Columbia University Medical Center HEAL and HEALTH
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 heal Columbia University Medical Center HEAL AND HEALTH. THOSE INTERDEPENDENT CONCEPTS, SO CLOSELY LINKED THAT THEY ARE NEARLY THE SAME WORD, LIE AT THE HEART OF THE MISSION OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS & SURGEONS. ONE OF THE EARLIEST FACTS A YOUNG DOCTOR-TO-BE LEARNS Contents Dean’s Letter 2 DURING MEDICAL SCHOOL IS THAT THE BODY IS ORGANIZED INTO Human System 4 SYSTEMS—CARDIOVASCULAR, RESPIRATORY, NERVOUS, MUSCULO- Nervous System 8 SKELETAL, AND SO ON—THAT WORK IN AN INTEGRATED WAY TO Immune System 15 KEEP THAT BODY HEALTHY AND FUNCTIONING. WHEN THE Respiratory System 19 INTEGRATED SYSTEMS OF THE HUMAN BODY WORK PROPERLY Cardiovascular System 22 Systems of Education and Care 28 TOGETHER, WE HAVE HEALTH. WHEN THESE SYSTEMS FALTER, WE Dedication 32 MUST HEAL. College of Physicians & Surgeons 33 THIS YEAR’S ANNUAL REPORT FOCUSES ON COLUMBIA’S Development 34 Generous Donors 37 ACHIEVEMENTS DURING 2004 AND 2005 THROUGH THE PRISM OF In Memoriam 43 THE BODY’S INTEGRATED SYSTEMS. AT THE SAME TIME, WE EXAM- Financial Highlights 44 INE COLUMBIA’S ESSENTIAL ROLE TO PROMOTE HEALING AND Trustees Committee of the ADVANCE HEALTH IN THE “SYSTEM” OF OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY Health Sciences 46 Advisory Council 46 AND THE WIDER WORLD. Administration 46 Executive Committee of the Faculty Council 47 Department Chairs 47 Interdepartmental Centers 48 Departmental Centers 48 Affiliated Hospitals 50 From the Dean The role of a great medical center is to strategies to prevent cancer from ever oc- promote health and healing in the broadest curring. context: from the development of new Few institutions have the financial and Gerald D. Fischbach, M.D. scientific concepts, to the isolation of new personnel resources to mount such a di- Executive Vice President candidate therapies, to the validation of new verse attack. At Columbia, thanks not Columbia University therapies via clinical research, to providing only to the recognition and support of the Medical Center Dean, Faculty of Medicine our patients with informed guidance in National Cancer Institute, but also to the using those therapies. Our efforts cut across generosity of Herbert and Florence Irving, traditional departmental boundaries to we have that capability. In May, we opened involve the entire medical center and, in the Irving Cancer Research Center, a 02 P&S ANNUAL REPORT 2004-05 many cases, the entire university, linking 300,000-square-foot facility in the Audubon DEAN’S LETTER * disciplines like biology and genetics with Biomedical Science and Technology Park, engineering and physics. located between the Russ Berrie Medical Here at Columbia University College of Science Pavilion and the Mary Woodard Physicians & Surgeons, this cross-cutting Lasker Biomedical Research Building. continuum is dramatically illustrated in Together, these facilities form nearly 700,000 our attempts to understand, treat, and square feet of dedicated research space. defeat cancer—which during the past year But research space means little without surpassed heart disease as the top killer of scientists to use it. This brings me to another Americans under the age of 85. Columbia’s reason for my great optimism about cancer This “comprehensive” approach serves and motivation. This is my own area of Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center research and care at Columbia: the appoint- as the model for what we hope to establish expertise and I look forward to helping out. (ICCC) is one of only three National Cancer ment of Riccardo Dalla-Favera as the new in other fields beyond cancer, fields rang- With our strategic interdepartmental Institute-designated comprehensive cancer director of the ICCC. A world-renowned ing from nervous system disorders to car- approach we can define the future of med- centers in New York state, and one of fewer researcher, Riccardo is also a talented diovascular disease to immunology and ical science and medical education. Our than 40 such centers in the nation. This clinician and administrator. His area of metabolic disorders. long-term goal must be to reduce suffering prestigious designation recognizes the expertise is in the molecular genetics of This model will form the basis for the and enable all people to lead full lives. Our depth and breadth of cancer research and lymphoma and other bloodborne cancers. new Center for Neuroscience Initiatives, immediate goal is to provide an environ- treatment available at P&S. At Columbia we Dr. Dalla-Favera’s task will be to expand which will be built around fundamental ment in which the best research can be span the entire spectrum, from basic our research enterprise, taking advantage of themes in the study of brain science: conducted and in which the very best of scientific understanding of mechanisms this extraordinary time in which we have a neurodegeneration, neural repair and plas- the next generation can be trained. that make cells divide out of control, invade deeper understanding of underlying causes