THE HELEN HAY WHITNEY FOUNDATION 2014-2015 Annual REport 20 Squadron Boulevard, Suite 630 New City, NY 10956 www.hhwf.org Tel: (845) 639-6799 Fax: (845) 639-6798 THE HELEN HAY WHITNEY FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES Averil Payson Meyer, President Steven C. Harrison, Ph.D., Vice President Lisa A. Steiner, M.D., Vice President W. Perry Welch, Treasurer Thomas M. Jessell, Ph.D. Payne W. Middleton Thomas P. Sakmar, M.D. Stephen C. Sherrill SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE Steven C. Harrison, Ph.D., Chairman David J. Anderson, Ph.D. Daniel Kahne, Ph.D. Philippa Marrack, Ph.D. Markus Meister, Ph.D. Barbara J. Meyer, Ph.D. Julie A. Theriot, Ph.D. Jonathan S. Weissman, Ph.D. S. Lawrence Zipursky, Ph.D. ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR and SECRETARY Robert Weinberger Page 1 REPORT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN, SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE I am pleased to report on two years of activity for the Scientific Advisory Committee. Our charge, to select an outstanding group of Fellows each year and to respond as needed to advisory issues that occasionally arise during the tenure of their fellowship, is always a stimulating one, and the talks from third-year Fellows at the Annual Meeting continue to give remarkably positive feedback. Our partnerships with HHMI, the Simons Foundation, and Merck have benefitted the program greatly. We have three Simons Fellows, eight HHMI Fellows and two Merck Fellows, in addition to the eleven we now support from endowment income. (Let me add, on behalf of the SAC, a note of thanks to Perry Welch, the Treasurer of the Foundation, who oversees that endowment with great dedication and insight.) A class of 24 means the competition is fierce, and we continue to identify an extraordinary group of young biomedical scientists. Membership in the SAC has not changed since Jonathan Weissman, Markus Meister, and Pippa Marrack came on board, as I reported in my last SAC Chair's report. We have a gratifyingly dedicated, lively, and deeply thoughtful team. Our annual deliberations become lively discussions of a splendidly broad range of science, while never losing sight of the critical dimensions of talent and promise we look for in our candidates. I hope we continue to choose as wisely as did our predecessors: Cori Bargmann (HHWF '90) and Bob Weinberg (HHWF '72) were recipients of the new Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2013, Tom Lindahl (HHWF '70) shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Larry Zipursky (HHWF'87), and a current member of our SAC, received the 2015 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. As I look at the state of biomedical research in the US, I do worry that it will be harder for the current class of Whitney Fellows to thrive as easily as did the generation that built careers at a time of reasonable consensus about the role of science in our society and the importance of governmental support for its pursuit. I am confident that the Fellows we select will be the survivors in a context far more challenging that the one faced by Fellows who started their independent careers in the '80's and 90's. The SAC would not be able to work as effectively in selecting such outstanding Fellows without Robert Weinberger, whose deft administrative skills and thoughtful attention to the personal needs of our Fellows. His management of our operation makes our success possible. Stephen C. Harrison, Ph.D. Page 2 ORGANIZATION The Foundation was established and endowed by Mrs. Charles S. Payson, the former Joan Whitney, in 1947, and named in honor of her mother, Helen Hay Whitney. The current Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program was begun in 1956. The Foundation is a New York State not-for-profit corporation. The corporation elects a Board of Trustees of not more than eleven members at its annual meeting. Full power in the management and control of the affairs of the corporation is vested in this Board, which holds two stated meetings a year. An Executive Committee acts for the Board in the intervals between meetings. The Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program is the responsibility of the Scientific Advisory Committee and is under its continual review and evaluation. The day-to-day administration of the fellowship program is the responsibility of the Administrative Director, who reports to the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee. PURPOSE The Foundation was established to stimulate and support research in the area of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, later expanding its interests to include diseases of connective tissue and, ultimately, all basic biomedical sciences. Under the Foundation’s program, young men and women planning careers in biological or medical research receive financial support of sufficient duration to help further their professional careers. Residents of the United States, Canada, and Mexico who hold the M.D., Ph.D., or equivalent degree, or US citizens residing abroad, are eligible to apply for a fellowship for beginning postdoctoral training in biomedical research. Page 3 THE WALTER BAUER MEMORIAL MEETING The Annual meeting of Fellows is held in November each year, and at this meeting each third-year