Yale Cancer Center Benefits Doubly from Generosity New Ceowill Lead
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march 2013 volume 9, issue 1 Advancing Biomedical Science, Education, and Health Care Yale Cancer Center benefits doubly from generosity United Technologies supports “Smilow Cancer Hospital is now Easing suffering, ‘the power of innovation’ in delivering great service to the com- giving support munity, including utc employees,” Yale’s cancer care and research says Louis Chênevert, chairman and at the end of life ceo of United Technologies. “Our United Technologies Corporation company has a long history of sup- The Palliative Care (utc), a Hartford-based multinational porting leading organizations in our Program at Yale manufacturer and Connecticut’s largest communities, and Yale Cancer Center Cancer Center private employer, has donated $3 mil- is a proven leader.” (ycc) has received Jennifer Kapo lion to establish a new endowed profes- The new professorship, which a $1 million gift sorship at Yale Cancer Center (ycc). will support the full-time research from the Milbank Foundation for The gift, which establishes the activities of a faculty member whose courtesy of united technologies corp Rehabilitation. United Technologies Corporation primary research focus is cancer, is (From left) Mark Reitsma, a utc employee Directed by Jennifer M. Kapo, Professorship in Cancer Research, also part of what Chênevert describes and patient at Smilow Cancer Center, and m.d., associate professor of internal stems from utc’s long-time commit- as utc’s “broader efforts of promot- Louis Chênevert, ceo of utc. medicine and chief of palliative medi- ment to supporting cancer care and ing employee wellness.” to live. And then, at his supervisor’s cine at Smilow Cancer Hospital at research, and represents a deepened Mark Reitsma, utc’s manager of recommendation, he sought a second Yale-New Haven, the Palliative Care commitment by utc to what its lead- Global Human Resources Support opinion at Smilow. Program focuses on managing symp- ers see as a track record of success at Operations, is one of many United Under the care of Scott N. Get- toms and quality of life issues for Yale. In July 2008, utc announced Technologies employees who have tinger, m.d., associate professor of adult patients with serious, chronic, a $1 million gift to Smilow Cancer been treated for cancer at Smilow. Di- medicine, Reitsma’s treatment has in- progressive, or terminal cancers at Hospital at Yale-New Haven, which agnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in cluded chemotherapy and new Phase the hospital. The donation will sup- was then under construction and 2010, Reitsma was initially told that I clinical trial drugs. Not only has his port the program’s services, research, which opened in 2009. he had only a few months or years disease been stable, but // utc (page 7) and palliative care // Milbank (page 7) New ceo will lead medical school’s clinical practice Executive arrives at a time of major in the breadth and depth of clinical programs. With growth in Yale’s practice, and change these developments has come the need for a more centralized and unified physician group practice. in American medicine as a whole On a national scale, the passage and implementa- tion of the Affordable Care Act represents a sea change Paul Taheri, m.d., m.b.a., has joined the School of for American medicine—particularly for academic Medicine as deputy dean and chief executive officer medical centers such as Yale’s—and the nation’s seri- of Yale Medical Group (ymg), following a nation- ous shortage of primary care physicians presents an wide search. Taheri began his new role at Yale in ongoing challenge. early March. “We know Obamacare is going to be here. We Taheri was the senior associate dean for clinical have to go with a very strong primary care base,” says affairs and president and ceo of the University of Taheri. “As long as we are data-driven, thoughtful, Vermont (uvm) Medical Group in Burlington as well and methodical, we can manage the changes and bal- as a professor of surgery at uvm. There, he was re- ance all the missions of the enterprise, and come out sponsible for overseeing and managing a 500 -member more able to bear risk.” multispecialty practice with more than 1,000 staff and Taheri has been charged with establishing a strong $250 million in annual revenue. Taheri has been cred- management structure for ymg and maintaining its ited with preparing the group, both financially and high-performing clinical operation. // ymg (page 6) operationally, for the future of health care reform. He comes to Yale at a pivotal time for the school’s This month, Paul Taheri joins the School of Medicine as ceo of clinical practice, which has expanded remarkably Yale Medical Group. Among other goals, Taheri aims to stan- over the past decade. The size of the clinical faculty dardize the operations of the clinical practice across its many sites, fully integrate electronic medical records, and oversee an has grown dramatically, clinical revenues have nearly expansion of Yale’s role in addressing the nation’s continuing doubled, and there has been a significant expansion shortage of primary care providers. rajan chawla Non-Profit Org. inside this issue U. S. Postage 1 Church St., Suite 300, New Haven, CT 06510-3330 2 Lifelines www.medicineatyale.org paid Cardiologist Michael Simons is decoding New Haven, CT the signals that build new blood vessels. Permit No. 526 3 pet projects Researchers at Yale’s pet Center make the invisible visible. 5 A cellular mosaic Stem cells reveal unexpected genetic differences among healthy human cells also Advances, pp. 3, 5 Out & About, p. 4 @YaleMed f /YaleMed lifelines Medical student is ahead of the curve, and still under 30 Nicholas Down- ing, a student in the School of Michael Simons, a leading Medicine’s Class researcher on the role of of 2014, has been arteriogenesis in cardiovas- named one of cular diseases, directs the Forbes magazine’s Yale Cardiovascular Research Center (ycvrc). The ycvrc’s 30 most influen- collaborative spirit and Nicholas Downing tial people under unique scientific climate has the age of 30. In attracted top cardiovascular 2011, as a first-year student, Down- scientists to the School of ing began comparing the speed Medicine and has opened up new research directions and with which the U.S. Food and Drug avenues of funding. Administration (fda) approves new drugs to the speeds of drug approval by comparable agencies in Europe and Canada. His work, funded by the Pew Michael Simons shapiro harold Foundation and published in 2012 in The New England Journal of Medicine (Downing is one of the youngest-ever first authors pub- Getting to the heart of disease lished in the prestigious journal) showed that, contrary to popular Scientist works toward After graduating, Simons went clusive. To better understand arterio- belief, the fda was faster than molecular therapies for to medical school at Yale, where he genesis, Simons studied the molecular regulators in other countries at ap- began to explore cardiology, crossing controls that determine blood vessel proving new medicines. cardiovascular diseases paths with influential figures in the growth. He continued this research The report concluded that field such as Barry L. Zaret, m.d., now for seven years as the A.G. Huber given the fda’s lead over its peer Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), professor emeritus of medicine, and Professor of Medicine at Dartmouth institutions, criticisms about Russia, to Jewish parents before the fall S. Evans Downing, m.d., professor emer- Medical School, uncovering new and the inefficiency of the agency’s re- of the Soviet Union, Michael Simons, itus of pathology, an adviser for his unexpected mechanisms controlling view process for novel drugs may m.d., says a medical career was “sort of thesis research in coronary physiology. how the signals of growth factors are be unfounded. a default.” Anti-Semitism barred Jews In 1993 Simons joined the faculty at processed in their target cells. The idea for the fda study from many scientific pursuits, so his Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Returning to Yale in 2008, Simons emerged from the impending parents, both doctors, encouraged his Beth Israel Hospital (now Beth Israel succeeded Zaret as the Robert W. Ber- reauthorization of the Prescription interest in medicine as the basis for a Deaconess Medical Center), whose liner Professor of Medicine and chief Drug User Fee Act (pdufa), which strong natural science education. chief of cardiology was William Gross- of the medical school’s Section of Car- was first enacted in 1992 to allow Simons’ family immigrated to man, m.d., whose success in recruiting diovascular Medicine, and he launched the fda to collect fees from drug Boston in 1978. Simons had begun a leading molecular cardiologists soon the Yale Cardiovascular Research companies to fund the process of 6-year medical program immediately transformed the program into one of Center, which has become a research new drug approval. after high school in Russia, so he was the world’s best. “I never knew if it powerhouse under his direction. Downing says that his study admitted to Boston University School happened by design or by accident, Simons’ work holds great promise “injected some objective infor- of Medicine as a third-year student, but but we were able to do what nobody beyond the treatment of coronary mation into what had become a he chose instead to start anew, as an else could do,” Simons says. disease. “There are distinct signals relatively subjective debate.” undergraduate. “I thought, if I continue By that time, physicians were rou- that control cell fate and thus the type in a medical program, I’ll forever have tinely using procedures like balloon of vasculature that’s formed,” says correction In our September/Octo- an inadequate undergraduate educa- angioplasty and stenting to treat coro- Simons, also professor of cell biology.