www.nyas.org • Autumn 2011

Elias Zerhouni on Breaking Down Barriers

Blavatnik Awards Support Early Career Success

The Science BehindContagion

THROUGH

CLOSING THE

GAPTRANSLATIONALSCIENCE

ChairNANCY ZIMPHER

President [ex offi cio]ELLIS RUBINSTEIN

Vice Chair KENNETH L. DAVIS

Secretary [ex offi cio]LARRY SMITH

TreasurerROBERT CATELL

PETER AGRENobel Laureate & Univ. Prof. and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Inst., Dept. Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public HealthRICHARD AXELNobel Laureate & Professor, Columbia Univ.; Investigator, HHMILEE BABISSGlobal Head, Pharma Research, Roche PharmaceuticalsDAVID BALTIMORENobel Laureate & President Emeritus, CaltechETIENNE-EMILE BAULIEUFormer President, French Academy of SciencesPAUL BERGNobel Laureate & Prof. Emeritus, Dept. of Biochemistry, Stanford Univ.LEN BLAVATNIKChairman, Access IndustriesGÜNTER BLOBELNobel Laureate & Director, Laboratory for Cell Biology, The Rockefeller Univ.IRINA BOKOVADirector General, United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)SYDNEY BRENNERNobel Laureate & Distinguished Prof., Salk Inst.MICHAEL S. BROWNNobel Laureate & Prof. of Molecular Genetics, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical CenterLINDA BUCKNobel Laureate & Investigator for HHMI; member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research CenterKAREN E. BURKEDermatologist & Research ScientistTHOMAS R. CECHNobel Laureate & Distinguished Prof., Univ. of Colorado, BoulderMARTIN CHALFIENobel Laureate & William R. Kenan, Jr., Prof. of Biological Sciences; Chair, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Columbia Univ.CECILIA CHANManaging Director, Gold Avenue Ltd.

AARON CIECHANOVERNobel Laureate & Distinguished Research Prof., Tumor and Vascular Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Inst. of Tech., Haifa, Israel GORDON CONWAYChair in International Development, Imperial College London PETER DOHERTYNobel Laureate & Researcher, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN; Univ. of MelbourneMIKAEL DOLSTENPresident, Worldwide Research and Development; Sr. VP, Pfi zer IncMARCELO EBRARD CASAUBÓNMayor, Mexico CityEDMOND H. FISCHERNobel Laureate & Prof. Emeritus, Dept. of Biochemistry, Univ. of WashingtonALAN J. FRIEDMANFormer Director, New York Hall of ScienceJOSEPH GOLDSTEINNobel Laureate & Chairman, Molecular Genetics, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical CenterS. GOPALAKRISHNANExec. Co-Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies LimitedPAUL GREENGARDNobel Laureate & Prof. of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller Univ.GLENDA GREENWALDPresident, Aspen Brain Forum FoundationPETER GRUSSPresident, Max Planck Gesellschaft, GermanyWILLIAM A. HASELTINEPresident, The Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts; Chairman, Haseltine Global Health, LLCERIC KANDELNobel Laureate & Prof., Physiology & Cell Biology, Columbia Univ.KIYOSHI KUROKAWAFormer Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan; Prof., National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)

LEON LEDERMANNobel Laureate & Pritzker Prof. of Science, Illinois Inst. of Tech.; Resident Scholar, Illinois Math & Science Academy GREGORY LUCIERChairman and CEO, Life Technologies CorporationRODERICK MACKINNONNobel Laureate & John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Prof., The Rockefeller Univ.; Investigator, HHMIJOEL S. MARCUSCEO, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.GERALD J. MCDOUGALLNational Partner, Global Pharmaceutical & Health Sciences Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLPRICHARD MENSCHELSr. Director, Goldman SachsRONAY MENSCHELChairman of the Board, Phipps Houses; Board of Overseers, Weill Cornell Medical CollegeFERID MURADNobel Laureate & Director, IMM Center for Cell Signaling, The University of Texas at HoustonJOHN F. NIBLACKFormer President, Pfi zer Global Research & DevelopmentPAUL NURSENobel Laureate & President, The Royal Society; former President, The Rockefeller Univ.ROBERT C. RICHARDSONNobel Laureate & Sr. Vice Provost for Research, Floyd R. Newman Prof. of Physics, Cornell Univ.RICHARD ROBERTSNobel Laureate & CSO,New England BiolabsEDWARD F. ROVERPresident, The Dana FoundationF. SHERWOOD ROWLANDNobel Laureate & Prof. of Chemistry & Earth Science, Univ. of California, IrvineBENGT SAMUELSSONNobel Laureate & Prof., Medical & Physiological Chem., Karolinska Inst.; former Chairman, The Nobel FoundationIVAN SEIDENBERGChairman of the Board, VerizonISMAIL SERAGELDINDirector, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, The Library of Alexandria, Egypt

PHILLIP A. SHARPNobel Laureate & Director, McGovern Inst., MIT Center for Cancer ResearchELLIOTT SIGALCSO, Bristol-Myers SquibbMICHAEL SOHLMANFormer Exec. Director, The Nobel FoundationPAUL STOFFELSCompany Group Chairman, World Wide Research & Development, Pharmaceuticals Group, Johnson & JohnsonMARC TESSIER-LAVIGNEPresident, The Rockefeller Univ.MARY ANN TIGHECEO, New York Tri-State Region, CB Richard EllisSHIRLEY TILGHMANPresident, Princeton Univ.FRANK WALSHCEO, Ossianix, Inc. GERALD WEISSMANNProf. of Medicine, NYU School of MedicineJOHN WHITEHEADFormer Chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corp.; former Co-Chairman of Goldman SachsGEORGE WHITESIDESMallinckrodt Prof. of Chemistry, Harvard Univ.TORSTEN N. WIESELNobel Laureate & former Secy. General, Human Frontier Science Program Organization; President Emeritus, The Rockefeller Univ.FRANK WILCZEKNobel Laureate & Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, MITERNST-LUDWIG WINNACKERSecy. General, Human Frontier Science Program; former Secy. General, European Research Council; former President, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, GermanyANDREW WITTYCEO, GlaxoSmithKlineELIAS ZERHOUNIPresident, Global Research & Development, Sanofi -AventisAHMED ZEWAILNobel Laureate & Linus Pauling Chair of Chemistry and Physics, CaltechGUANGZHAO ZHOUFormer Chairman, Chinese Association of Science & Technology

GovernorsLEN BLAVATNIKMARY BRABECKNANCY CANTORMARTIN CHALFIEMILTON COFIELDROBIN L. DAVISSONMIKAEL DOLSTEN

ELAINE FUCHSJAY FURMANALICE P. GASTBRIAN GREENETHOMAS L. HARRISONSTEVE HOCHBERGTONI HOOVER

THOMAS CAMPBELL JACKSONJOHN E. KELLY IIIMEHMOOD KHANJEFFREY D. SACHSKATHE SACKLERMORTIMER D.A. SACKLER

JOHN E. SEXTONGEORGE E. THIBAULTPAUL WALKERIRIS WEINSHALLANTHONY WELTERSFRANK WILCZEKMICHAEL ZIGMAN

International GovernorsSETH F. BERKLEYMANUEL CAMACHO SOLISGERALD CHANS. KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN

RAJENDRA K. PACHAURIRUSSELL READPAUL STOFFELS

Chairman EmeritusTORSTEN N. WIESEL

Honorary Life GovernorsKAREN E. BURKEHERBERT J. KAYDENJOHN F. NIBLACK

Board of Governors

President’s Council

On the cover: Bill Oxford / iStockphoto.com

Executive Editor Diana Friedman

Art DirectorAsh Ayman Shairzay

ContributorsDouglas Braaten, Sonya Dougal, Brooke Grindlinger, Jamie Kass,

Stephanie Kelly, Marci A. Landsmann, Noah Rosenberg, Sarah Webb

Editorial Offi ce7 World Trade Center

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Phone: 212.298.8645Fax: 212.298.3655

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contentscontentsColumns

Letter from the PresidentIntroducing a New Editor

Annals HighlightsRecent and upcoming Annals volumes

Inside the AcademyReports from the directors of Academy programs and news about Academy activities

Academy eBriefi ngsSixth International Congress on Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, From Crumpling Geometries to Graphene Materials, Trash Talk: Options for Converting Our Solid Waste to Energy, Innovating on a Shoestring: Medical Technologies for the Developing World

Member NewsAwards, appointments, and announcements about Academy members

CalendarAcademy conferences and meetings in November, December, January, and February

Blavatnik Awards

Support Systemby Sarah WebbTh e Blavatink Awards’ recognition of young scientists has proved critical to their continued success.

Cover Story

Closing the Gap through Translational Scienceby Diana FriedmanMoving from scientifi c discoveries to clinical therapeutics requires better collaboration between scientists and clinicians.

Member Memoir

Defying Defi nitionby Marci A. LandsmannElias Zerhouni discusses his desire to break down artifi cial barriers in science.

Donor Profi le

A Medical Education Paradigm for the Futureby Noah RosenbergGeorge Th ibault and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation help the Academy push progress.

Autumn 2011Autumn 2011

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Letter from the President

II am donating most of this issue’s President’s Letter to our dynamic new editor, Diana Friedman. She has

fearlessly taken on a non-trivial challenge: to improve on the tremendous work of our former editor, Adrienne Burke, who, through sheer magic, made this magazine intellectually rich and stylistically and vi-sually compelling on a shoestring.

Now comes Diana, who, as you will see, has committed to enhancing the inti-macy of our magazine at a time when we have fully emerged from a dark period in the 194 years of Academy life and are on the cusp of an extraordinary era, leading directly into our Bicentennial Celebration in the spring of 2017. Diana’s intelligence, curiosity, and great personal warmth will help her in her quest to serve your career and intellectual needs, as well as touch you emotionally. But she will need your help as well, through comments, ideas, critiques when needed, and the occa-sional praise when deserved. I know you will join me in welcoming Editor Diana Friedman.

Ellis RubinsteinPresident & CEO

From the Editor

Dear Members,I am thrilled to introduce myself as

the new editor of Th e New York Acad-emy of Sciences Magazine. My goal for this publication is two-fold: 1) to meet your needs for timely and scientifi cal-ly relevant content and 2) to create an outlet for connecting with and learn-ing from other Academy members—a member community that thrives in the pages of the magazine.

I hope to hear from many of you in the coming months, via e-mail, phone, or in person at Academy events, about your own ideas for the magazine.

Th e topic of this issue’s cover sto-ry is translational science—through which basic science discoveries be-come clinical therapeutics. Transla-tional science is both a hot topic in the science world and a fi tting fi rst topic for me to cover. My father was recently a participant in a phase II BRAF gene inhibitor trial for advanced melanoma at the NYU Cancer Institute. So, it was a great honor for me to interview Academy Member Napoleone Ferrara (page 22), who spearheaded much of the primary research on the role of vascular endothelial growth factor,

or VEGF, in angiogenesis, which led to groundbreaking clinical trials for cancer-ous tumors.

What Ferrara and other researchers gave my father was so much more than a drug. It was several months of seemingly healthy, high-quality life, in the midst of an otherwise relentless, multi-year dis-ease process. It was hope, in a pill.

Ferrara and countless other scientists center their lives’ work around, on the sur-face, something very minute—a specifi c protein or a gene. However, through trans-lation, their work becomes about some-thing much larger: life and its promotion.

Translational science is, therefore, more than a buzzword: it is a pathway to better living. I urge all of you to read our cover story (page 16) and join the con-versation. I welcome your feedback and I look forward to a fruitful relationship.

Warmly,

Diana FriedmanExecutive Editor212.298.8645dfriedman@nyas.org

Introducing a New Editor

New Technology AlertIn the spirit of streamlining the exchange of information, we have introduced QR codes (the square barcodes you have likely seen in consumer magazines). These codes, also called snap tags, allow you to “snap” a photo of the barcode with your smart phone and go directly to the webpage to which it is linked. No need to tediously type URLs from the pages of the magazine to get to the information you want.

