Medicine@Yale U

@ MedicineAdvancing Biomedical Science, Education and Health Care YaleVolume 3, Issue 5 September/October 2007 $23 million grant enables fresh look at stress and addiction People are much more likely to stick fully elucidated. Now, an interdisci- experts working on 14 projects aimed their hand in a cookie jar, smoke plinary team of 16 Yale researchers and at finding new ways to combat the a cigarette, or gulp cocktails when collaborators, led by Sinha, has won a powerful cravings that make treating they’re overworked, ensnared in fam- $23.4 million grant from the National food and drug addictions so difficult. ily conflict, or having trouble balanc- Institutes of Health to study how and The Yale team is one of only nine ing the inordinate number of respon- why stress fuels addictions. nationwide to receive the grants, from sibilities thrown at them. According to The research group—known as a pool of more than 100 applicants. Rajita Sinha, ph.d., professor of psy- the Interdisciplinary Research Con- “Stress is the kind of topic that chiatry, stress has been clearly linked sortium on Stress, Self-Control and really begs for being studied in an in- Rajita Sinha will direct a consortium of 16 to disease outcomes, but the complex Addiction—includes psychiatrists, terdisciplinary way, because it affects scientists to better understand the links effects of stress on self-control and neuroscientists, social psychologists every organ system in some way or between stress, self-control and addiction. addictive behaviors have not been and communications and policy another,” says Sinha. Stress, page 6 Lightening the load Giving back for the physicians Top-notch surgery at Yale of the future inspires a major gift “I don’t believe in giving for con- crete,” declares Sanfurd G. Bluestein, to the School of Medicine m.d., in as pithy a summation of his Karen Pritzker and Michael Vlock pragmatic approach to philanthropy of Branford, Conn., say the primary as one could imagine. While recogniz- R. Lawrence “Larry” ing the necessity of bricks and mortar motivation behind their recent $3 Moss (left) is the first million gift to endow a School of for the School of Medicine, Bluestein, Robert Pritzker Profes- a 1946 alumnus, has unabashedly Medicine professorship in pediatric sor of Pediatric Surgery, surgery is gratitude. Two of their named in honor of the thrown his weight behind the school’s children have been treated over the Chicago industrialist flesh and blood—the people, both and philanthropist faculty and students, who imbue the years by surgeons at Yale-New Haven (above). Children’s Hospital (ynhch), and in classrooms and labs with life and each instance, Pritzker and Vlock say, meaning. they received excellent medical advice “In general, my goal is to continue and first-rate care. to give at a regular rate to scholar- ships for young people,” says Blues- The new professorship is named atric Surgery,” says Moss. “We ensure the medical school at the University tein, and his latest gift to the medical in honor of Karen Pritzker’s father, that children receive the care they of Chicago, which was renamed the school—$500,000 that will add to a Robert A. Pritzker, a Chicago-based need regardless of their family’s abil- Pritzker School of Medicine in 1968. scholarship fund he established in executive and philanthropist who ity to pay, so there are fewer resources Pritzker is now ceo of Colson Associ- 1996 on the occasion of his 50th re- founded the Marmon Group, an to support innovation and discovery. ates Inc. and of six other companies union—is a case in point. “I’ve given international association of more This gift establishes a permanent that manufacture medical devices. to this scholarship fund regularly over than 100 manufacturing and service source of funds to ensure that Yale He is past chairman of the board the years,” he says. “I intend as long as firms that is the 19th largest private Pediatric Surgery will always be able of trustees of The Field Museum of I live to keep doing that.” company in the U.S. “My father has to invest in research that will result in Natural History in Chicago, and a In all, Bluestein’s steady contribu- demonstrated an unwavering com- continuing improvement in the surgi- fellow of the American Institute for tions to the School of Medicine over mitment to make the world a better cal care of children.” Medical and Biological Engineering. more than 25 years exceed $1 million, place throughout his long business Robert Pritzker, a 1946 graduate in The new Pritzker Professorship including support for the Department and philanthropic career,” Karen industrial engineering of the Illinois provides support for the clinical of Diagnostic Radiology, which also Pritzker says. In May, R. Lawrence Institute of Technology (iit) in Chi- expertise that