ticity, cognition and behavior, and mood adjacent tissues, and metastasize widely of cancer. He will collaborate with our throughout the body. We are committed to clinical leaders in building a superb clinical the development of new treatments and new oncology program. Healing the Whole Though its origins may be isolated to one National Cancer Institute, the Institute for part of the body, cancer ultimately attacks Cancer Genetics will study the molecular the health of the entire human system if pathways that lead to the development of left untreated, metastasizing from the breast cancer, with the ultimate goal of de- breast to the lung, the prostate to the bone, veloping more targeted therapeutics like or the pancreas to the liver. This most the drug Herceptin. Herceptin is currently feared of diseases is, perhaps, the ultimate the only “rationally designed” drug available example of how the health of one human for breast cancer, selectively killing cancer system is inextricably tied to the health of cells by attaching to Her2 receptors while the whole. leaving healthy cells untouched. Since Her2 Over the past year, Columbia has been receptors are present in only 20 percent of P&S ANNUAL REPORT 2004-05 5 the human system HUMAN SYSTEM * laying the foundations for one of its most tumors, however, many more such drugs NERVOUS SYSTEM ambitious initiatives yet: the evolution of are needed, says Dr. Riccardo Dalla-Favera, IMMUNE SYSTEM RESPIRATORY SYSTEM the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, director of the institute and the grant’s CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM already a national leader in the field, into principal investigator. SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION AND CARE one of the world’s premier cancer Dr. Dalla-Favera, newly named as head programs. In scope and depth, in clinical of the Irving Comprehensive Cancer and basic science expertise, and in Center, will also lead investigators in a five- compassionate patient care, Columbia’s year, $5 million grant from the Leukemia cancer center will stand among the giants and Lymphoma Society as they test an ex- in the field. perimental lymphoma drug in clinical Two major grants are helping to drive trials. In partnership with Memorial the expansion of the cancer center. With a Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Columbia $15.5 million, five-year grant from the investigators will also study the mutations Robot scrubs in: Michael Treat, associate professor of clinical surgery, has developed a unique one-armed robotic scrub technician known as Penelope. Most surgical robots currently available are run by surgeons, but Penelope is a “stand-alone co-worker,” says Dr. Treat. Using machine vision—a digital camera that sees the surgical field, along with software that can identify instruments— Penelope “scrubbed in” on her first case in March 2005, part of a research study to vali- date that the robot is working as expected. that lead to lymphomas, the most common processes by which the genetic instructions production center in the Black Building. cancer among people 30 to 40 years old. encoded by the genome produce the tissues, The new Synthetic Organic Chemistry One of the most exciting approaches to organs, and behavior that make us human. Collaborative Center provides researchers understanding cancer and many other It won’t be easy: The human genome, which with experimental therapeutics and other disease mechanisms is known as chemical has about 25,000 genes, produces possibly molecules needed for their preclinical biology, or chemical genomics. This “big 200,000 different proteins—maybe as studies, molecules needed for the pilot science” strategy takes a high-throughput, many as 1 million proteins. This makes for studies that are essential to garnering grant systematic approach to chemistry and bi- an almost infinite variety of protein in- support for larger studies. ology so powerful that it can screen some teractions, or combinations of proteins Other new centers at Columbia will 50,000 chemical compounds against a single that drive a cell’s activities. Helping also tie research and treatment together in biological disease target in just one day, medicine take advantage of this vast, un- a comprehensive, multidisciplinary testing each of them to see how they act charted frontier of information in order to approach. One of these is the Reiner against the disease. But it’s not just a drug improve human health is the goal of Center for Behavioral and Psychosomatic development tool; it’s a process that may Columbia’s new Joint Center for Systems Medicine, the only center of its kind in help physicians at Columbia and elsewhere Biology. The center will use high-speed, New York City. It will explore how psychi- better understand how human disease— advanced computational tools to analyze atric, psychological, behavioral, and genetic 06 P&S ANNUAL REPORT 2004-05 and human healing—operates at the most an enormous database of 2.5 million factors affect human health and contribute * THE HUMAN SYSTEM NERVOUS SYSTEM basic cellular and molecular levels.