To download a code reader, search for a “QR code reader” app on your phone and follow the instructions. Happy snapping!

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yourScientificKNOWLEDGE.

FULL SUBSCRIPTION TO NATURE!

Stay abreast of the most important developments in science, and those that matter most to your scientifi c career. Receive Nature as part of your Academy Professional Membership!

For more information contact the Academy Customer Service Department or access the Member Center.

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Annals is the premier publication of the Academy, off ering review articles in topical areas and proceedings of conferences. Learn more and order copies at www.nyas.org/annals.

Annals Highlights

Perhaps you have seen the advertisements by actor Sally Field for a drug, remark-ably taken only four times a year, to treat osteoporosis—the weakening of certain bones that occurs especially aft er meno-pause, when natural bone loss speeds up. Other ads for osteoporosis medications even suggest that a single injection of a similar drug taken just once a year can help reverse osteoporosis. What are these drugs, with such potency that they need be taken so rarely? And what do they do?

Th e story of bisphosphonates—the chemical name for this class of drugs—begins unremarkably in the 19th century. It was not until the 1960s that bisphos-phonates began to be used specifi cally to

treat disorders of bone metabolism, and 30 years later, the mechanism of action of bisphosphonates was fi nally understood. Th ese compounds are potent inhibitors of specifi c cells—called osteoclasts—that remove bone. Th is suppressive eff ect on osteoclasts leads to slowing of bone re-modeling and increases bone mineral density—both essential for preventing bone fractures and the key reasons why bisphosphonates are increasingly pre-scribed for patients with osteoporosis. According to the FDA, 10 million people in the U.S. alone have osteoporosis.

Aside from treating weak, aging bones, bisphosphonates are also used to manage bone metastases to areas such as the pelvis

and ribs. Oft en, when cancer cells invade bone from another site in the body they cause bone loss through the production of normally unharmful signaling mol-ecules such as cytokines and interleukins. Bisphosphonates counteract these eff ects by, again, slowing bone remodeling pro-cesses, thus preserving intact bone and preventing bone pain, hypercalcemia, and other skeletal disorders.

While all of this indicates the clini-cal benefi ts of bisphosphonates, there have been problems associated with their use, including the development of what is referred to as osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ)—severe lesions that develop in the jaw. In 2003, the fi rst cases of intraoral le-sions of exposed bone occurring in patients who were taking bisphosphonates long-term were reported. Although rare, cancer patients and, more rarely, those with osteo-porosis treated with bisphosphonates, de-veloped these ONJ lesions, especially aft er dental trauma or tooth extractions.

In May 2007, the fi rst international meeting on bisphosphonate-associated ONJ was held in New York City. Th e meeting was sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences in conjunction with the Columbia University College of Phy-sicians and Surgeons and the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. Th e meeting brought together endocri-nologists, oncologists, bone biologists, oral maxillofacial surgeons, and dentists to discuss benefi ts of bisphosphonates and their association with ONJ. Th e An-nals volume stemming from that confer-ence, Bisphosphonates and Osteonecrosis of the Jaw, presents eight scholarly articles on multiple aspects of bisphosphonate use, epidemiology, and health benefi ts.

Th ere is no doubt that the class of bis-phosphonate drugs has benefi ted many people by strengthening bone and pre-venting other skeletal problems associated with aging and cancer. Bisphosphonates and Osteonecrosis of the Jaw provides a unique collection of perspectives and facts for both clinical and lay audiences.

Treating Osteoporosis and Cancer Metastasis to Bone

Edited by John P. Bilezikian and John T. Grbic (Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, New York, New York)Volume 1218 // ISBN 978-1-57331-710-8

Bisphosphonates and Osteonecrosis of the Jaw

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 5

Th e population demographics of the world are changing rapidly. In the United States alone the number of people over the age of 65 increased from 3 to 33 mil-lion in less than a century—an 11-fold in-crease. It is now widely accepted that the momentous changes in human morbidity and life span are infl uenced by several fac-tors, but two in particular: nutrition and physical activity. Among other things, this univocal focus on the benefi ts of nutrition and physical activity is clear from the in-creasing number of TV commercials and news reports about the benefi ts of healthy eating and exercise.

Increasingly, however, it is diffi cult to discern which recommendations are the ones to follow, especially with regard to exercise. While few would argue with the claim that at least some regular exer-cise leads to healthier living and—with enough exercise—decreased disease and morbidity, how much exercise, and what type (running? swimming? walking?) is best? What’s more, sound nutrition rec-

ommendations are perhaps even less ob-vious, save common sense ones like “eat-ing less saturated fat and sugar reduces the chances of heart disease and diabetes.”

Th us, there remain many perplexing areas in the sciences of nutrition and of physical activity, not only to average con-sumers but to scientists as well. Th e recent Annals volume Nutrition and Physical Activity in Aging, Obesity, and Cancer ex-plores some of the latest research devel-opments on the roles of these two critical lifestyle components. Stemming from the International Conference on Nutrition and Physical Activity in Aging, Obesity, and Cancer 2011, held February 16–19, 2011, in Gyeongju, South Korea, which gathered experts from a variety of health science and biomedical specialties, this volume provides an integrative, multi-disciplinary forum for exploration of less well-known issues in the sciences of nu-trition and physical activity that may have direct eff ects on health and disease states and on the underlying causes of aging, obesity, and cancer.

Nutrition and Physical Activity in Ag-ing, Obesity, and Cancer presents review articles that span multiple biological lev-els, refl ecting the complexity of the mech-anisms underlying good health or illness. With the rising costs of health care and medical interventions, there has been a growing interest in preventative medicine. Refl ecting this trend, the volume includes recent work examining dietary regula-tion of hormone receptor signaling and hippocampal neurogenesis; the hormetic range and utility of dietary phytochemi-cals and nutraceuticals in modulating in-fl ammation; metabolic stress and infl am-mation in relation to obesity and cancer; the relationship between physical activity and changes in DNA; and the necessity of using gene-wide association studies to

This Mortal Coil: Unraveling Longevity

Recent Annals

Basic and Clinical Ocular Motor and Vestibular ResearchEdited by Janet Rucker (Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY) and David Zee (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD)Volume 1233, September 2011ISBN 978-1-57331-843-3

Barrett’s Esophagus: The 10th OESO World Congress ProceedingsEdited by Robert Giuli (Deputy Director of OESO, Executive Director of the OESO Foundation, Paris, France), Reza Shaker (Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI), and Asad Umar (National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD)Volume 1232, September 2011ISBN 978-1-57331-829-7

Social Neuroscience: Gene, Environment, Brain, BodyEdited by Bruce S. McEwen (The Rockefeller University, New York, NY), Huda Akil (University of Michigan), Jack D. Barchas (Weill Medical College of Cornell University), and Mary Jeanne Kreek (The Rockefeller University, New York, NY)Volume 1231, August 2011ISBN 978-1-57331-840-2

The Evolution of Infectious Agents in Relation to SexEdited by André Nahmias and Susa Beckman Nahmias (Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Epidemiology and Immunology Division, Department of Pediatrics and School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA) and Dan Danielsson (Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, University Hospital, Örebro, Sweden)Volume 1230, August 2011ISBN 978-1-57331-819-8

help identify genetic biomarkers that may point to clinical outcomes.

Collectively, Nutrition and Physical Activity in Aging, Obesity, and Cancer presents a timely perspective on biomed-ical advances at the intersection of life-style factors, health, and well-being—in the quest to improve longevity and qual-ity of life.

Nutrition and Physical Activity in Aging, Obesity, and Cancer

Edited by Young-Joon Surh, Yong Sang Song, Jae Yong Han, Tae Won Jun, and Hye-Kyung Na (Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea)Volume 1229, July 2011 // ISBN 978-1-57331-842-6

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Annals Highlights

Concepts and theories of the self have been around since antiquity; these theo-ries have been so disparate that the term self has assumed radically diff erent mean-ings given diff erent frames of reference, be they from early religious doctrines of the soul, from psychoanalysis, or from current research in neuroscience and neuroethics. Th e Annals volume entitled Perspectives on the Self: Conversations on Identity and Consciousness is the re-sult of a six-part panel discussion series, from December 2010 through May 2011, organized by the Nour Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, that brought together experts from science and the humanities for an interdisciplin-ary conversation on the evolving meaning and experience of the self. Th e volume presents edited transcripts of the lively panel discussions; invited papers from panelists follow each discussion. Th e in-terdisciplinary nature of the discussions and papers should appeal to both lay per-sons and scholars, given the widespread

fascination with the topic.Th e fi rst panel, entitled “To be or not

to be: the self as illusion,” moderated by Krista Tippett, of American Public Me-dia’s “On Being,” includes philosophers Th omas Metzinger (University of Mainz, Germany), Evan Th ompson (University of Toronto), and cardiologist and expert on near-death experiences Pim van Lom-mel (Hospital Rijnstate, the Netherlands), who examine recent developments in neuroscience and philosophy that shed light on whether our conscious experi-ence of a unifi ed self is reality or illusion. A paper on near-death experiences fol-lows, in which van Lommel discusses his contention that our consciousness does not always coincide with the functioning of our brain.

Next, “Quid pro quo: the ecology of the self,” moderated by Steve Paulson, producer and interviewer for public ra-dio’s “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” joined philosopher and neurobiologist Owen Flanagan (Duke University), and psychologists Paul Bloom (Yale Univer-sity) and Roy Baumeister (Florida State University) to examine current biologi-cal, psychological, and anthropological research on the complex interaction be-tween the self and others, and consider the roots of empathy and morality.

Th e panel entitled “Th e pursuit of im-mortality: from the ego to the soul” joined Lisa Miller from Newsweek with evolu-tionary biologist Kenneth Miller (Brown University) and theologians John Haught (Georgetown University) and Nancey Murphy (Fuller Th eological Seminary) to discuss the questions, Are we immortal?, Do our souls exist beyond our bodies?, and What scientifi c evidence is there for mystical experience? In papers that fol-low, Haught and Murphy introduce dis-tinctly Christian perspectives regarding

the nature of the self that are meant to stand with the very best scientifi c infor-mation available today.

Th e fourth section, entitled “A self-fulfi lling prophecy: linking belief to be-havior,” moderated by Esther Sternberg, author of Healing Spaces: Th e Science of Place and Well-being, surveys how the self is shaped by interactions with the envi-ronment. Sternberg then presents a paper from the perspective of a neurobiologist-immunologist and shows how self-fulfi ll-ing prophecies might trigger behaviors that play a role in healing. Shaun Gallagh-er’s paper discusses our increased under-standing of the neurobiological function of the brain in relation to classical Car-tesian representations versus embodied self theories. In his paper, Varadaraja V. Raman explores historical and evolving ideas of free will.

In the section “Me, myself, and I: the rise of the modern self,” moderated by Robert Hanna (University of Colorado), historians Gerald Izenberg (Washington University, St. Louis) and Jerrold Seigel (New York University), philosopher Ray-mond Martin (University of Maryland and Union College), and sociologist Nor-bert Wiley (University of Illinois) trace the evolution of the meaning of the self from antiquity to the present and con-sider how the self described by classical philosophers matches the reality of what we know about ourselves from human ex-perience and research. Papers follow from Hanna, Izenberg, and Wiley.

In the fi nal section, “Who am I? Be-yond ‘I think, therefore I am,’ ” moderated by Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics), neuro-philosopher Elie Dur-ing (University of Paris, Ouest Nanterre), cognitive scientist David Jopling (York University, Canada), social psychologist Timothy Wilson (University of Virginia), and ethicist Frances Kamm (Harvard Uni-versity) examine the diffi culty of achiev-ing genuine self-knowledge and how the pursuit of self-knowledge plays a role in shaping the self.

Conversations on Identity and Consciousness

Perspectives on the Self: Conversations on Identity and Consciousness

Edited by Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences staff Volume 1234

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Reports from the directors of Academy programs and news about Academy activities. Read more online at www.nyas.org/academynews.

