NYMC Hosts Seventh Annual Drs. Gabor and Harriette Kaley Endowed Lecture
Topic presented “Sex, Hormones and Cardiovascular Disease”
The Seventh Annual Drs. Gabor and Harriette Kaley Endowed Lecture via Zoom on April 19 welcomed visiting lecturer Virginia M. Miller, Ph.D., M.B.A., professor emerita of surgery and physiology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and former director of the Mayo Clinic Women's Health Research Center in Rochester, Minnesota, who presented "Sex, Hormones and Cardiovascular Disease." Dr. Miller's research focuses on how sex steroids, like estrogen, and conditions unique to women such as pregnancy and menopause, affect cardiovascular health and cognition.
Dr. Miller’s presentation explained factors contributing to sex differences in physiology, processes by which sex influences the development of cardiovascular disease and why sex differences research is important.
She received a B.S. in biology and education from Slippery Rock University, a Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Missouri and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota. Her numerous awards and honors include the Bernadine Healy Award for Visionary Leadership in Women’s Health, the Women’s Day magazine Red Dress Award for her work in research and advocacy for women’s health and the Paul M. Vanhoutte Lecturer in Vascular Pharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
The Kaley lectureship is endowed by the family of Gabor Kaley, Ph.D., who served on the New York Medical College faculty for 43 years, with 37 years as chair of the Department of Physiology. When he stepped down from his post as chair in 2007, he was the longest sitting chair of a physiology department in the nation. He died in 2011 at the age of 85.
Among those paying tribute to Dr. Kaley during the presentation who spoke of his legacy as a mentor, friend and influence beyond the realm of physiology were Christopher S. Leonard, Ph.D., professor and interim chair of the Department of Physiology; Edward J. Messina, Ph.D. '73, professor emeritus of physiology, who was a student of Dr. Kaley; Francis L. Belloni, Ph.D., professor of physiology and former dean of the Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences; Michael S. Wolin, Ph.D., professor of physiology and chair of the Kaley Lecture Committee; and Dr. Kaley’s first graduate student, Irving Zucker, Ph.D. ’72, the Theodore F. Hubbard Professor of Cardiovascular Research, chair of cellular and integrative physiology in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology at University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Moved by their touching words, Dr. Kaley's widow, Harriette Kaley, Ph.D., said “Gabe’s fervent wish was that we establish an ongoing process in his name to continue his mission of teaching, informing and educating. My son, David, and I are gratified that together with leaders of New York Medical College and the Department of Physiology, we are able to fulfill Gabe’s wish in the form of these lectures.”