Diana Bianchi

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association has annouced that Diana W. Bianchi, MD, will receive the prestigious J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine. She will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on December 9, 2017.  

Diana W. Bianchi is the Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. She is also an investigator in the National Human Genome Research Institute. Formerly, she was the Executive Director of the Mother Infant Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center and a professor of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine. She was also Vice Chair for Pediatric Research at the Floating Hospital for Children, Boston.

Dr. Bianchi is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. She received her M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine and her postgraduate training in Pediatrics, Medical Genetics and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She is board-certified in all three specialties. Her clinical expertise is in prenatal and neonatal genetics and genomics.

Dr. Bianchi’s research focuses on noninvasive prenatal diagnosis using fetal and placental DNA sequencing and using information from fetal gene expression to develop novel fetal therapies for genetic disorders such as Down syndrome.  She has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles, and is one of four authors of the book Fetology: Diagnosis and Management of the Fetal Patient, which won the Association of American Publishers award for best textbook in clinical medicine in 2000. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis’ official journal, Prenatal Diagnosis.

Dr. Bianchi has received multiple awards, including the Christopher Columbus Spirit of Discovery Award and the Distinguished Faculty Award, both from Tufts University, the 2015 Neonatal Landmark Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the 2016 Maureen Andrew Award for Mentorship from the Society for Pediatric Research, and the 2017 Colonel Harland Sanders Award for lifetime achievement in Medical Genetics from the March of Dimes. In 2013 she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Owen N. Witte (MD ’76)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association has announced that Owen N. Witte, MD, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on December 5.

Owen Witte received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his MD from Stanford University. He completed postdoctoral research at MIT and then joined the faculty at UCLA, where he presently is a University Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and holds the President's Chair in Developmental Immunology. He is the founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Dr. Witte has made significant contributions to the understanding of human leukemias, immune disorders, and epithelial cancer stem cells. His work includes the discovery of tyrosine kinase activity for the ABL gene and the demonstration of the BCR-ABL oncoproteins in human leukemias. This has had practical impact in leading to the development of kinase-targeted therapy as an effective treatment for these leukemias and other cancers. His work also led to the co-discovery of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), which is required for normal B-lymphocyte development, and when mutated leads to X-linked agammaglobulinemia, a form of immune deficiency. New inhibitors for BTK are entering clinical practice for the treatment of certain lymphomas and leukemias. Recent work has concentrated on defining the stem cells for epithelial cancers of the prostate and other organ sites to help define new types of therapy for these diseases.

Dr. Witte has received much recognition for his research, including the Milken Foundation Award in Basic Cancer Research, the Rosenthal Award of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Dameshek Prize of the American Society of Hematology, the Alpert Foundation Prize, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s de Villiers International Achievement Award, the UCLA Faculty Research Lecture, the Nakahara Memorial Lecture Prize, and the AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award. He currently serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and previously served on the Board of Directors for the American Association for Cancer Research. He was recently re-appointed for his second term by President Obama to the President’s Cancer Panel. Dr. Witte is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. 

Gary K. Steinberg (PhD ’79, MD ’80)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association has announced that Gary K. Steinberg, MD, PhD, will receive the prestigious J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on December 5.

Gary K. Steinberg was born on July 31, 1952 in Brooklyn, New York and was raised in Westchester County, New York. He graduated summa cum laude with Honors in Biology from Yale University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Before attending medical school he studied classical trumpet on a music study scholarship at the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Montreux, Switzerland. He was accepted into the Medical Scientist Training Program at Stanford University School of Medicine and graduated with a MD and PhD in Neurosciences in 1980. He completed his surgical internship and residency in Neurological Surgery at Stanford. During his training he received an NIH NINDS Individual National Research Service Award to investigate aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, and he spent one year studying cerebrovascular surgery with Charles Drake in London, Canada.

In 1987 Dr. Steinberg joined the faculty at Stanford as an Assistant Professor in Neurosurgery, being promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1993 and Professor in 1997. He founded the Stanford Stroke Center in 1991 and is currently the Co-Director. He was appointed Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford in 1995 and holds the Bernard and Ronni Lacroute–William Randolph Hearst Endowed Chair of Neurosurgery and the Neurosciences.  Dr Steinberg served as Director of the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neurosciences (SINTN) from 2008-2013.

Dr. Steinberg’s experimental research investigates the pathophysiology and treatment of acute cerebral ischemia, as well as methods to restore function after stroke. His laboratory has studied the role of excitatory amino acids, oxidative stress, inflammation and gene expression on experimental stroke, and has explored various therapeutic and restorative strategies such as NMDA antagonists, anti-inflammatory agents, mild brain hypothermia, gene transfer therapy, stem cell transplantation and optogenetic stimulation. He has received numerous grants including NIH NINDS R01, R21, P30 and P01 grants, with continuous NIH funding as Principal Investigator since 1987. In 2010 he was awarded a $20 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to investigate  neural stem cells for treatment of motor deficits following sub-cortical stroke and translate this into a Phase I clinical trial.