Inside the Academy

Th e Academy Human Rights of Scientists Committee presented American computer scientist Jack Minker and Indian pediatri-cian Binayak Sen with the 2011 Heinz R. Pagels Award on Sep-tember 22 for their tireless work in promoting human rights.

Minker, an authority on artifi cial intelligence, led the fi ght for the release of many computer scientists who were imprisoned for their work during his time as vice-chairman of the Commit-tee of Concerned Scientists.

“It is a distinct privilege to know that the fi rst Pagels Award was bestowed upon the great physicist, human rights advocate, and Nobel laureate, Andre Sakharov, whom I have admired since the 1970s,” said Minker during his acceptance speech.

“Physicians in other countries are born into or gain access to the upper stratum of society, but their work oft en takes them to the other side,” said Henry Greenberg, chair of the Academy Hu-man Rights of Scientists Committee, in his introductory remarks about Sen, a pediatrician and community health specialist who has devoted his life to working with the poor. Sen’s human rights activism on behalf of impoverished indigenous tribal people has resulted in his persecution by Indian authorities. Sen is currently on bail in India. Mary Ganguli, a friend and colleague from the University of Pittsburgh, accepted the award on his behalf, read-ing a statement written by Sen.

A surprise guest, the 2009 Heinz R. Pagels Award co-re-cipient, Kamiar Alaei, also addressed the Academy. Alaei, who shared the award with his brother, Arash Alaei, was recognized for his work in bringing attention to the issue of HIV/AIDS in Iran, as well as leading eff orts for prevention and treatment.

Alaei talked about his time in prison from 2008 to 2010. Learn-ing that he and his brother had won the Heinz R. Pagels award gave them renewed strength and hope. “I didn’t know I had such a big family, but now I am part of it,” said Alaei. “Th rough the Acad-emy, I am now a citizen of the world, not just where I was born.”

Th e recipients’ speeches struck a chord with many in atten-dance. “Th e idea of scientists being involved in human rights is very important because there’s a tendency to think of scien-tists as aloof and not interested in getting involved in the po-litical ramifi cations of human rights. But of course they do get involved, and they should get involved,” said Academy member Victor Sendax.

Scientists Without Borders, the Academy’s web-based community that enables scientists to collaborate on science- and technology-based solutions to solve the world’s most pressing global develop-ment challenges, has been named a Katerva Award 2011 Finalist.

Katerva selects fi ve fi nalists in each of 10 categories of sus-tainability, choosing “game-changing” programs that enable the global community to live sustainably on the planet. Scientists Without Borders, a public/private partnership led by the Acad-emy, was named a fi nalist in the category of behavioral change, a category that recognizes initiatives that educate, raise aware-ness, and provide a forum for global change. Aft er all, “the best technologies can do little to save the planet if individuals do not decide to use them,” according to a Katerva statement.

Shaifali Puri, executive director of Scientists Without Bor-ders, notes that it was an honor to be named a fi nalist, given the caliber of the other co-fi nalists. “Our co-fi nalists are some

of the most innovative and viable programs and projects eff ecting real global change,” says Puri. “We are honored to be included among them, and to have been selected pursu-ant to such a rigorous review process.”

More than 500 people play a role in six fi ltering phases and 12 stages of focused re-view that lead to the selection of Katerva fi nalists and the se-lection of the winner in each category. Th e grand prize

Human Rights Committee Presents Award, Welcomes Surprise Guest

Scientists Without Borders Named Katerva Award Finalist

Ellis Rubinstein, Jack Minker, Henry Greenberg, Mary Ganguli, and Kamiar Alaei at the Heinz R. Pagels Awards at the Academy, September 22, 2011

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winner will be selected by a panel of global leaders and will be announced in December.

However, Puri states that the real excitement is not the honor itself, but the possibilities it presents. “We are thrilled that due to the Katerva Award process, a wider community can be made aware of the work we and others do, and hopefully through awareness be inspired to lend their expertise and resources to our shared global challenges.”

Recently, Scientists Without Borders designed and launched a global Maternal Health and Nutrition Challenge, which sought to combat birth defects and infant mortality by off ering a $10,000 prize to fi nd innovative methods to enable women in the devel-oping world to fortify staple foods with folic acid at the home and community level. In 30 days, more than 60 solutions were off ered from 21 diff erent countries.

For more information and to join the Scientists Without Borders community, visit www.scientistswith-outborders.org.

To listen to a podcast about Scientists With-out Borders’ recent Maternal Health and Nu-trition Challenge, ‘snap’ the QR code—or go to www.nyas.org/whatwedo/scpodcasts.aspx.

Last year, the NYAS Education Program scored a major victory by bringing its K-12 Science Education Initiative to schools in underserved areas of New York City. Th e program addresses lag-ging achievement in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines in schools by targeting both K-12 students and educators through the Aft erschool STEM Mentoring Pro-gram and the Science Teacher Program, respectively.

Th is September, the initiative expanded to schools in New Jersey. In partnership with Citizen Schools, a national non-profi t organization that runs middle school aft erschool programs, the education initiative will focus on schools in the urban Newark area of New Jersey.

Th e Aft erschool Program places graduate students in aft er-school programs, in underserved, oft en minority-heavy areas, allowing students to learn directly from young, energetic scien-tists with diverse backgrounds.

In 2010, NYAS Aft erschool Program mentors provided more than 3,120 hours of high-quality, hands-on science activities, inspiring New York City’s most underserved children and in-stilling them with confi dence about their talents in science and math. Based on these achievements, the Academy believes that,

with the support of Citizen Schools, it can scale this model to signifi cantly impact science edu-cation in New Jersey.

To learn more about the Aft erschool Pro-gram, ‘snap’ the QR code—or go to www.nyas.org and click on the Science Education tab.

Th e Academy and the Aspen Brain Forum Foundation awarded two prizes of $7,500 each in unrestricted funds—one to a senior scientist and one to a junior investigator—for innovation and excellence in the fi eld of neuroeducation at the Second Annual Aspen Brain Forum conference, “Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning: Implications for Education,” in Aspen, CO, September 22 to 24.

President of the Aspen Brain Forum Foundation and Acad-emy President’s Council Member Glenda Greenwald announced the winners: young investigator Kimberly Lakes and senior sci-entist Usha Goswami. Both winners were chosen for their ability to translate discoveries from cognitive neuroscience into inno-vative curricula and tools that enhance learning inside or out-side of the classroom.

Kimberley Lakes, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, is currently studying approaches to physical education that could optimize eff ects on brain development.

Usha Goswami, professor of cognitive developmental neuro-science at the University of Cambridge, examines relations be-tween phonology and reading, with special reference to the neu-ral underpinnings of rhyme and rhythm in children’s reading. A major focus of her research is the brain basis of dyslexia.

Inside the Academy

Science Education Program Expands into Newark Schools

Neuroeducation Prizes Presented at Aspen Brain Forum

Kimberley Lakes, assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine; and Usha Goswami, professor, cognitive developmental neuroscience, Universtity of Cambridge

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 9

Th e Academy was asked by the Malaysian National Science and Research Council (NSRC) to undertake a comprehensive evalu-ation of Malaysia’s Public Research Institutes (national labs) and University Centers of Excellence. Th e evaluation will assess the per-formance of the institutes and centers to date, to better understand opportunities to improve Malaysian research capacity, strengthen ties to industry and communities, and accelerate innovation.

Th e study, which began in October 2011 and will continue until April 2012, is being performed by the Academy under the auspices of the Global Science and Innovation Council, with research being jointly conducted by Malaysians and Academy team members.

Data will be collected through both qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys and interviews with top policymakers, heads of labs, researchers, and external stakeholders.

At the conclusion of the study, the Academy will present the fi ndings, which will also be published in a report, to NSRC and advisory committee members. Findings from the study will in-form ongoing eff orts to evaluate and restructure Public Research

Institutes and University Centers of Excellence, as well as national policies governing these programs.

At the Academy’s 193rd Annual Meeting on September 22, Pres-ident and CEO Ellis Rubinstein delivered good news to those in attendance: the Academy is poised for rapid growth as it prepares to enter its third century in existence. Th is growth is a result of pioneering Academy programs that serve to not only bring to-gether scientifi c stakeholders, but to catalyze action around a variety of science-related initiatives.

In his presentation to the membership, COO Richard Baum explored the Academy’s place at the center of an innovation system—the intersection of assets, networks, and demographic culture. Th e Academy takes scientifi c assets, brings them into its demographic culture, and connects them through its worldwide network, explained Baum.

“We don’t just wait for someone to come up with an amazing idea and then use our network to help implement it; the Acad-emy is now coming up with the ideas and then galvanizing action through our networks,” said Rubinstein.

Academy Studying Innovation System in Malaysia Academy Poised for

Organizational Growth

“I have long been a member of the Academy and served on the Board for five years. I am a strong supporter of the Academy because it provides scientists across all fields a forum for discussing findings, debating open questions, and bringing diverse perspectives to bear on critical issues.”

– Brian Greene Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Columbia University

Support the Academy today at www.nyas.org/support or contact Kiryn Haslinger Hoffman at 212.298.8673 or email khoffman@nyas.org

Why I Support the Academy

10 www.nyas.org

Blavatnik Awards

OO n November 14, the New York Academy of Sciences marked a milestone for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Now fi nishing its fi ft h year of competitions,

the Academy—through the support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation—has recognized the achievements of 67 early-stage scientists in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

“Young scientists represent the future of scientifi c thought. By honoring these young individuals and their achievements we are helping to promote the breakthroughs in science and tech-nology that will defi ne how our world will look in 20, 50, 100 years,” says Len Blavatnik, founder and chairman of Access In-dustries and head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

Th e strong competition for grant funding presents an in-creasing challenge for scientifi c researchers. Th ose who receive fi nancial support are in a better position to bolster their early research eff orts and, in turn, their scientifi c careers. “Th is award program aff ords the Academy the opportunity to embrace re-searchers at a critical time in their careers and recognize their talent early on,” says Beatrice Renault, senior science advisor at the Academy.

Finalists and winners of the Blavatnik Awards are selected from a group of approximately 150 candidates nominated each year. Candidates must be 42 years old or younger and have made signifi cant contributions to an interdisciplinary fi eld in the life

Support SystemThe Blavatink Awards’ recognition of young scientists has proved critical to their continued success.

byline ruleby Sarah Webb

Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists winners Yaron Lipman, Michal Lipson, and Daniela Schiller are congratulated by Len Blavatnik (second from right) at the Academy’s 2010 event.

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 11

or physical sciences, mathematics, or engineering. Awards are given in two categories: faculty and postdoctoral. Faculty win-ners receive $25,000, faculty fi nalists receive $10,000, postdoc-toral winners receive $15,000, and postdoctoral fi nalists receive $5,000; all prizes are awarded in unrestricted funds.

A Vital Stepping StoneIn the fi ve years since the founding of the awards, many scien-tists recognized by this program have already achieved signifi -cant milestones in their careers. “Each year, fi nalists go on to become department chairs, win highly prestigious awards and grants, and accept faculty positions at top research institutions across the globe,” Renault says. “Th ey each exemplify the kind of curiosity, inspiration, and dedication necessary to attend to the most pressing problems of society,” she adds.

Th is early career recognition has been particularly valuable to Daniela Schiller, a postdoctoral winner in 2010 who is now an assistant professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “When you start [a faculty po-sition], the counter turns back to zero,” she says. “You have to prove yourself again. Coming in with this recognition is incred-ibly supportive. It gives you a head start.” Her laboratory now includes fi ve postdoctoral researchers and studies the neurosci-ence behind emotional control.

Steven Gubser, professor of physics at Princeton Universi-ty, was a 2008 faculty winner. He was subsequently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009. Gubser appreciates the ability of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists to bring attention not just to the award winner, but to the entire group of scientists who perform research together. “Science gets done by many good people, not by a few heroes,” says Gubser.

Community OutreachIn addition to being thankful for the attention that her 2009 win brought to her department and her research, Carmala Garzione, now chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sci-ences at the University of Rochester, has taken the opportunity to build bridges between her work and the non-scientifi c com-munity. As a result of the award, she has interacted more with the general public as a source for articles in the local media and as an invited speaker at outreach events.

