sciences Policy - 7/2/01

Michael J. Fox Foundation Grant Awarded to UCSD Parkinson’s Research - 6/22/01

Pentagon Names UCSD Cancer Center Doctor As Deputy Surgeon General, Army Reserve - 5/17/01

Gordon Gill, M.D. Named UCSD Interim Dean for Scientific Affairs - 5/02/01

Marilyn Gist Farquhar Wins Rous-Whipple Award - 04/04/01