News

This article was original posted in WCM News.

Five teams led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists have been awarded funding from the Starr Cancer Consortium in its 16th annual grant competition. The grants will fund research on the molecular origins and evolution of blood, bladder, breast, and colon cancers.

The Starr Cancer Consortium was established in 2006 through the philanthropy of the Starr Foundation, and includes The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine. The goal of the consortium is to support collaborative research at these institutions, with the potential to transform the understanding and treatment of cancers.

Two Weill Cornell Medicine faculty members, Dr. David Lyden, the Stavros S. Niarchos Professor in Pediatric Cardiology, and Dr. Harel Weinstein, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and past chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Drs. Lyden and Weinstein were among 506 scientists—including 10 from Cornell’s Ithaca Campus—elected this year as fellows of the AAAS, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society. The fellowship is a prestigious, lifetime honor that recognizes members for their outstanding scientific or social efforts to advance science or its applications.

Dr. Anjali Rajadhyaksha, professor of neuroscience in pediatrics and Associate Dean of Program Development and Dr. Francis Lee, interim Dean at Weill Cornell Medicine have been awarded an R01 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse their study entitled, “Circuit and Synaptic Mechanisms of Endocannabinoid-Opioid Crosstalk.”

The current opioid crisis has contributed to drug overdoses becoming the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50 years, with a constant increase in overdose deaths among adolescents. Opioids (morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl) remain the main line of medications for pain management, underscoring the urgent need for new non-opioid treatment options or adjuvant therapies that eliminate the addictive properties, but not the analgesic aspects of these medications.

Adolescence is an important developmental period between childhood and adulthood during which the brain is highly plastic and influenced by a variety of environmental factors.  Exposure to substances of abuse during adolescence can impact the developing brain and lead to abnormalities in brain function including neurocognitive performance. 

The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the promotion of Kimberley Chien, M.D. to Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, effective December 1, 2022.

Dr. Chien is an Associate Attending Pediatrician at New York-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital and New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.  She is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric gastroenterology.  She received a B.S. in Neuroscience at Tufts University and earned her medical degree at SUNY-Downstate Medical College of Brooklyn.  She completed her pediatric internship and residency training at NYU School of Medicine and attended New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center to complete fellowship training in Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.