“Science is at risk because of the economy,” Garzione says. “Scientists need to be communicating what they do, why it’s of value, and how confi dent we are about conclusions.” Similarly, the award has provided a focal point for Schiller to talk with lay people about her research and to focus on the interface between her work and society at large. “Th rough NYAS I’ve gotten all sorts of requests to participate in events, and I’m very happy to do it,” she says.

Gubser has used the award’s visibility to translate science to broader audiences in the form of a popular book, Th e Little Book of String Th eory, published by Princeton University press in 2010. He credits the award with boosting his optimism that this project would be successful. “I’m happy with how the book has been received,” he says. “I think it’s a win-win; I feel like I serve the fi eld, and dissemination is one of our goals as scientists.”

Congratulations to the 2011 Blavatnik Award Winners

Upward and Onward: Achievements of Past Blavatnik Awardees

The Academy and the Blavatnik Family Foundation are pleased to congratulate this year’s Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists win-ners. The winners, chosen for their outstanding contributions to life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, or engineering, are:

Johannes GehrkeProfessor, Department of Computer ScienceCornell University

Szabolcs MárkaAssociate Professor, Department of PhysicsColumbia University

Franck OuryPostdoctoral Fellow, Department of Genetics & DevelopmentColumbia University

Valentino TosattiJ.F. Ritt Assistant Professor, Department of MathematicsColumbia University

Here, the Academy presents a sampling of the many noteworthy accomplishments of past Blavatnik Awards fi nalists and winners.

Ruslan Medzhitov » (2007 faculty winner) of Yale University was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010.Valerie Horsley » (2008 postdoctoral fi nalist), previously a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University, is now an assistant professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology at Yale University. In 2010, she won a Pew Scholar Award.Tamas Horvath » (2009 faculty fi nalist) of Yale University won the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2010.Yaron Lipman » (2010 postdoctoral winner), previously a postdoctoral student at Princeton University, is now a tenure-track assistant professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Computer Science & Applied Mathematics.Michal Lipson » (2010 faculty winner) of Cornell University received a MacArthur fellowship in 2010.Agnel Sfeir » (2010 postdoctoral fi nalist), previously a postdoctoral student at The Rockefeller University, is now an assistant professor at New York University School of Medicine’s Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine.Mary Kay Lobo » (2011 postdoctoral fi nalist), previously a postdoctoral student at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is now an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology.

12 www.nyas.org

Blavatnik Awards

Refugee camps, disaster areas, and war zones lack a communication infrastructure to conduct a census, monitor health and living conditions, or to track births, deaths, and disease outbreaks.

Do YOU have a solution?

Visit Scientists Without Borders’ online platform today and offer your expertise and resources to this challenge and others. Join the worldwide effort to solve our planet’s most pressing challenges through scientific innovation.

Needed: Crisis Information System For Distressed Areas

www.scientistswithoutborders.org

Just Getting StartedWith all of this success over the fi rst fi ve years, Renault is excited for the future of the awards. “We look forward to reviewing ap-plications of this high caliber for many years to come,” she says.

“Science is crucial to the development of the world and so-ciety, but scientists need a lot of support and encouragement,” Blavatnik says. And he hopes that the program’s reputation will only increase in prominence in the years to come. “Th is is only the fi ft h year of our award; in time, I hope that it will evolve into what I would call a ‘Nobel Prize for young scientists’ with worldwide recognition and worldwide interest from young sci-entists to participate. In this way, I think we will make a real impact on the development of science and the impact of science on our society.”

Th e call for nominations for the upcoming 2012 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists opens on December 1, 2011, and closes on January 31, 2012. For more information regarding the awards program, including information on how to nominate and a list of 2011 judges, please visit the awards website at www.nyas.org/blavatnikawards.

Sarah Webb is a New York City-based journalist and PhD-pre-pared chemist who covers science, health, technology, and policy.

Publication in early 2012www.nyas.org/annals

Featuring articles by the 2011 Blavatnik award fi nalists

faculty finalistsRobert AndersonJohannes GerhrkeCharalampos KalodimosJun KorenagaSzabolcs MarkaOlga TroyanskayaGerard Wysocki

postdoc finalistsRoberto BonasioMary Kay LoboShaun OlsenFranck OuryTosatti ValentinoRuth Van de Water

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 13

Academy eBriefi ngseBriefi ngs are online multimedia reports documenting recent Academy events.

Find new and noteworthy ones previewed here and more at www.nyas.org/eBriefi ngs.Compiled by Jamie Kass and Stephanie Kelly

SShwachman-Diamond Syndrome is a rare autosomal re-cessive genetic disorder. About 90% of patients with SDS carry mutations in both copies of a gene called SBDS. Th e

SBDS gene encodes a highly conserved protein required for ribo-somes to mature. Patients with SDS usually produce insuffi cient amounts of pancreatic enzymes, leading to digestive problems, and develop specifi c immunological problems such as a shortage of neutrophils and an elevated rate of certain leukemias. Th ey also tend to have short stature and cognitive problems.

At the Sixth International Congress on Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, held at the New York Academy of Sciences on June 28 to 30, 2011, researchers met to discuss the latest work on this con-dition. Among other things, researchers are trying to determine how a mutation that aff ects ribosomal maturation gives rise to the multiple, yet specifi c, disorders associated with the syndrome.

One hypothesis, put forth by Steven Ellis of the University of Louisville, is that the SBDS protein has other functions in addi-tion to its role in translation. Nevertheless it is important to un-derstand the protein’s ribosomal function, and several research-ers discussed such eff orts in model systems, including mouse, zebrafi sh, yeast, and fruit fl ies, as well as in cell culture. Th ey have determined that the major job of SBDS is to facilitate removal of the eIF6 protein from the maturing 60S ribosomal subunit so the subunit can assemble into a complete ribosome.

Because patients with SDS are rare and tend to be scattered widely, registries are essential for collecting and centralizing ob-servational data about the disease. A panel discussion and work-

shop provided an overview of several international patient reg-istries that are collecting data on aff ected individuals. Clinicians also discussed the challenges of treating these patients, who need to see numerous physicians and who may also have behavioral disorders that make it diffi cult for them to function in daily life.

Rare diseases can off er insights into cellular and systemic processes that are pertinent to much more common disorders. Such is the case with SDS, where patients can present with he-matopoietic dysfunction and developmental defects in the brain, pancreas, and bone. Yigal Dror of the Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto and Sabrina Desbordes from the Center for Genomic Regulation found evidence that SDBS-defi cient blood cell progenitor cultures and human embryonic stem cell cultures, respectively, experience increases in apop-tosis. Outi Mäkitie from the Hospital for Children and Adoles-cents at the University of Helsinki and her colleagues analyzed bone biopsies from several SDS patients and found signifi cant low-turnover osteoporosis. In this condition, bone deteriorates through inadequate bone formation rather than through overac-tive breakdown by osteoclasts.

Researchers are taking a number of approaches to develop therapeutics for Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome. One such ap-proach was discussed by Paul de Figueiredo from Texas A&M University. Figueiredo is using the yeast Saccharomyces cer-evisiae to look for drugs that reverse the defects in cell growth caused by mutations in the yeast SBDS homolog. Alan J. War-ren of the University of Cambridge is taking a diff erent tack by searching for drugs that bypass SBDS and directly modulate the eIF6 interaction with the 60S ribosomal subunit. Together these eff orts hold promise for an eventual treatment of Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome.

—Jamie Kass, PhD

Sixth International Congress on Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome

Full eBriefi ng by Alan Dove, PhD: www.nyas.org/SDS-eB

On the Web

14 www.nyas.org

Nobel Prize–winning physicist Philip An-derson initiated his keynote lecture at this April’s Gotham-Metro Condensed Matter meeting with an unusual premise: that Francis Crick, best known for his contri-butions to biology, is “in fact a great theo-retical physicist.” From this starting point Anderson began his insightful refl ection on what makes a good physical theory (and what doesn’t). Th e problem for up-and-coming physicists, he explained, is that many very diff erent theories go some way to explaining the facts. For this rea-son, a theoretical physicist needs much more than “a rough acquaintance” with the experimental evidence to parse the good theories from the bad. If Anderson’s lecture was a recipe for being an inno-vative physicist, Tom Witten’s and Paul McEuen’s keynote talks were demonstra-tions of how to implement this advice.

Tom Witten of the University of Chi-cago revealed how a seemingly mundane phenomenon—the crumpling of a thin sheet—can challenge simple theoretical explanation. By beginning with a mathe-matical exploration of “singularities,” ver-tices and ridges, that occur in thin sheets whose properties are only possible in the mathematical (not physical) world, Wit-ten and his colleagues have been able to explain what happens to very real, thin,

stretchable sheets that are constrained. Putting Anderson’s model for innovative physics into practice, Witten verifi ed all of these theoretical results with “exten-sive numerical experiments,” and revisit-ed his initial assumptions to justify them with evidence.

Th e subject of Paul McEuen’s keynote was a diff erent kind of “thin sheet”—single atom-thick sheets of carbon called graphene. Graphene, McEuen explained, has remarkable physical, optical, and elec-tronic properties, all of which make it an extremely promising material for a wide variety of applications. McEuen’s group at Cornell University tackles both the mate-rials science side and the physics side of understanding graphene as they fi nd new ways to probe its special properties, in this case by building “tunable resonators,” or drums, from graphene.

April’s meeting also featured excit-ing talks from graduate students in con-densed matter physics who presented on everything from the behavior of solid Helium-4 and cubic colloids to the prop-erties of quantum spin systems and the topology of bubbles. —Stephanie Kelly

Each day, New York City generates 11,000 tons of municipal solid waste—enough to fi ll the Empire State Building. Motivated to reduce the environmental and manage-ment impact of this waste and to facilitate the economic growth that accompanies

“waste to energy” (WTE) technologies, the Academy’s Green Science & Envi-ronmental Policy Discussion Group con-vened “Trash Talk: Options for Convert-ing Our Solid Waste to Energy” on April 7, 2011. Talking not of “garbage” but of “biomass,” the event’s speakers reviewed the status quo of WTE technology as well as the future of this exciting fi eld.

Nickolas Th emelis of Columbia Uni-versity’s Earth Engineering Center be-gan the symposium by explaining that this was not the fi rst time that WTE had appeared on New York City’s radar as a way to deal with post-recycling material (what remains when sorting for normal recycling is over). In fact, 20 years ago a WTE scheme was all but implemented in New York City.

In the meantime, some states have pushed forward with WTE facilities, which use post-recycling material to cre-ate energy (via combustion) and to re-duce the amount of waste that makes it to a landfi ll. Not unexpectedly, the states that have increased their use of WTE technologies have also been among the most advanced in their implementation of recycling programs. New York has yet to harness the full power of WTE process-ing, but these programs are increasingly on policy-makers’ agendas.

David Demme of SAIC Energy, LLC, delved into the specifi cs of a diff erent kind of WTE technology—anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities, which deal not with post-recycling synthetics, but with organic food waste. Hunts Point Food Distribu-tion Center, the location of large produce markets that serve much of New York City, generates a large amount of organic solid waste that otherwise ends up on landfi lls. Ordinarily this waste decomposes aerobi-cally and anaerobically, but the byprod-ucts of this digestion (methane gas among them) escape into the atmosphere. AD fa-cilities control the anaerobic digestion and capture the byproducts for use as fuel.

For Mark Paisley, inventor of the Tay-lor Biomass Gasifi cation Process, biomass (or “residues”) includes not just food, but also wood, leather, other organics, and even some plastic components. Th ese

Academy eBriefi ngs

Full eBriefi ng by David Ruff ner:www.nyas.org/GMCMM5-eB

On the Web

From Crumpling Geometries to Graphene Materials

Trash Talk: Options for Converting Our Solid Waste to Energy

Full eBriefi ng by Brett VanLandingham: www.nyas.org/WasteToEnergy-eB

On the Web

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 15

residues can be broken down not through combustion but through a controlled heating process to produce a gas similar in composition to natural gas. Th is gas can even replace natural gas as the fuel for some processes.