Fellow speaks on the results of his or her research during the tenure of the fellowship. The Foundation also invites a distinguished scientist to present the Maclyn McCarty Annual Lecture. The Fifty-Seventh Annual Fellows Meeting was held at the MIT Endicott House, November 7-9, 2014, with 58 current Fellows in attendance as well as the Scientific Advisory Committee, members of the Board of Trustees, and the Administrative Director. There were 17 presentations by the Fellows in their final year of fellowship support. Hidde Ploegh, Ph.D. Member of the Whitehead Institute, and Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, presented the Maclyn McCarty lecture. The Fifty-Eighth Annual Fellows Meeting was held at the MIT Endicott House, November 6-8, 2015, with 63 current Fellows in attendance as well as the Scientific Advisory Committee, members of the Board of Trustees, and the Administrative Director. There were 20 presentations by the Fellows in their final year of fellowship support. David Julius, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, at the Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, presented the Maclyn McCarty lecture. The Foundation continues to think that the annual meeting is an important component of the fellowship program because of the opportunity it provides our Fellows for scientific interchange and exposure to biomedical fields other than their own. Page 4 The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Final - Year Fellows Fifty-Seventh Annual Fellows Meeting - November 7-9, 2014 Top row, left to right: Eliezer Calo-Velazquez, Richard K. Hite, Alicia A. Bicknell, Andres M. Lebensohn, Sergei Doulatov, Paula D. Montero Llopis, Nathan W. Pierce, Andrés Bendesky, Nuo Li. Front row, left to right: Ying Liu, Eleni Mimitou, Richard N. McLaughlin, Saori L. Haigo, Rebecca L. Lamason, Megan L. Matthews, Ming Wu. Absent from photo: Dmitriy Aronov Page 5 The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Final - Year Fellows Fifty-Eighth Annual Fellows Meeting - November 6-8, 2015 Top row, left to right: Anna B. Loveland, Andrew Miri, Cristian Boboila, Zachary B. Hill, Michel J. DuPage, Michael B. Lazarus. Front row, left to right: Stephen N. Floor, Elena Piskounova, Vidhya Ramachandran, Saher Sue Hammoud, Daniel J. Dickinson, Aaron S. Andalman, Weizhe Hong. Page 6 LOCATION OF FELLOWS COMPLETING FELLOWSHIP TENURE Those who completed their fellowships during calendar year 2014, are listed below, together with their post-fellowship locations. Eiman Azim, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Maya Bader, Ph.D. Scientific Grants Manager at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Los Angeles. Joshua J. Bayes, Ph.D. Product Manager at Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp., San Franciso. Alicia A. Bicknell, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Massachusetts Medical School Stephen G. Brohawn, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Neurobiology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology & Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley. Sergei Doulatov, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology, University of Washington School of Medicine. Evan H. Feinberg, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco. Walter M. Fischler, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Axel Lab, Columbia University. Lillian K. Fritz-Laylin, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Mullins Lab, University of California, San Francisco. Saher Sue Hammoud, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Human Genetics, Assistant Professor of Urology, University of Michigan. Karen E. Kasza, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University. Andres M. Lebensohn, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Rohatgi Lab, Stanford University. Ying Liu, Ph.D. Principle Investigator, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking University, Beijing, China. Page 7 Colin D. Malone, Ph.D. Director of Genomic Analysis and Technical Operations as the Institute for Genomic Medicine, Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences, Columbia University. Michael B. Manookin, Ph.D. Acting Instructor, University of Washington, Department of Ophthalmology, Seattle, WA Lisa F. Marshall, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist at Daktari Diagnostics, Cambridge, MA. Yasemin S. Sancak, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Mootha Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital. Xin Ye, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Weinberg Lab, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Xin Zhang, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University. Page 8 LOCATION OF FELLOWS COMPLETING FELLOWSHIP TENURE Those who completed their fellowships during calendar year 2015, are listed below, together with their post-fellowship locations. Aaron S. Andalman, Ph.D. Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder, Cognitiv, New York, NY. Dmitriy Aronov, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Tank Lab, Princeton University. Andrés Bendesky, M.D., Ph.D. Principal Investigator, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University. Michael E. Birnbaum, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.