2017 Annual Report UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Vision University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine 2017 ANNUAL REPORT Vision 1 Message from the Dean 2 News & Achievements 18 Education & Training 36 Research Grants of Note, 38 Publications of Note, 41 52 Community 59 Donors 69 Administration, Departments, Institutes, & Leadership Our Vision t’s no exaggeration to say that we have entered a new era of uncertainty in American health care. As a nation, we are faced with immense challenges related to the cost and quality of clinical care, not to mention access to such care. Ironically, these challenges have grown more pronounced at a time when we have the oppor- tunity to take advantage of extraordinary leaps forward in science and medicine. Despite current challenges, we at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine are optimistic, and we remain committed to achieving transformational change in medical education, patient care, and biomedical research in a culture of humanism. As an educational and research-based institution, we also work every day to cultivate Ian environment that rewards creativity, collaboration, and innovation. As scientists, we encourage everyone to envision a world in which our civic leaders embrace the scientific method — a template for civil, disciplined, evidence-based, and sound discourse — to probe the problems that concern us all. In that spirit of shared purpose, I am pleased to highlight our recent progress on the pages of this report. I invite you to explore it and discover for yourself how the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is constructing a compelling vision of the future every day. ARTHUR S. LEVINE, MD Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of Medicine Come senators, congressmen please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’ BOB DYLAN / WINNER OF THE 2016 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE 1 News & Achievements Our Shared Ancestry Pitt Research Funding UPMC “ was created out of the Funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a benchmark University of Pittsburgh [and] of overall stature among research-intensive academic health centers. Since 1998, the University of Pittsburgh has ranked among the the two have risen together in top 10 recipients of NIH funding. national and international prestige,” Pittsburgh-area historian and author 2016 NIH FUNDING Mary Brignano notes in Beyond the UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Bounds: A History of UPMC. “UPMC’s founders followed one core principle: RANK Research and clinical success are $513M synergistic and interdependent. 1,090 Awards What is good for one is good for both.” Together, the University and SCHOOL OF MEDICINE UPMC have grown into a model for the nation—one of the most success- RANK ful examples of a health care system $453M partnered with a medical school. 846 Awards The vital collaboration between Pitt and UPMC drives a circular bond from research to clinical care and back 2017 OVERALL RESEARCH SPENDING to research. Having played a vital role UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH in the transformation of Pittsburgh, the partners aim to play a similar role $513 in the transformation of biomedical $765M Million research, health sciences education, for research in the and clinical care across the globe. School of Medicine $513 M 2 National Institutes of Health Leader Recruited To Head Aging Institute UPCI Gets New Name, New Director NHLBI Chief Toren Finkel, MD, PhD, Joined Pitt in September 2017 Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, Leads UPMC Hillman Cancer Center mechanisms of resistance to Ferris earned his MD and age-related health complications immunology PhD at the Johns such as heart disease, cancer, Hopkins University School of pulmonary fibrosis, and neuro- Medicine. He was a surgical degenerative disorders. intern and otolaryn gology “Why and how we age is one resident at Johns Hopkins of the great biological questions Hospital. As chief resident, out there,” said Finkel. “If we can he undertook sub specialty slow aging down, rather than training in head and neck treating each individual disease oncologic surgery. of aging, we can have a way of He joined Pitt’s faculty in treating all of them.” 2002 and has held numerous he new leader of Investigations using Met- obert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, roles within the School of Pitt’s Aging Institute is formin — a diabetes drug shown an expert in immuno- Medicine since then, rising to Toren Finkel, MD, PhD, to have an antiaging effect in therapy and head-and- the rank of professor in 2010, who was recently chief epidemiological