According to Paisley, all metro areas with more than 250,000 people could support a gasifi cation facility of this sort, and thereby substantially reduce the por-tion of their waste that occupies landfi lls.

Taylor Biomass has already established a working plant in Upstate New York, and Paisley explained how the physical and environmental attributes of the facility could be altered to adapt such a plant to New York City’s particular waste disposal and energy needs.

—Stephanie Kelly

Th e medical community in low-resource environments has unique needs. Scientists Without Borders, a web-based collabora-tive community, was created specifi cally to address these types of needs by uniting stakeholders and individuals worldwide to develop and advance innovative and eff ective science and technology-based solutions to critical global development challenges. On June 30, 2011, the New York Academy of Sciences’ Science Alli-ance and Scientists Without Borders co-

hosted the workshop “Innovating on a Shoestring: Medical Technologies for the Developing World,” supported by the Jo-siah Macy Jr. Foundation.

Executive Director Shaifali Puri showed how the Scientists Without Bor-ders community can be utilized success-fully and introduced a group who has done just that, the Earth Team—commu-nity members and third-place winners in the global Maternal Health and Nutri-tion Challenge. Th e group described how they fi nd challenges posted on sites like Innocentive and Scientists Without Bor-ders and then work together in short but intense problem-solving sessions. Using this approach, they have won several ma-jor challenges and are currently partner-ing with on-the-ground organizations to implement some of their solutions.

Next, Jacqueline Linnes and Anna Young, from MIT’s Innovations in Inter-national Health Lab, provided examples of innovations from scientists, technolo-gists, designers, and others who are ap-plying their skills to meet the medical and health needs of the world’s poorest communities. Th ey presented the prac-tical design principals and attributes for aff ordable global health technologies and advocated the creation of technologies in cooperation with the end-user. To secure funding, they suggested either using the technology to answer a research question or creating dual-use technologies that are useful in both developed markets and in the developing world.

To demonstrate these principles in action, the presenters concluded the workshop with an example of a low-cost medical device: a nebulizer for asthma medication. Th ough the cause of asthma is not known, the condition is prevalent in low-resource communities, where it is exacerbated by air pollution.

To keep the conversation going, a Medical Technologies for the Developing World Discussion Group was formed on the Scientists Without Borders website. Attendees were encouraged to join the group and also to look at the Challenges and Exchange sections of the website. —Jamie Kass, PhD

Innovating on a Shoestring: Medical Technologies for the Developing World

Full eBriefi ng by Monica Kerr, PhD: www.nyas.org/MedicalTechnologies-eB

On the Web

Recent & Upcoming eBriefi ngs

Thinking About Teaching: Myths and 1. Realities of Becoming an Educatorwww.nyas.org/Educator-eBSirtuins, Longevity, and Adaptations 2. to Nutrient Availabilitywww.nyas.org/Sirtuins-eBFacing the Elements: Transportation 3. System Resilience in an Era of Extreme Weather and Climate Changewww.nyas.org/TransportationSystem-eBGlobal Metabolite Profi ling: The Fast-4. Track for Functional Genomicswww.nyas.org/Metabolome2-eBAchieving Urban Infrastructure 5. Effi ciencies Through Building Networks www.nyas.org/BuildingNetworks-eBAdvancing Drug Discovery for 6. Schizophreniawww.nyas.org/Schizophrenia2011-eBLeadership and Personal Success 7. Through Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligencewww.nyas.org/PersonalSuccess-eBThe Art & Science of Modernist 8. Cuisine: An Evening with Nathan Myhrvoldwww.nyas.org/Cuisine-eBRNAi-based Genetic Screening: Past, 9. Present & Futurewww.nyas.org/RNAiScreen-eBAutism Spectrum Disorders: From 10. Genes to Targets to Treatmentswww.nyas.org/Autism-eBCracking the Safe: Advances in HIV / 11. AIDS Prevention and Treatmentwww.nyas.org/AIDS2-eBFare and Toll Payment Technologies: 12. Potential Benefi ts for Sustainability and Societywww.nyas.org/FareAndToll-eBFrom Strained Suspensions to 13. Magnetoelectronic Materials: 4th Gotham-Metro Condensed Matter Meeting 2010www.nyas.org/GMCMM4-eBThe Non-Academic Job Search: 14. Target the Job, Tailor the Approachwww.nyas.org/jobsearch-eBTargeting Synaptic Dysfunction in 15. Alzheimer’s Diseasewww.nyas.org/synapse-eB

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Cover Story

Closing the

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Translational Science

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TT he term “translational science” itself is troublesome. Th is increasingly trendy term is oft en used to talk about a specifi c fi eld of science or type of scientist. But accord-

ing to many of the scientists featured in this cover story, trans-lational science is best thought of as a process: the long, complex process of making scientifi c discoveries and, through additional research and clinical trials, turning those discoveries into viable therapeutics targeted to specifi c disease states.

Th is process involves many people, much money, and, admit-tedly, some failure. Consider the following quote: “Translation of biomedical research into safe and eff ective clinical applications remains a slow, expensive, and failure-prone endeavor.”

Th e words of an incurable pessimist? Not quite; these words were written by NIH Director Francis S. Collins in a commen-tary in Science Translational Medicine in July 2011. Collins’ as-sessment is not unfair: for a new drug, the average length of time from target discovery to approval is approximately 13 years, and the vast majority of compounds fail or are abandoned at some point during testing, aft er a staggeringly high investment into their development.

It is not surprising then, that new ways of bringing about translation are being taken up by leading scientifi c organiza-tions, including the NIH and the New York Academy of Sci-ences, both of which recently introduced new initiatives. Th ese initiatives represent more than new ideas and, in some cases, new buildings: they represent real-life eff orts to connect and support the many scientists and medical professionals from di-verse backgrounds and fi elds of study who, through their work, make translation happen.

With such eff orts on the horizon, the outlook for transla-tional science is improving; it has to, according to many experts. Th e reimagining of how translation happens is not only a loft y goal, but a societal necessity to deal with rising rates of disease and disability.

On the following pages, we take a look at the issue of trans-lational science from a variety of perspectives: academia, indus-try, government, and yes, even Hollywood, helping us to explore translation through the widest possible lens.

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Cover Story

Putting Brain Power behind Brain DiseaseA new partnership between the New York Academy of Sciences and One Mind for Research aims to hasten the translation of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia research.

II n the scientifi c community, the past 50 years have brought about a bounty of basic science discoveries, and with it, much excitement about potential applications for this

knowledge. In the medical community, by contrast, the past 50 years have been marked by an upswing in chronic, disabling dis-ease, and much anxiety about both the resulting human toll and related costs.

Despite a proliferation of groundbreaking life sciences re-search, the rate of therapeutic development has not matched the rate at which disease is affl icting the U.S. population, particu-larly in the realm of neurological and psychiatric disorders. For example, while the annual cost burden of Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. is $170 billion, only fi ve drugs are approved to treat it, and none eff ectively modify or treat the underlying cause. Con-sider that four million people currently suff er from Alzheimer’s disease, with that number projected to grow to 14 million by 2050. How will our already struggling health care system fare under this staggering burden?

Th e simplifi ed answer to this conundrum is to accelerate life sciences research and development to more quickly turn basic science discoveries into clinical therapeutics. Th e question of how to go about such a task is, however, not so simple. Timely translation is countered by a perfect storm of challenges: lack of pre-competitive collaboration among basic scientists, physi-cians, industry scientists, and government; little consensus on best practices in translational science; inadequate representation of certain patient populations in current drug development ef-forts; and a shortage of scientists trained to meet the challenges of translational science.

It will take strong intra- and inter-institutional partnerships to overcome these barriers and to bring about the changes necessary to eff ect real translational science progress. To this end, the Acad-emy recently announced the creation of its Translational Science Initiative, strategically designed to support the translation of sci-entifi c discovery from the laboratory to patient care applications by bringing together stakeholders in research and medicine, re-gardless of institution, region, or discipline. Th e initiative will be

scalable to a variety of scientifi c fi elds and disease states, with the goal of adding new modules on a continual basis.

For its launch, the Academy’s Translational Science Initia-tive has partnered with One Mind for Research, a coalition of research scientists, universities, government agencies, industry, and advocacy groups dedicated to improving the health and functioning of the 100 million Americans who suff er with a dis-order of the brain or central nervous system. Th is partnership represents the creation of a powerhouse of participants, ideas, infrastructure, and resources, all directed toward the goal of accelerating progress in the development of disease-modifying therapies for the most devastating and costly diseases, starting with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Th rough a variety of methods—conferences and workshops, public advocacy events, academic and lay publications, policy whitepapers, entrepreneurship training, career mentoring, and working groups designed to form new pre-competitive partner-ships—the Academy will develop a robust network that links individuals across disciplines and sectors to foster a culture of communication, collaboration, and coordination in the area of neurological disease.

Th e Academy, together with One Mind for Research, will use each organization’s strengths to develop and implement an agen-da that tackles regulatory issues, advances basic science, and ac-celerates the development of improved diagnostics, preventative measures, and disease-modifying therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Th e need could not be clearer: based on mortality data from 2000 to 2008, death rates have declined for most ma-jor diseases while deaths from Alzheimer’s disease have risen 66% during the same period. It’s time to put good science, and strong organizations, to work to reverse alarming trends in neurological disease.

Brooke Grindlinger and Sonya Dougal are the director of scientifi c programs and senior program manager of life sciences, respectively, at the New York Academy of Sciences.

byline ruleby Brooke Grindlinger and Sonya Dougal

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 19

Translational Science onthe Big ScreenW. Ian Lipkin contributes to the pandemic thriller Contagion.

W W Ian Lipkin, Th e John Snow Professor of Epidemi-ology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, recently found himself mentoring a

new kind of student—the Hollywood variety. Lipkin, also direc-tor of the Center for Infection and Immunity, served as senior technical advisor for Contagion, the pandemic thriller released in September 2011. Th e advising process started three years ear-lier, when the Academy member was recruited to work on the big-budget fi lm.

NYAS: Why did you sign on as an advisor for Contagion?Lipkin: I had been asked to review movies in the past and most of the time, my reviews were negative. Th is was the fi rst time I signed on to help in the creation of a movie. I was very impressed with the screenwriter, Scott Z. Burns, because he came to this with no preconceived notions. Both Scott and the director, Ste-ven Soderbergh, were committed to a strong scientifi c founda-tion (incidentally, they’re both kids of academics, so they grew up in that tradition).

Additionally, the movie provided a unique opportunity to educate millions of viewers about the challenges—scientifi c, po-litical, economic, logistical, and humanistic—of emerging infec-tious diseases, and the opportunities we have to address them.

NYAS: How does the topic of the movie relate to what you do on a daily basis?Lipkin: Our Center is known for its work in pathogen discovery, surveillance, diagnostics, and immunotherapeutics. We have programs in the developing world, including one focused on the Nipah virus, the inspiration for the virus in the fi lm.

NYAS: In which aspects of the movie-making process were you involved? Lipkin: I presented several scenarios for the pandemic, and rec-ommended the one that was selected. Th ereaft er, Craig Street, a bioinformatician at the Center for Infection and Immunity, and I designed the virus by downloading existing viral sequences from a GenBank database and stitching them together. We then created three dimensional virus models based on structures of Nipah and Hendra, which were solved by Bowden and col-leagues at Oxford, and described its evolution over the course of the pandemic.

I also helped with dialogue; made suggestions for props, set, makeup, and costume design; helped to train actors in the spe-cifi cs of laboratory work; and connected the crew and cast to laboratory and public health scientists for expertise and insights I could not provide. We also recorded portions of the soundtrack at Columbia—biocontainment doors opening and closing, whir-ring centrifuges, cages rolling down hallways.

NYAS: Do you feel that the fi nished movie accurately represents the work of an infectious disease scientist? Lipkin: Consultants don’t, nor should they, have control of the fi nished work. Nonetheless, I am pleased with the outcome and the feedback from my colleagues has been positive too.

Th ere are minor issues like the time from virus discovery to having a vaccine might be six months rather than four, or that the incubation period is too short. But by and large, the movie is scientifi cally plausible. Furthermore, it shouldn’t take six months to make and distribute a vaccine. We can do better.

NYAS: How does this fi lm address the issue of translational science?Lipkin: In this fi lm, we’re trying to engender interest in support-ing translational work: developing vaccines, drugs, and diagnos-tics to reduce the impact of disease.

We think this fi lm is timely because there is a threat to science funding at all levels: state, federal, and global. Th is fi lm makes the case for why it’s important to not only maintain support, but increase it. Th e risks are too great.

NYAS: What are your biggest professional priorities when faced with a new microbial threat?Lipkin: I start out with a series of questions: What is it? Where did it come from? How is it transmitted? What does it do and how? Where is it going? Is it stable or is its pathogenicity chang-ing? Is everyone equally vulnerable, and if not, why not?

My action items include answering the questions, building and implementing diagnostic tools for clinical management and surveillance, and establishing countermeasures.

W. Ian Lipkin at the New York City premiere of Contagion on Sep 7, 2011.

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Cover Story

From ‘The Valley of Death’to Lifesaving Therapeutics:The Role of Academic Medical Centers

II don’t like the distinc-tion between basic and translational science; sci-

ence should be seamless,” says Laurie Glimcher, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean, Weill Cornell Medical Col-lege, eff ective January 2012. Glimcher is supported in her viewpoint by many of her col-leagues in the academic medi-cal center community.

“No matter what we call the discovery and development of new therapeutic drugs, it’s critical for the future of patient care that we focus on break-throughs in therapeutics,” says Kenneth L. Davis, president and CEO, Mount Sinai Medical Center.

For Glimcher, who spends the majority of her professional life in a laboratory, her training as a physician still informs her desire to translate laboratory discoveries into viable clinical treatments. Th is is the quintessential mission of an academic medical center: to bring together clinical and scientifi c resourc-es, with a greater duty of service to humankind. Th is mission is further supported by the Bayh-Doyle Act, a federal mandate that requires academic medical centers to develop discoveries at the bench into benefi ts for patients, notes Glimcher.

In order to move translation forward, clinicians and scien-tists must interact. “We need great clinicians who understand how to interface with laboratory scientists, we need scientists to ask research questions that are relevant to disease, and we need bridges that connect the two groups,” says David S. Stephens, vice president for research, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University. “Th is happens in academic medical centers, but it doesn’t happen well in all of them.”

Medical Model of Choice“We have never lived in a time when opportunities were greater in biomedical research,” says Davis. And, as pharmaceutical in-

terests increasingly move from discovery to development, ac-ademic medical centers must play a leading role in seizing these opportunities.

Jeff rey Bluestone, execu-tive vice chancellor and pro-vost, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), be-lieves that one way to greatly increase translation is to focus “our incredible science on hu-mans as the complex medical model of choice.”

“To me, one of the most exciting post-human genome and technology advancements is thinking about the human organism as a place to do cut-

ting-edge research, just like mice were our organism of choice in the past.” To do that, says Bluestone, academic medical centers will need to engage faculty and students in areas of human bi-ology while improving existing infrastructure (data and tissue banks, bioinformatics technology, etc.) so that it is up to the task of human research.

Incentives NeededDespite the incredible research opportunities aff orded by an in-crease in scientifi c knowledge, academic medical centers are faced with many challenges that make the realization of translation an uphill climb. Declining Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement leads to clinicians with packed patient schedules, leaving less time for vital collaboration with laboratory-based scientists, who are themselves faced with a dearth of research funds.

“Ninety-three percent of grants are turned down. A basic sci-entist will write their best grant in the area with which they are most comfortable and oft en that isn’t an area of disease,” says Da-vis. Th is underscores a critical need in academic medical centers: fi nding ways to incentivize both laboratory-based scientists and clinicians to spend more time working together and, ultimately, to make progress in creating new therapeutics for disease.

byline ruleby Diana Friedman

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 21

Many academic medical centers are providing incentives on an institutional level, by investing large amounts of fi nancial and organizational resources to create physical spaces that support the day-to-day process of translation. For example, new build-ings are being created at Weill Cornell Medical College and Mount Sinai Medical Center to foster closer collaboration be-tween clinicians and laboratory-based scientists, blurring the lines between such disciplines to create the ‘seamless science’ of Glimcher’s vision.

Putting scientists and clinicians from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in close proximity to each other is useful both for its practicality and its ability to drive culture change. “Many of our faculty are used to, and very successful at, working indepen-dently or with a few collaborators,” says Bluestone. “We need to fi nd ways to allow faculty to overcome barriers to communication and collaboration.” Having a building where scientists, clinicians, and students with varying de-grees and areas of expertise work side-by-side is one way to facilitate a free exchange of information and ideas.

Reaching OutIn addition to new initiatives that pool intra-institutional resources, partnerships be-tween academic medical cen-ters are key, says Glimcher. “Here in New York, we have the so-called four corners—New York Presbyterian, Me-morial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Th e Rockefeller University. We all have unique strengths, so we want to lever-age those to avoid duplicating eff orts. It’s more cost eff ective.”

At the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI), partnerships span three academic institutions—Em-ory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Georgia Institute of Technology—as well as a variety of health care and non-profi t partners. All of these organizations pool resources “to rapidly and effi ciently translate scientifi c discoveries to impact all populations of the Atlanta community,” says Stephens, who is the institute’s principal investigator.

Oft en, the results of these initiatives reach well beyond At-lanta. For example, ACTSI scientist Bali Pulendran recently published a systems biology approach to determine innate and adaptive responses to infl uenza vaccination, providing a new platform to predict vaccine immunogenicity and establishing new mechanistic insights for vaccine development.

Educating the EducatorsAnother way to incentivize both scientists and clinicians to ex-pend more time and professional resources on the development of disease-modifying compounds is to provide professional education that emphasizes the skills necessary for translation. Some schools now off er master’s degrees in clinical sciences or

translational science, in which physicians learn to become clini-cal researchers.

UCSF, a health sciences campus, recently developed ties with a local law school to help researchers learn about issues such as confl ict of interest and consent forms. And ACTSI hosted a fo-rum, in partnership with industry, to teach laboratory-based sci-entists about the process of creating a therapeutic product—an area most of those in attendance had never learned about before.

Such ties with industry are vital to avoiding the so-called val-ley of death—that stage where development of a previously prom-ising compound languishes and dies—says Bluestone. “We need a diff erent model of partnership with industry. Not one where industry licenses a drug from us and they tell us to go away, or one where industry provides us with money to do research and we tell them to go away.” At UCSF, Pfi zer locates full-time scien-tists on the university campus, leading to greater interaction and

better understanding of both sides of the process—discov-ery and development.

Industry collaboration is incredibly valuable, agrees Glimcher, provided there is full transparency from all sides. “In the olden days, ba-sic scientists looked down on clinical researchers,” says Glimcher. “It’s not so dif-ferent from how academics used to perceive industry. I believe those distinctions are largely being erased. Many of my esteemed colleagues have crossed over from academia to industry and vice versa. I think that’s a positive thing, so long as there’s transparency.”

A Unique Advantage Indeed, collaboration, both within and outside of academia, is necessary to overcome translational hurdles. Th e potential re-wards are great. But, says Bluestone, academic medical centers do not have to look beyond the borders of their campuses to fi nd two of their most valuable resources: students and patients.

“Our students are tremendous resources that drive innova-tion and creativity,” says Bluestone. “Th ey can help us challenge the status quo.”

At ACTSI, researchers interact regularly with community boards, set up to provide a forum for two-way communication and to engender trust between community members/patients and the institute. “Th e community boards allow us to reach out to communities about our research projects, but they also allow communities to contribute to us by telling us about their unmet clinical needs,” says Stephens.

Targeting research, and subsequent drug development, to unmet health needs is perhaps the best example of how aca-demic medical centers can make a real-life diff erence through translation.

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Cover Story

A Conversation A Conversation with Napoleone with Napoleone FerraraFerraraThe Genentech Fellow discusses his life’s work: from discovering the core angiogenic signaling molecule, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), to creating anti-VEGF therapeutics for wet age-related macular degeneration and cancerous tumors.

NYAS: What motivated you to go into research?Ferrara: I studied medicine in Catania, Italy, my hometown. Ini-tially I thought that clinical medicine was very interesting, but I didn’t have a fi rm direction. Th en, I met a professor of pharma-cology with an established research group. I joined this group as a medical student and that’s what introduced me to research. It was thanks to my post-doctoral mentor at University of Califor-nia, San Francisco, that I was able to further hone my research interests. Both of these people were very infl uential and inspira-tional factors.

NYAS: Broadly, how did you identify VEGF and identify its role?Ferrara: I was interested in endocrinology and neuro-endocri-nology. Th e pituitary is the master regulator of many key physi-ological processes. During my fellowship at UCSF, I stumbled on a population of pituitary cells without an established function. As part of my postdoctoral work, I tried to characterize these cells. I found that they released a factor that promotes angiogen-esis. Over time I was able to isolate this molecule: I named it vas-cular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Aft er that, and through the work of a number of other labs, it became clear that VEGF is a very important signaling molecule.

NYAS: As your work progressed, what were your biggest challenges in translating your discoveries to the development of therapeutics? Ferrara: We were very fortunate that we found the right target but the challenge was proving that. Initially there was a lot of controversy about angiogenesis. Th ere was skepticism about VEGF’s role in angiogenesis; people thought that maybe there were other molecules at work. We had to prove our fi ndings through sound scientifi c methods.

NYAS: What factors have contributed to your success? Ferrara: I have a medical background even though I have not been a practicing physician for a long time. Perhaps that medical back-ground helped me to guide my research into an area that is thera-peutically relevant. I was also just very fortunate that the VEGF molecule turned out to be so important. I also think being at Ge-nentech for 22 years helped push my work along. I think it would have been diffi cult to do the same work in a diff erent setting.

NYAS: You recently received the 2011 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for your breakthrough research on VEGF, and in 2010 you received the Lasker Award. What do these awards mean to you?Ferrara: Th ey express the fact that my peers, my colleagues, re-spect this work, so that means a lot to me personally. But the awards also refl ect on the work that my group has done over the years. To me, these awards are really a stimulus to do more. I see them as motivation to do more and better research.

NYAS: What are your biggest research priorities right now?Ferrara: We’re trying to follow up on our work on VEGF. We want to know why, for example, not all tumors respond to VEGF inhibitors. We want to understand resistance. Th is will mean dis-secting tumors to refi ne our understanding of angiogenesis. Re-garding pro-angiogenic therapies, clinical studies thus far have been quite disappointing. It’s very diffi cult to reconstruct com-plex vessels to positively impact circulation. It would be really wonderful if someone could fi gure out how to do that.

Napoleone Ferrara (center) receives the 2011 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research with (left to right) Joaquin Duato (J&J), Craig Mello (University of Massachusetts Medical School; Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Harlan Weisman (J&J) and Paul Stoffels (J&J).

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 23

SS cience is a discipline that whittles the abstract into clear and precise terms. So it might seem odd, at fi rst, that Elias Zer-houni, former director of the National Institutes of Health

and esteemed scientist, takes issue with certain characterizations. “I don’t like to call something, ‘basic science’ or ‘translational

science,’ ” says the Academy President’s Council member. “It’s ei-ther good science or bad science. I don’t think we should charac-terize any type of science. Science is an adventure; it’s the human search for knowledge and new ideas that can better humankind. To pigeonhole types of science is, in my view, not benefi cial.”

Defi nitions can create barriers, says Zerhouni. And he has spent his life stepping over such lines, fi rst in academia at Johns Hopkins, then at the National Institutes of Health, and now in private industry in his recently assumed role as president of glob-al research and development at Sanofi -Aventis.

