New & Noteworthy: Spotlight on Gaetane Michaud, MD | Meet Ira Jacobson, MD, the New Director of Hepatology

News from the Department of Medicine

September 25, 2017

Spotlight On: Gaetane Michaud, MD

In the Spotlight interview series, we invite you to meet some of the Department of Medicine's talented physicians, teachers, and scientists as they speak with David Oshinsky, PhD, director of the Division of Medical Humanities. Here, Dr. Oshinsky talks with Dr. Gaetane Michaud, associate professor of medicine and cardiothoracic surgery and chief of the interventional pulmonology section in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine.

Watch the video

Department of Medicine Employee Recognition Program
The goal of this new program is simply to publicly recognize outstanding employees along with their accomplishments and contributions to NYU SOM and EFAA during the previous six-month period. The program presents the opportunity for all faculty and staff within EFAA to recognize their staff peers for exceptional job performance. Nominate a staff member here.

New Study Reveals Hidden Burden of Lupus Among Hispanic & Asian Women in Manhattan

A new study, led by Peter Izmirly, MD, and published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, found substantial disparities in prevalence and manifestations of lupus by race or ethnicity among borough residents. The study was conducted through the Manhattan Lupus Surveillance Program (MLSP)—a collaboration between NYU Langone Health and New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)—and supported by funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Alternative Immunotherapy Drug More Effective Than Current Standard of Care in Treating Advanced Melanoma after Surgical Removal of Disease

A new study, led by Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and deputy director of Perlmutter Cancer Center, and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the immunotherapy drug nivolumab is safer and more effective than ipilimumab—the current standard of care—in treating patients with resected stage III and stage IV melanoma.
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Ira Jacobson, MD, the new director of hepatology within the Division of Gastroenterology, is an internationally renowned hepatology and liver disease expert. A distinguished clinician and prolific researcher, Dr. Jacobson's work has been instrumental in the global development of antiviral therapy for viral hepatitis. At NYU Langone Health, Dr. Jacobson will maintain an active practice in hepatology, gastroenterology, and endoscopy while overseeing all of the division's hepatology service lines. He will work closely with NYU Langone's Transplant Institute to identify and treat patients in need of liver transplants. Additionally, he will build further upon the foundation of the already active clinical research program in liver diseases at NYU Langone and participate in the education of house staff and fellows. Learn more about Dr. Jacobson

The Division of Medical Humanities welcomes Kathleen E. Bachynski as a Rudin postdoctoral fellow in the medical humanities at NYU Langone. She is interested in the history and ethics of public health, and is currently working on a book about the historical debates over the safety of youth tackle football. She holds a PhD in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University and an MPH in epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Before coming to NYU, she was a visiting scholar with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

News from the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine

Dr. Benjamin Wu was awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Loan Repayment Program for funding by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Dr. Amit Uppal presented Grand Rounds on the topic of "Sepsis Management" at Bayonne Medical Center on September 15th.
Dr. Zakhary Bishoy was recently appointed the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) Chair of Education.
Jan Bakker, MD, PhD, has several recent publications, including "Patient- and family-centred care in the intensive care unit: a challenge in the daily practice of healthcare professionals," "Treatment Limitations in the Era of ECMO," "Attitudes, Knowledge and Practices Concerning Delirium: A Survey among Intensive Care Unit Professionals," and "Counterbalancing Work-Related Stress? Work Engagement among Intensive Care Professionals."

News from the Division of Translational Medicine

Leslie I. Gold, PhD, was invited to serve as a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research Scientific Review Committee. These grants represent the AACR's flagship funding initiative to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. Dr. Gold also served as a reviewer for both the NCI study section: Molecular Oncology (MONC) in June 2017, and for a NCI Special Emphasis Panel in March 2017 called Oncology-1 Basic Translational (OBT) Integrated Review Group.

Dr. Gold also has several recent publications: "Hormonal and growth regulation of epithelial and stromal cells from the normal and malignant endometrium by Pigment Epithelium Derived Factor" (authored with colleagues in the Division of Translational Medicine and in other departments at NYU Langone) and "Heightened autoantibody immune response to citrullinated calreticulin in bronchiectasis: Implications for rheumatoid arthritis." A paper co-authored with Unnati Pandya, PhD,—"The Novel Biotherapeutic Calreticulin (CRT) Corrects Multiple Defects of Non-Healing Diabetic Wounds"—was the cover article in the Journal of Dermatology and Clinical Research.