NYMC Hosts Ninth Annual Drs. Gabor and Harriette Kaley Endowed Lecture
Keynote Speaker Anna Csiszar, M.D., Ph.D., Presented “Age-related Vascular Cognitive Impairment: Role of Endothelial Senescence”
The Ninth Annual Drs. Gabor and Harriette Kaley Endowed Lecture was presented in the Cooke Auditorium on April 24 with keynote speaker Anna Csiszar, M.D., Ph.D., (fifth from left), professor of the Department of Neurosurgery and Donald W. Reynolds Chair in Aging Research at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, who presented “Age-related Vascular Cognitive Impairment: Role of Endothelial Senescence.” Her lecture combined vascular physiology and neuroscience to identify the part cellular senescence plays in vasodilator function.
Dr. Csiszar, who was introduced by Akos Koller, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus of physiology, earned her M.D., masters in immunology and Ph.D. in pathophysiology at the Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. She went onto be a postdoctoral fellow in microvascular physiology in aging at New York Medical College (NYMC) under the mentorship of Gabor Kaley, Ph.D., the late faculty member and chair of the Department of Physiology.
Dr. Csiszar’s research interests include vascular contributions to age-related cognitive impairment and dementia, chemotherapy induce accelerated aging in the brain, cellular mechanisms of vascular aging and the role of cellular senescence in the aging brain.
She published more than 200 research papers and was awarded several grants by the National of Institutes of Health, American Heart Association and American Federation for Aging Research. Her work has garnered many awards, including the Nathan Shock New Investigator Award and Young Investigator Award from the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society
The Kaley lectureship and award was established through the family of Gabor Kaley, Ph.D., to honor his life and legacy as a faculty member of 43 years and chair of the Department of Physiology at New York Medical College for 37 of those years. He was recognized as the longest sitting chair of a physiology department in the nation when he stepped down in 2007. Four years later, he died at the age of 85.
The College recently displayed a memorial poster of Dr. Kaley in the Department of Physiology conference room. The memorial poster is among tributes displayed around the school to recognize faculty members who had major contributions in science and research at NYMC.
“As one of those fortunate to have known Gabe, I can tell you that he was a remarkable scientist, a terrific leader and an overall mensch,” said Christopher Leonard, Ph.D., professor and interim chair of the Department of Physiology, who led the opening remarks followed by Irving Zucker, Ph.D. ‘72, a mentee of Dr. Kaley and Theodore F. Hubbard Professor of Cardiovascular Research at University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Harriette Kaley, Ph.D., ABPP, clinical consultant of the interpersonal track at New York University and widow of Dr. Kaley. “He provided great advice to his junior faculty and to his junior scientists in his laboratory. Today’s speaker is in fact one of the many associates Gabe had over his career who have gone on to have a spectacular career after working with him.”
The lecture concluded with a questions and answers session moderated by Elizabeth Berry, Class of 2023 in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, followed by an award presented to Dr. Csiszar by Edward J. Messina, Ph.D., professor emeritus of physiology.
“Everything he did here in this department in the medical school in the process of science, he did with an intensity of commitment and devotion,” recalled Dr. Kaley of her late husband. “He did all of that with his characteristic ebullient high spirits, great sense of fun and an enormous capacity for friendship, humor and love.”