In the early days of Zerhouni’s career as a radiologist at Johns Hopkins, he recalls not being able to secure NIH funding for his own research, because it didn’t fi t neatly into a single disease process or under the purview of one single NIH institute. It took private industry funding to make his proposed research path—which years later led to imaging technologies that could show the heart in three dimensions and help clinicians decipher between cancerous and noncancerous nodules in the lungs—a reality.

Funding Reform Zerhouni got the opportunity to make changes in the way the NIH chooses and awards research grants when he was appoint-ed NIH director. He assembled a multidisciplinary team and a “Roadmap for Medical Research,” which isolated areas of science that would most benefi t from cross-collaboration. Th e NIH Re-form Act of 2008 established the NIH’s Common Fund, specifi -cally for research that involves at least two of the 27 institutes in the NIH. In addition, it also set up funds for the Pioneer Award, which supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneering, and possibly transforming, approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research, de-spite not fi tting neatly into a single disease category.

“You need a diversity of approaches,” Zerhouni says. “Some-times funding agencies use a one-size-fi ts-all approach, which doesn’t help the real nature of science, which can go from the proverbial single investigator in the lab doing fundamental ob-servation…to having the ability to put together teams to under-stand computational biology and bioinformatics. So in my view,

the funding agency should refl ect the realities of science and not the other way around.”

During his time at the NIH, Zerhouni encouraged further collaboration between scientists by creating multi-principal in-vestigator grants, which allowed each scientist on a project to have lead investigator status. “Under a single lead investigator system, everybody else would be secondary. Well, that, in some way, discourages collaboration because everyone wants to be rec-ognized in their own fi eld as the top scientist.” Th e multi-PI grant gave scientists equal billing to contribute to the scientifi c prob-lem at hand—and to converge in the same way as science does.

Matter of PerspectiveZerhouni attributes his success, in part, to his own unique back-ground. Algerian-born, Zerhouni came to America when he was 24, aft er securing a residency at Johns Hopkins. He quickly learned the role perspective can play in the world of medicine.

“I think maybe part of my ability to succeed here is that I can bring a viewpoint that many people feel is sometimes surprising-ly diff erent and constructive in showing there is a diff erent way,” says Zerhouni. “I think being an immigrant enriches the mix.” He applauds the U.S. for welcoming scientifi c immigrants and their contributions, pointing out that science is the great peacemaker.

Zerhouni cites the fact that 30% of all Nobel Peace Prizes in Medicine have been won by immigrant Americans. “No country has all of the talent to overcome its problems and that’s why I think science has to be global, it has to be without artifi cial bar-riers, and we should encourage collaboration and self-assembly wherever it comes from, provided that it is good science.”

Marci A. Landsmann is a medical writer in Philadelphia.

byline ruleby Marci A. Landsmann

Member Memoir

Defying Defi nitionWhy good science resists characterization.

Elias ZerhouniPresident, Global Research & Development, Sanofi -Aventis

Former positions: executive vice dean and professor of radiology and biomedical engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; presidential scientifi c envoy to Islamic countries for President Barack Obama (2009 to 2010); senior fellow, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2008 to 2009); director, National Institutes of Health (2002 to 2008)

MD: University of Algiers, 1975

Activities: Reading, listening to music, playing the luth, and competitive swimming

Recently read: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and “Innovative Entrepreneurship and Policy: Toward Initiation and Preservation of Growth” from The Economics of Small Businesses

24 www.nyas.org

Share professional news with your colleagues.Submit announcements to magazine@nyas.org.

Member News

On October 3, 2011, longtime Academy Member and Fellow Ralph Steinman, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. Steinman passed away just days before the announcement was made. In spite of the tragic timing of Stein-man’s passing, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute voted to allow the posthumous honor to stand.

Steinman earned numerous awards for his contributions to the advancement of immunology research and health care, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2007.

Steinman contributed greatly to the Academy during his mem-bership. Academy President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein, former edi-tor of Science, joined the Academy at a low point in its history. “Few people had the vision to imagine what a valuable role the Academy could play in mentoring doctoral students and in creating scien-tifi c synergies across New York’s great research institutions. Ralph Steinman saw this immediately and was one of the fi rst of the great—and very busy—scientists in New York to devote portions of his precious time to help us create world-class conferences.”

Steinman, who served as editor for two volumes of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, was also an immediate sup-porter of Scientists Without Borders when it launched several years ago. “Th at was no surprise to me because, busy as he was, he had answered a Gates Grand Challenge and was spending many of what proved to be his last hours working on the prob-lems of the neglected on our planet. Ralph was deep and broad,

a rare combination that engendered respect and love from all the Academy staff ers who knew him,” says Rubinstein.

Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, Stein-man was himself a benefi ciary of his own research. According to Th e Rockefeller University, Steinman was able to extend his life through a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design. He was 68 years old at the time of his passing.

Steinman was the Henry G. Kunkel Professor in Th e Rocke-feller University’s Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immu-nohematology, a senior physician at Th e Rockefeller University Hospital, and head of the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1968.

Academy Members Receive NIH Common Fund GrantsTh e National Institutes of Health announced that it is awarding $143.8 million to support research that “is neither incremental nor conventional,” according to James M. Anderson, director of the Di-vision of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, who guides the Common Fund’s High-Risk Research program.

“Th e awards are intended to catalyze giant leaps forward for any area of biomedical research, allowing investigators to go in entirely new directions,” with the goal of turning research into better health for the American public, says Anderson.

In 2011, the NIH awarded 13 Pioneer Awards, 49 New Inno-vator Awards, and 17 Transformative Research Projects Awards, all supported by the NIH Common Fund. A number of Acad-emy members have been announced as winners of these presti-gious awards.

Academy members Uttiya Basu, Columbia University; Aron M. Geurts, Medical College of Wisconsin; and Megan C. King, Yale University, received New Innovator Awards. Academy mem-bers Th omas Hartung, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health; Th omas S. Kupper, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Brigham and Women’s Can-cer Center, and Harvard Medical School; F. Nina Papavasiliou, Th e Rockefeller University; and Margaret Elizabeth Ross, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, received Transformative Research Projects Awards.

President’s Council Member Elected to Philosophical SocietyTh e members of the American Philo-sophical Society (APS) voted a member of the Academy’s President’s Council, Is-mail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria, into membership.

Th is high honor was conferred to Serageldin in recognition of his extraor-dinary accomplishments in the fi elds of

intellectual endeavor and public service. He was nominated and

Ralph Steinman Awarded Nobel Prize

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 25

elected by his peers in the Society, which has 700 members from a wide variety of disciplines. Other members elected this year include several Nobel laureates and the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Of the 37 new members elected in 2011, Serageldin is one of eight non-U.S. members.

Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the APS promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities. Th e Society honors and engages distinguished scientists, humanists, social scientists, and leaders in civic and cultural aff airs through elect-ed membership.

Serageldin is highly regarded worldwide for his attempts to combat hunger in developing countries, as well as his tireless ef-forts to re-establish the importance of science in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Neuroscience Prize Honors Work on StressAcademy Governor and former Board of Governors Vice Chair Bruce S. McEwen is the winner of the 2011 Edward M. Scol-nick Prize in Neuroscience. Th e Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGov-ern Institute for Brain Research at MIT to recognize outstanding advances in the fi eld of neuroscience.

McEwen, Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinol-ogy at Th e Rockefeller University, has spent more than four de-cades studying how hormones regulate the brain and nervous system. Work by McEwen and his colleagues has shown that in the hippocampus, chronic stress causes neurons to undergo a re-modeling of dendrites, changes that are largely reversed once the stress is removed, at least in young adult animals. His laboratory has extended these studies on the hippocampus to the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.

“Bruce has made pioneering discoveries about the eff ects of stress hormones on the brain,” says Marc Tessier-Lavigne, presi-dent of Th e Rockefeller University and a member of the Acad-emy’s President’s Council. “His research has shown how chronic stress damages the brain, while acute stress can prove to be ben-efi cial. Bruce’s fi ndings have direct implications for improving human health.”

Academy Life Member Receives National Medal of SciencePresident Barack Obama named seven researchers as recipients of the 2011 National Medal of Science, among them Academy Life Member Shu Chien, University of California, San Diego. Chien was recognized “for pioneering work in cardiovascular physiology and bioengineering, which has had tremendous im-pact in the fi elds of microcirculation, blood rheology, and mech-anotransduction in human health and disease.”

“Each of these extraordinary scientists, engineers, and inven-tors is guided by a passion for innovation, a fearlessness even as they explore the very frontiers of human knowledge, and a desire to make the world a better place,” said President Obama in his address. Chien and the other researchers will receive their awards at a White House ceremony later this year.

Dental Implant System Wins Research AwardAcademy Member Victor Sendax, senior attending general den-tist/oral implantologist at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital in the Department of Otolaryngology, received the American Acad-emy of Implant Dentistry’s (AAID) Research Foundation Award on October 22, 2011.

Each year, the AAID selects a recipient who has contributed substantially to the specialty of oral implantology. As the original inventor and patent-holder of the Sendax Mini Dental Implant System (now acquired by the 3M Corp.) the AAID Research Foundation has seen fi t to honor Sendax, president and chair of Sendax Mini Dental Centers Mgt., Inc.

60-Year Member to Publish Rorschach BiographyWolfgang Schwarz, a clinical psycholo-gist in Chappaqua, NY, and 60-year member of the Academy, is a Charles Darwin buff . He is also the offi cial bi-ographer of Hermann Rorschach, who, coincidentally, was also fascinated by Darwin (one of the Academy’s most dis-tinguished members).

Schwarz received a history of medicine grant from the NIH the early 1960s to write Rorschach’s biography. He is currently fi nishing volume three in a three-volume book, the fi rst volume of which will be published for a lay audience later this year. Th e other two volumes will be published as reference material. As part of his research, Schwarz traveled to Europe four times to gather primary source material.

Th roughout his career as both a psychologist and an author, the Academy has been a constant source of excitement and in-spiration for Schwarz. “One of the most exciting moments was having Oliver Sacks speak to us at the Academy’s old home on East 63rd Street. It was a thrilling place with a romance about it that just smelled of history.” In the Academy’s new home at 7 World Trade Center, Schwarz’s most memorable moment to date has been hearing Richard Dawkins’ impressive talk.

Schwarz credits the Academy with “giving a glamour to sci-ence that’s so necessary, otherwise young people get attracted to other things. To imagine that too many young people haven’t even heard of Charles Darwin and that there are all these climate doubters out there; you have to have an antidote and the Acad-emy provides that,” says Schwarz.

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November

December

January

February

For further details on meetings and conferences,visit our calendar at www.nyas.org/events.

Academy Calendar

Wed, Nov 16 • 12:30 PM – 6:30 PMThe Forever War: Malaria versus the WorldTh e goal of this symposium is to call attention to the enormous burden imposed by malaria, and highlight the groundbreaking research conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers and other scientists aligned in the battle against malaria. Jeff rey D. Sachs (Th e Earth Institute, Columbia University) is the keynote speaker at this event that celebrates the tenth anni-versary of the founding of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.

Wed, Nov 30 • 12:30 PM – 4:30 PMAdvances in Adult Stem Cell Therapy in Tissue Repair for Cardiovascular DiseasesBone marrow-derived stem cells have been used to treat chronic cardiovascular disease, with promising clinical trial results. Th is sym-posium, featuring speaker Sharon Watling (Aastrom Biosciences, Inc.), reviews recent advances in the fi eld, from compelling pre-clinical data to mid-stage clinical trial results.

Dec 1 – 3Thrombolysis and Acute Stroke Treatment (TAST) in 2011: Preparing for the Next DecadeDesigned to serve a multidisciplinary audi-ence of physicians, clinicians, and scientists interested in cerebrovascular disease, this 2.5-day conference will explore the state-of-the-art and future directions of research and clinical practice leading to enhanced medical care in the acute treatment of ischemic stroke.

