Who/What

Date: May 31, 2013

Honoring Young Investigators

Thirteen graduate students and six postdocs were recently honored by Johns Hopkins at the 36th annual Young Investigators’ Day celebration. Each awardee presented their data as a talk or a poster at the event, which was held on April 18 in the Preclinical Teaching Building on the East Baltimore campus. The awardees included Wei Shen, Mark Sausen, Takafumi Miyamoto, Sharrol Bachas, Julia Bachman, Juan Song, Raghu Chivukula, Nwe-Nwe Aye-Han, Yin Liu, Peng Jin, Sungjin Park, Yali Zhang, Tamara Ashvetiya, Martin Riccomagno, Dongwon Lee, Benjamin Lin, Youngjin Lee, Minae Niwa and Brian Herb. Young Investigators’ Day celebrates the achievements and hard work of all Johns Hopkins’ research trainees.

New Role

Roy Ziegelstein, M.D., professor of cardiology, was appointed the new vice dean for education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In his new role, he will oversee the medical school’s undergraduate, graduate, residency, postdoctoral and continuing medical education programs, as well as the Welch Medical Library. Ziegelstein succeeds David Nichols, M.D., M.B.A., who left Johns Hopkins in September 2012 to become president and CEO of the American Board of Pediatrics.

Nursing Award Finalists

Six Johns Hopkins nurses have been named finalists in the 2013 Nurse.com Nursing Excellence GEM (Giving Excellence Meaning) Awards in various categories. The award honors nurses and the extraordinary contributions they make to patients, the profession and the nation’s health care. The finalists include Deborah Dang, director of Nursing Practice, Education and Research, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, for advancing and leading the profession; Kelly Turner, medical ICU, Johns Hopkins Bayview, for clinical inpatient care; Karen Armacost, director of Hopkins ElderPlus, Johns Hopkins Bayview, for home, community and ambulatory care; Susan Kraeuter, CCU patient care manager, Johns Hopkins Bayview, for patient and staff management; Alan Skiles, progressive care, Johns Hopkins Bayview, for volunteerism and service; Leighann Sidone, director of professional practice and nursing quality, Suburban Hospital, for patient and staff management; and Margaret Widner-Kolberg, clinical instructor, school of nursing, for volunteerism and service. All are featured in the May 6, 2013 issue of Nurse.com. 

Association of American Physicians

Stephen Desiderio, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences; Harry “Hal” Dietz, M.D., professor of genetics and medicine, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and director of the Smilow Center for Marfan Syndrome Research; Drew Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of cancer immunology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; Jeremy Sugarman, M.D., M.P.H., M.A., professor of bioethics and medicine and deputy director for medicine at the Berman Institute of Bioethics; and David Valle, M.D., professor and director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, have been elected to the Association of American Physicians. 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Geraldine Seydoux, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Seydoux, a 2001 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, is renowned for her research into the complex development of an embryo to adulthood, based on her studies of this process in the roundworm, C. elegans. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine International

Steven Thompson, M.B.A., chief executive officer, has won a 2013 International Business Leadership Award from the World Trade Center Institute of Maryland. The award recognizes Thompson’s accomplishments as an entrepreneurial leader in international business, guiding JHI to new levels of global outreach and demonstrating the determination, creativity and cultural sensitivity that global business demands. 

East Baltimore

Jason Brant, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neurology and director of the Division of Medical Psychology, has received the 2013 Lawrence M. Garten Award for Leadership Excellence by the Abilities Network, an organization that provides comprehensive services to persons with epilepsy and other conditions that hinder their full integration into the community. 

Robert Brodsky, M.D., professor of oncology and director of the Division of Hematology, and his research team have received one of the Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Awards of 2012 from the Clinical Research Foundation. The team was honored for its pioneering research on the use of partially matched bone marrow transplants to wipe out hereditary sickle cell disease. The group includes Francisco Bolanos-Meade, M.D.; Ephraim Fuchs, M.D.; Leonid Luznik, M.D.; Sophie Lanzkron, M.D.; Christopher Gamper, M.D., Ph.D.; and Richard Jones, M.D.

Amanda Nickles Fader, M.D., an internationally recognized expert on minimally invasive women’s cancer surgery and the link between obesity and cancer, has been named director of the Kelly Gynecological Service, as well as director of the Minimally Invasive Surgery Center in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics. She also holds an appointment as an associate professor of gynecologic oncology. 

Abby Ferretti, senior graphic designer for Johns Hopkins Medicine Marketing and Communications, has been named one of the “20 in Their Twenties” by The Daily Record, presented to young Marylanders who make a positive and significant impact on their community and workplace. 

Stephen Meltzer, M.D., professor of medicine and oncology and director of the Early Detection Biomarkers Laboratory in the Division of Gastroenterology, has won the 2013 American Cancer Society’s Clinical Research Professor Award, which will provide $80,000 annually for five years to support his research program, which focuses on the pathogenesis of esophageal adenocarcinoma and Barrett’s esophagus. 

Deborah Persaud, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Infectious Disease Fellowship Program, has been named to Time magazine’s 2013 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Persaud, along with Katherine Ruiz De Luzuriaga, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Hannah Gay, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, were honored for what the magazine called “an incredible breakthrough: functionally curing a newborn of AIDS.”

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

The Office of Public Affairs and Marketing received a Merit Award from Healthcare Marketing Report, the national newspaper for health care marketing, for the 2011 Employees Service Awards program it produced.

Howard County General Hospital

Joseph Dwyer, M.A.Ed., R.R.T., Ed.D., has been named patient safety manager in the Outcomes Management Department. A licensed respiratory therapist, Dwyer previously was a clinical outcomes management analyst at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and safety officer for its Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine.