Medical Center People

Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, is one of two recipients of the 2008 Breakthroughs in Gerontology Award sponsored by the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and the American Federation for Aging Research. The award provides $200,000 for a small number of pilot research programs that may be of relatively high risk but which offer significant promise of yielding transforming discoveries in the fundamental biology of aging. Rando will investigate how stem cells are able to divide throughout the life of an individual to give rise to new stem cells in tissue, such as new skin cells or cells in the blood, without acquiring mutations in their DNA and causing cancer.

Paul Auerbach, MD, has been appointed professor of surgery (emergency medicine), as of July 1. Auerbach, who serves as chief of the division of emergency medicine, is interested in wilderness medicine, frostbite, marine envenomation and emergency medical care.

Xiaoyuan Chen, PhD, has been promoted to associate professor (research) of radiology, effective Sept. 1. His research is dedicated to developing multifunctional molecular probes for multimodality imaging and bioconjugates for target-specific drug delivery.

Harvey Cohen, MD, PhD, the Deborah E. Addicott-John A. Kriewall and Elizabeth A. Haehl Family Professor in Pediatrics, is one of four people elected to the national board of trustees of the March of Dimes Foundation. Cohen has been a 10-year volunteer at the March of Dimes and, as a trustee, he will represent the public in governing the organization and advancing its mission and serve five-year terms. Cohen’s research is focused on biomarkers of disease in children, as well as studying new and better ways to treat blood disorders and various cancers, particularly leukemia, in children.

Michael Greicius, PhD, assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences, has been awarded a brain and immuno-imaging grant from the Dana Foundation, which has interests in brain science, immunology and arts education. He will use the three-year, $200,000 grant to examine whether functional brain connectivity measures can predict clinical response to antidepressant medication. Much of Greicius’ research involves the use of functional MRI in conjunction with other imaging modalities to detect and characterize neural networks in healthy adults and patients with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Donald Regula, MD, has been appointed professor (teaching) of pathology, and by courtesy, of orthopedic surgery, as of July 1. His research interests include autopsy pathology; medical informatics in pathology; orthopedic pathology (implanted prosthetic materials); and medical education (case-based learning in pathology, the use of glass slides, images and specimens in pathology and teaching improvement in the basic medical sciences). Regula has served as associate chair for education in the Department of Pathology since 2004.

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