Th u, Dec 1 • 1:00 PM – 5:00 PMTAST 2011 Satellite Workshop: Advanced Multi-modal Neuroimaging and Ultrasound Approaches to Hyperacute Stroke Diagnosis, Treatment, and MonitoringAndrei V. Alexandrov (University of Alabama at Birmingham) and David S. Liebeskind (UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles) speak at this workshop that will provide tutorial lectures, hands-on demonstrations, and case studies regarding advanced neuroimaging and ultrasound approaches to hyperacute stroke diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring.

Mon, Dec 5 • 2:00 PM – 5:30 PMGenome Integrity Discussion Group MeetingTh e Genome Integrity Discussion Group provides a forum for interactions between basic and clinical research groups working on chromosome biology and function, and at the interface between chromosome integrity and onset and progression of malignancy.

Mon, Dec 5 • 7:00 PM – 8:30 PMFamiliar but Strange: Exploring our Relationships with RobotsWhy do some robots make us want to hug them, while others make us want to run and hide? For the fourth installment of the Being Human in the 21st Century Series, roboticists Heather Knight and Chris Bregler discuss our familiar but strange robot-human relations.

Tues, Dec 6 • 9:00 AM – 5:00 PMBrainfl ammation: The Role of the Innate Immune System in CNS DisordersA growing body of evidence indicates that chronic or maladaptive activation of micro-glia play a critical role in a variety of CNS disorders. Th is symposium gathers experts on microglia and monocyte biology to discuss the role of infl ammation in neurological diseases and disorders, insights into their bi-ology, and possible therapeutic interventions.

Wed, Dec 14 • 1:00 PM – 5:00 PMChronic Kidney Disease: Infl ammation and Oxidative Stress in Pathogenesis and Clinical CourseDiabetes mellitus and hypertension are thought to cause chronic kidney disease (CKD), and some link CKD with chronic infl ammation and oxidative stress. Th is symposium presents results from trials with a drug that modulates infl ammatory pathways.

Fri, Dec 16 • 1:00 PM – 5:00 PMPatient-Specifi c Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for the Study of Neurological DiseasesInduced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) off er a rare opportunity to study viable neurons potentially representative of the disease state. Th is symposium examines the generation of patient specifi c iPSCs, technical challenges, and patient consent.

Tue, Jan 24 • 1:00 PM – 5:00 PMBiomarkers and Brain Imaging of Presymptomatic Alzheimer’s Disease: Exploring the Silent YearsNew clinical tools suggest that events under-lying Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) begin many years prior to diagnosis. Th is symposium explores these structural, functional, and biochemical events that precede and may predict both AD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Wed, Jan 25 • 9:00 AM – 5:00 PMNew York Structural Biology Discussion Group: Seventh Winter MeetingTh e New York Area Structural Biology Dis-cussion Group convenes twice annually and presents talks and poster sessions from gradu-ate students, postdocs, and laboratory heads.

Th u, Jan 26 • 6:00 PM – 8:00 PMWill Technology Let Us Avoid the Limits to Growth?Join us as we explore an updated view of the 1972 hit book Th e Limits to Growth, with thoughts by original author Dennis Meadows and world renowned industrial ecologist Th omas Graedel.

Fri, Feb 3 • 9:00 AM – 5:00 PMCancer Metabolomics: Elucidating the Biochemical Programs that Support Cancer Initiation and ProgressionWhile cancer cells show distinct features, a complete metabolome picture is elusive. Th is symposium reveals strategies for metabolite profi ling to distinguish cancer cells, signaling cascades that drive selective pathways, and novel chemotherapies.

Th u, Feb 9 • 5:00 PM – 7:30 PMChemical Biology of Infectious Diseases: TB, Toxins, and Biofi lmsTh is symposium covers infectious disease at a molecular level, including bacterial ‘group behavior,’ signal transduction pathways; detection of pathogens, weapons of biologi-cal warfare; and the development of practical new medical treatments.

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Autumn 2011 27

Beyond

DATES, TIMES, AND TOPICS OF »EVENTS LISTED HERE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. For up-to-date information, including ticket prices, please visit our online calendar at www.nyas.org/events.

Registration is required for most and »strongly encouraged for all events. To register to attend an event, please use the Academy events calendar online at www.nyas.org/events or contact the meetings department at 212.298.3725 or nymeetings@nyas.org.

Unless noted otherwise, »Academy events are held at:The New York Academy of Sciences7 World Trade Center250 Greenwich St at Barclay, 40th FlNew York, NY 10007

Photo ID is required for entry. »

Meetings Policy

Wed, Feb 15 • 7:00 PM – 8:30 PMMatchmaking in the Digital AgeFor the fi ft h installment of the Being Hu-man in the 21st Century Series, OKCupid’s resident blogger, Christian Rudder, will give a behind-the-scenes look into human mating in the 21st Century, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

May 21 – 2312th International Conference on Myasthenia Gravis and Related DisordersReview the most recent advances in basic, translational, and clinical research on the rare, acquired disorder, Myasthenia Gravis, with implications for a range of additional autoimmune and neuromuscular diseases.

Jun 11 – 12Fetal Programming and Environmental Exposures: Implications for Prenatal Care and Pre-Term BirthTh is 1.5-day conference will explore recent discoveries, challenges, and future research directions for understanding the complex gene–gene and gene–environment interac-tions responsible for fetal programming in utero and pre-term birth and the lasting adverse health eff ects.

Pathways to Science, a web portal created by the New York Academy of Sciences, is a virtual home for New York City science teachers to link to the digital resources of the Academy, and the science world beyond.

Pathways to Science contains blogs, a discussion board, links to resources, direct access to Academy content, and a calendar that lists all of the upcoming events for science, math, technology, and engineering teachers in the New York City area and beyond.

Pathways to Science

Visit today: www.nyas.org/PathwaysToScience

Bringing the Resources of the Academy to the K-12 Community

28 www.nyas.org

Donor Profi le

GG eorge Th ibault knows as well as anyone that medicine is an ever-evolving frontier, continuously

fraught with new challenges that demand innovative solutions. In fact, Th ibault, president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Founda-tion and an Academy governor, is the fi rst to admit that his medical school educa-tion at Harvard would, by itself, be insuf-fi cient in today’s medical world.

“Health care professionals,” he says, “now need diff erent kinds of experience to prepare them for a very diff erent world than the one I was prepared for when I fi nished my training.”

Th ibault stresses that the health care system evolves so quickly that current health care professional training, in cer-tain respects, is oft en obsolete by the time a graduate enters his or her chosen fi eld. Factors such as the diversifi cation of pa-tient demographics, the rise of chronic disease, and the shift in care delivery from hospitals to community-based interven-tions make for a model in fl ux.

“Educational programs,” he insists, “need to catch up with those changes.”

Brooke Grindlinger, director of sci-entifi c programs at the New York Acad-emy of Sciences, agrees wholeheartedly. To that end, Th ibault and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, recently partnered with the Academy to create the Transla-tional Medicine Initiative. A three-year partnership that began in early 2010, the initiative fosters discussion and collabo-ration among physicians and basic re-searchers, industry and academic scien-tists, and public health experts, among others in the medical arena. Th e goal is to enable participants to learn from re-cent scientifi c breakthroughs, receive ca-reer development in translational medi-cine, and, ultimately, decrease the time needed to convert basic science into clinical applications.

Th e partnership, Grindlinger says, is accomplishing nothing less than helping to “shape the future education, research, and clinical care practices of thousands of physicians, scientists, and educa-tors around the globe.” Th is is achieved through programs like the Translational Medicine Discussion Group—a forum for distributing information to the larger scientifi c and medical communities—and partnership-sponsored Academy mem-berships for medical school students and clinical fellows, which expose them to cutting-edge discoveries and enhance their delivery of care. Additionally, the Translational Medicine Initiative, whose fi ndings are disseminated via simulcast webinars, multimedia eBriefi ngs, pod-casts, and articles in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, grants students access to the Academy’s Science Alliance events, which provide nontraditional ca-reer development opportunities.

Th e Translational Medicine Initiative, Th ibault says, goes hand in hand with Th e Macy Foundation’s simple yet loft y goal: improving the health of the public through improving health professional education, a philosophy that was at the core of Th ibault’s esteemed career as a Harvard physician and educator. He spent more than 40 years with the university, in posts including founding director of the Academy at Harvard Medical School and chief medical offi cer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and he has brought his educational values and beliefs with him to Th e Macy Foundation.

“We’re not abandoning what we’ve done before,” Th ibault says of progress in the industry, “but we need to do more and improve upon it for this diff erent health care system, delivery system, and patient population.”

“We’re building on the excellence of the past but adapting it to a changing world,” he says.

Aft er all, Th ibault explains, the irony of medical training is that physicians tra-ditionally spend most of their education alongside classmates in their particular specialty as opposed to those in compli-mentary fi elds with whom they will spend most of their careers.

“We think more of the educational process should be learning with and from other health professionals,” he says, not-ing that Th e Macy Foundation has re-ceived commitments from more than 15 schools and six major professional soci-eties—including nursing and medicine—who recognize the importance of making joint-curriculum planning “the educa-tional paradigm for the future.”

At the end of the day, however, Th i-bault—whom Grindlinger calls an inte-gral Academy partner with a “broad and thoughtful perspective”—is careful to note that while Th e Macy Foundation’s strategy has certainly adapted over the years, its core mission is as strong as ever: creating a healthier society by empowering the pro-fessionals who live and breathe medicine.

“We don’t have enough resources our-selves to bring about the changes we want to see,” Th ibault says, “so a large part is communicating ideas and getting others to pick up ideas. Ultimately, we have to go beyond what we alone as a foundation can do.” Th e Translational Medicine Initiative does just that, lending Academy resources to Th e Macy Foundation’s mission.

Noah Rosenberg is a journalist in New York City.

Contribute to the Academy’s programs by contacting Kiryn Haslinger Hoff man, VP Development at 212.298.8673 or khoff man@nyas.org.

Invest in the Academy

A Medical Education Paradigm for the FutureGeorge Thibault and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation help the Academy push progress.

byline ruleby Noah Rosenberg

Blavatnik AwardsYoung Scientists

for

The New York Academy of Sciences

Celebrate a new generation of scientists and engineers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Nominate leading

faculty and postdoctoral candidates today.

Deadline: January 31, 2012Nominate at www.nyas.org/blavatnikawards

Faculty: Awards up to $25,000Postdoctoral Students: Awards up to $15,000

Impact, Innovation, Interdisciplinarity

2012

November 16, 2011

The Forever War: Malaria Versus the World www.nyas.org/Malaria2011

The goal of the symposium is to call attention to the enormous burden imposed by malaria, and highlight the groundbreaking research conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers as well as other scientists aligned in the battle against this disease.

December 1-3, 2011

Thrombolysis and Acute Stroke Treatment (TAST) in 2011: Preparing for the Next Decade www.nyas.org/TAST2011

Explore the state-of-the-art and future directions of research and clinical practice leading to enhanced medical care in the acute treatment of ischemic stroke.

January 27, 2012

Integrating Student Research into the Medical School Curriculum* www.nyas.org/Events

This conference will bring together architects of medical school research programs to engage in a discussion of critical issues related to integrating student research in the medical school curriculum through a series of plenary lectures, intimate working groups, and a panel discussion tailored for physicians-in-training.

May 21-23, 2012 | Poster abstract deadline March 23, 2012

12th International Conference on Myasthenia Gravis and Related Disorders www.nyas.org/MG12

Review the most recent advances in basic, translational, and clinical research on the rare, acquired disorder, Myasthenia Gravis, with implications for a range of additional autoimmune and neuromuscular diseases.

June 7-8, 2012 | Poster abstract deadline March 30, 2012

Fetal Programming and Environmental Exposures: Implications for Prenatal Care and Pre-Term Birth*

www.nyas.org/FetalProgramming

This 1.5-day conference will address recent discoveries, challenges, and future research directions that further our understanding of the complex environmental and genetic factors, and gene-gene and gene-environment interactions responsible for fetal programming in utero and pre-term birth.*Dates subject to change, check website for updated information

2011-2012 C O N F E R E N C E S

7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich St., 40th Fl. New York, NY 10007-2157

T H E N E W Y O R K A C A D E M Y O F S C I E N C E S