Pritzker and Vlock and received support from his latest gift. “Larry” Moss, m.d., professor of sur- cago, served as the chair of iit’s board thousands of other families rely on, In 1980 he endowed a fund in that gery and chief of surgery at ynhch, of directors and gave a significant gift but it will also advance Yale research department to support the Bluestein was named the first Robert Pritzker to establish the Pritzker Institute of on pediatric surgery that will im- lecture, an annual presentation on Professor of Pediatric Surgery. Biomedical Science and Engineering prove children’s health at ynhch biomedical imaging by a distin- “This generous donation repre- at iit. He also joined his father and and beyond for years to come. Moss, guished invited speaker. sents a quantum leap for Yale Pedi- his brothers to make a major gift to Pritzker, page 7 Bluestein, page 4 Non-Profit Org. Inside this issue Medicine@Yale U. S. Postage 300 George St., Suite 773 PAID Lifelines Science in a new vein For James Duncan, every picture Building blood vessels for New Haven, CT 06511 New Haven, CT Permit No. 526 tells a story, p. 2 babies with heart problems, p.5 www.medicineatyale.org A pair of aces A transatlantic bridge Lyme disease expert named Scientists join an international section chief, Hughes investigator, p. 2 fight against hypertension, p. 8 Thought for food Also Yale scientists explore obesity Advances, pp. 3, 5; Out & About, p. 4; from many angles, p. 3 Grants and Contracts, p. 7; Awards & Honors, p. 8 Want to find out more about medicine at Yale? E-mail us at [email protected] or phone (203) 785-5824. Dean for education is appointed Jockers Professor Richard Belitsky, m.d., deputy dean for education and associate professor of psychiatry, has been named the James Duncan and colleagues Harold W. Jockers Associate Professor are devising of Medical Education. ways to ex- Since he joined the medical tract the most clinically useful school faculty, Belitsky has focused images from the on curriculum mountains of development at the data produced by biomedical imag- School of Medicine, ing techniques particularly with such as mri and respect to training echocardiography. medical students in the biopsychosocial model of medicine, that automatically locate the heart such as those performed to treat Richard Belitsky teaching tech- wall in echocardiographic images epilepsy. Though the brain doesn’t niques for patient-centered medical Moving despite the myriad shapes this move as dramatically as the heart, its interviewing, and teaching how to tissue assumes over time as the shape does markedly change during counsel patients to change unhealthy pictures heart beats. With image-based surgery, which alters the location of behaviors. He is also interested in the models of heart-wall thickness and important anatomical landmarks. development of professional identity Expert on image analysis elasticity such as those Duncan Christine DeLorenzo, ph.d., who just in medical education, with emphasis finds guideposts for doctors and colleagues are building at the earned her graduate degree working on the impact of power and authority bedside, cardiologists could precisely with Duncan, found that by training in the ever-changing body on the developing identity of medical determine what structures have two cameras on the surface of the students. Though James S. Duncan, ph.d., been damaged by a heart attack and brain during surgery and feeding the Belitsky received his m.d. from has ready access to the School of how well patients are healing. resulting stereo image into comput- the University of Florida School of Medicine’s state-of-the-art imaging Duncan may inherit his technical ers it is possible to create a math- Medicine in Gainesville. He came to technology, he still grapples with a bent from his father, who served in ematical model that provides an Yale in 1979 as a resident in psychia- problem faced by the tintype pho- the Canadian Air Force and went on up-to-the-second, three-dimensional try and continued on as a fellow in tographers of old—his preferred to work in the telephone industry rendering of the brain as it shifts in forensic psychiatry and chief resident/ subjects just won’t sit still. in New York City. Duncan, born in the operative field. instructor in the Department of Psy- No organ is more restless than the Bronx and still a diehard New By adding magnetic resonance chiatry. He joined the faculty as an as- the heart, and the constant move- York Yankees fan, was the first in spectroscopy, which detects bio- sistant professor in 1983, when he also ment of the muscle that forms his family to gradu- chemical changes in small regions of became unit chief of the Inpatient its chambers only adds to the dif- Lifelines ate from college.

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