Faculty News
2003 Dean's Distinguished Research Award goes to Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D.
Lori-Ann Perrault
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Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D. |
Each year the Dean's Distinguished Research Award is bestowed upon a College faculty member in recognition of a body of scientific work or specific achievement in science. Nominations are made by faculty, administration and students.
Dr. Darzynkiewicz described his work on apoptosis in a presentation called "Cell Suicide or Murder?" He admitted he titled his talk to catch the attention of his wife, who is not normally interested in his research but is a big fan of Agatha Christie. His colorful presentation illustrated the significance of apoptosis, a Greek term meaning the "dropping of leaves from the trees." Also called active cell death, programmed cell death, or cell suicide, apoptosis refers to a sequence of molecular events leading to cell deletion. This process by which cells literally commit suicide-an altruistic action of killing itself for the sake of the organ or the body-is an important area in cancer cell growth research.
Dr. Darzynkiewicz is director of the Brander Cancer Research Institute at the College, located at 19 Bradhurst Ave., Hawthorne. He joined the faculty in 1990 from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where for more than 15 years he directed the laboratory of Experimental Cell Research and the flow cytometry core-facility network. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Medical School of Warsaw in Poland and completed post-graduate research studies at the State University at Buffalo and the Medical Nobel Institute of Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Holder of five U.S. patents, Dr. Darzynkiewicz has written more than 465 publications in peer-reviewed journals, more than 75 chapters in books, and authored or edited 11 complete books. Since 1978 he has continuously held NIH grants, including a MERIT grant awarded in 1987. His collective papers have been cited more than 16,000 times in the scientific literature.
Chairs Named for Emergency Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery
Gregory Almond, M.D., M.P.H. '00, M.S. '00, and David E. Asprinio, M.D., have been named chairmen of their departments. Both had been serving in acting positions in the departments of Emergency Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery, respectively.
Lori-Ann Perrault
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Gregory Almond, M.D., M.P.H., M.S. |
A fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Dr. Almond is active on numerous and varied professional, hospital and academic committees. He chairs Metropolitan's Informatics and Emergency Management committees and is a member of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine's Task Force on Triage. He also serves the College as a member of the Strategic Workgroup for Future Information Technology.
Research is high on Dr. Almond's list of priorities. Recently his department received notice of two awards from the New York State Council of Graduate Medical Education's Research Fellow Program that will fund two research fellows for two years. One fellowship is designed to evaluate risk factors for the development of asthma in children; the other will examine predictors of acute coronary syndrome in young adults.
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David E. Asprinio, M.D. |
Dr. Asprinio joined the College faculty in 1995 after completing fellowships in orthopaedic spine surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Systems in Baltimore, and orthopaedic trauma at The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. Both residencies in general and orthopaedic surgery were done at Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, R.I. He earned his undergraduate degree at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and his medical degree at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington.
A diplomate of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Asprinio serves on the Trauma Committee and Health Information Management Committee at WMC. In 1991 he received the Bioelectrical Repair and Grant Society New Clinical Investigator Award.