studies — are in neck cancer specialist, with a secondary appointment of the Center for the planning stages now at NIH, has been named Hillman in the Department of Radiation TMolecular Medicine at the and Pitt’s Aging Institute will RProfessor of Oncology and Oncology. He has been coleader National Heart, Lung, and Blood attempt to discover other prom- director of the UPMC Hillman of UPCI’s Cancer Immunology Institute (NHLBI) of the NIH. ising compounds, Finkel said. Cancer Center, the region’s only Program since 2007 and “Toren Finkel is an His own commitment to basic National Cancer Institute (NCI)- associate director for transla- excep tional physician–scientist,” science is longstanding. Finkel’s designated comprehensive tional research and codirector said Arthur S. Levine, MD, team provided the first clear cancer center. Ferris, formerly of the Tumor Microenvironment senior vice chancellor for the demonstration that reactive UPMC Professor of Advanced Center since 2012. health sciences and Petersen oxygen species (ROS) function as Oncologic Head and Neck Ferris is a fellow of the Dean of Medicine. “Under his endogenous signaling molecules, Surgery and clinical vice chair of American College of Surgeons leadership, the Aging Institute an observation that established the Depart ment of Otolaryn- and co-chair of the NCI will amplify its mission to the field of redox signaling. He gology, Pitt School of Medicine, Steering Committee for Head include basic science investi- has described the regulation of assumed the position on and Neck Cancer. He was gations that focus on the aging mitochondrial and cytosolic ROS, July 1. He succeeds Nancy E. elected to the American process, with the ultimate goal identified cellular redox targets, Davidson, MD. Society for Clinical Investiga- of extending disease-free life.” and defined howROS -regulated “Under Dr. Ferris’s leadership, tion in 2008 and currently is Research into the biology pathways contribute to normal we expect that UPMC and the chair of NCI’s Tumor Micro- of aging has undergone rapid aging and disease. Finkel’s work University of Pittsburgh will environment Study Section. evolu tion in recent years. Invest- spans animal models and human continue to lead the way locally, Ferris’s research focuses on i gators are beginning to untan- research participants, truly nationally, and internationally improving treatments for head gle the molecular pathways that bridging bench to bedside. in the development of new and neck cancer. He was lead regulate aging and identify thera- Finkel, who is a professor of therapies to treat and prevent author on a seminal 2016 paper peutic targets, Finkel observed. medicine in the Division of the numerous forms of cancer,” in the New England Journal of “And Pitt is just a phenomenal Cardiology, earned his MD and said Arthur S. Levine, MD, Medicine reporting the efficacy place that has a wonderful track PhD in biophysics at Harvard senior vice chancellor for the of Nivolumab (see story, page record of translating therapies Medical School. He completed health sciences and Petersen 47), an immune checkpoint into patients,” he said. “The an internal medicine residency at Dean of Medicine. inhibitor, for recurrent com bi na tion of this commitment Massachusetts General Hospital The research institute and squamous cell carcinoma of to build up the basic sciences and a cardiol ogy fellowship at cancer network, established the head and neck. His work of aging biology and having the Johns Hopkins Hospital. as the University of Pittsburgh extensively explores other infrastructure and knowledge Finkel’s lab has published Cancer Institute (UPCI) in 1985 treatments for high-risk head to translate that to therapies is nearly 200 manuscripts, many in under its late founding director and neck cancer, including what is so attractive to me.” high-impact journals like Science, Ronald B. Herberman, MD, radiation, chemotherapy, and The Aging Institute will Nature, and the New England was renamed to honor the late robotic surgery. continue to tap expertise Journal of Medicine. He is a Henry and Elsie Hillman in He is editor-in-chief of campus-wide to support the member of the American Society May 2017. The Hillmans were Oral Oncology, associate editor needs of older adults in Western for Clinical Investigation and the longtime supporters of science of the Journal of the National Penn syl vania and throughout the Association of American and medicine whose vision and Cancer Institute, and a principal region. Moving forward, a major Physicians and is a fellow of the contributions were instrumental investigator of a large number focus will be the development of American Association for the in making Pittsburgh a world of NCI-sponsored