• The Office of the Senior Vice President congratulates the 2023 winners of the following awards established to commemorate the legacies of Dr. Robert F. Furchgott and Dr. Alfred Stracher. Congratulations to all of our student researchers for their excellent work!

The Robert F. Furchgott Medical Student Research Award

1st Prize: Teguru Tembo ’23 for "In Vivo Tumor Immune Microenvironment Phenotypes Correlate with Inflammation and Vasculature to Predict Immunotherapy Response Seen on Bedside Reflectance Confocal Microscopy"

Honorable Mention: Vivienne Au ‘23 for “Correlation of Intraoperative Ultrasonographic Oral Tongue Shape and Border and Risk of Close Margins”

Honorable Mention: Takisha Morancy ’23 for “Symmetric Stimulation of the Distal Branch of a Transected Facial Nerve.”

The Robert F. Furchgott Award for Excellence in Research

Sangmi Sarah Park, School of Graduate Studies ’23, for her thesis “Type 1 Diabetes and Lung Diseases: Investigating the Effects of Hyperglycemia in the Lung”

          The Alfred Stracher Student Author Research Award

1st Prize: Zachary Olmsted, College of Medicine ’23, for “A Combined Human Gastruloid Model of Cardiogenesis and Neurogenesis”

2nd Prize: Vivienne Au, College of Medicine ’23, for “Correlation of Intraoperative Ultrasonographic Oral Tongue Shape and Border and Risk of Close Margins”

2nd Prize: Fred Gong, College of Medicine ’23, for “Translation and Validation of the Overactive Bladder Symptom Score (OABSS) in Chinese during the COVID-19 Telehealth Surge”

     The Alfred Stracher Student Research Presentation Award

Jonathan Amaro-Barron, College of Medicine ’23, for “Transmission of Behavioral Deficits in Rats Exposed to Folate Receptor Alpha Antibody in Utero”

• Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde participated in a new NOVA series, “YOUR BRAIN,” which takes viewers on a surprising journey through modern neuroscience to discover how the brain really works, aired on PBS on  Wednesdays, May 17, 2023. Dr. Macknik explained the unique brain mechanism called reconsolidation, in which the brain returns a memory into long-term storage by rebuilding neuronal connections. As a result, the stories we tell ourselves, or what we consider our memory, are simply our brain’s constructions — and just like our perceptions, our sense of self as understood through our memories can be considered an illusion. 

• PGY2 Internal Medicine resident Sahil Zaveri, M.D., is the first author of “Ethnic and racial differences in Asian populations with ion channelopathies associated with sudden cardiac death”, a review article published in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine: Cardiac Rhythmology. The final author of the paper is Dr. Zaveri’s mentor and principal investigator, Mohamed Boutjdir, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology, and Pharmacology & Physiology.  Dr. Zaveri’s research examines the ethnic and racial differences in Asian populations with cardiac ion channelopathies such as Brugada syndrome, long QT syndrome, short QT syndrome, and catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. The review also identifies research that explored phenotypic abnormalities, implantable cardioverter-defibrillator device usage, and the risk of sudden cardiac death in Asian patients.  Publication link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2023.1253479/full