Steinberg maintains a busy clinical practice specializing in cerebrovascular surgery, with patient referrals nationally and internationally. His clinical research is focused on developing innovative surgical, endovascular and radiosurgical approaches for treating patients with difficult intracranial aneurysms, complex vascular malformations and occlusive cerebrovascular disorders including Moyamoya disease. He has also spearheaded several early phase clinical trials of stem cell transplantation for chronic stroke and subacute spinal cord injury. Dr. Steinberg is heavily involved in teaching, serving as Neurosurgery Program Director from 1995–2004 and training more than 150 residents, clinical fellows, post-doctoral research fellows, graduate students and medical students. He has published over 330 peer reviewed articles, more than 110 book chapters, and edited 3 books primarily related to clinical and basic aspects of cerebrovascular disease. 

The many honors Steinberg has received include an American Association of Neurological Surgeons Young Faculty Award, Guest Oral Examiner for the American Board of Neurological Surgery, Santa Clara County Medical Association 2010 Outstanding Achievement in Medicine Award, and 2015 President of the Western Neurosurgical Society.  He has been elected to Castle Connelly’s Top Doctors in America, America’s Top Surgeons, National Register’s Who’s Who, Best Doctors in America, Patients’ Choice America’s Most Compassionate Doctors, and International Health Professional of the Year. Dr. Steinberg has been Visiting Professor at numerous academic institutions internationally and given more than 540 invited talks at scientific meetings throughout the world. He has been a member of NIH NINDS Study Sections, the NIH NASCET Monitoring Committee, and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Neurosurgery, Cerebrovascular Diseases, the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Indian Journal of Neurosurgery and World Neurosurgery. 

Paul L. Modrich (PhD ’73)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association has announced that Paul L. Modrich, PhD, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on December 5.

Paul Modrich is a Nobel Prize winner, the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his BS degree in Biology from MIT in 1968 and his PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University in 1973, where he studied with I. Robert Lehman. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Charles C. Richardson at Harvard Medical School, he joined the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley in 1974 as an assistant professor. In 1976 he was recruited to the Department of Biochemistry at Duke, where he has been a faculty member for 40 years.

Dr. Modrich clarified the nature and functions of mismatch repair, which rectifies base-pairing errors within the DNA helix. Although a mismatched base pair is a rare occurrence in the DNA helix, inactivation of this DNA repair system has profound consequences for a living cell, a 100- to 1,000-fold increase in mutation production. Dr. Modrich established the mechanism of mismatch repair in the bacterium E. coli, and more recently the mechanism by which mismatches are corrected in human cells. He demonstrated that tumor cells with microsatellite instability, including those from patients with the common hereditary cancer Lynch syndrome, are defective in mismatch repair, and he identified the repair components that are lacking in these cells. He also showed that mismatch repair plays an important role in the cellular response to certain types of DNA damage and that as a consequence of this function, mismatch repair-defective cancer cells are resistant to certain chemotherapeutic drugs.

Dr. Modrich is a recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, the Feodor Lynen Medal, the General Motors Mott Prize in Cancer Research, the Pasarow Foundation Award in Cancer Research, and the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Nancy Lee Harris (BA ’65, MD ’70)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association has announced that Nancy Lee Harris, MD, will receive the prestigious J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine. She will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on December 5.

Dr. Harris is the Austin L. Vickery Professor of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School.  She is Editor of the Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital for the New England Journal of Medicine.  Dr. Harris obtained her B.A. Degree in English from Stanford University and her M.D. from Stanford Medical School.  She interned in Internal Medicine at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and trained in Pathology at Beth Israel in Boston.  After a research fellowship in Hematopathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined the staff of that institution in 1980.  In 1985 she became Director of Surgical Pathology and in 1992 Director of Anatomic Pathology.  She also served as Program Director for the Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Residency Program and for the Hematopathology Fellowship Program.  She relinquished those administrative responsibilities to become Editor of the Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002.  She continues an active diagnostic and consultation practice in Hematopathology.

Dr. Harris’s research has focused on the relationship of lymphoid neoplasms to the normal immune system.  Her studies range from investigations of the biology and pathology of Hodgkin’s lymphoma to the study of nodal and extranodal small B-cell lymphomas, including follicular, mantle cell and MALT lymphomas, to the study of large B-cell lymphomas in the mediastinum and in specific extranodal sites.  Having trained in hematopathology in an age of multiple classifications of lymphomas, Dr. Harris became interested in establishing consensus in the classification of lymphoid neoplasms.  Working first with the International Lymphoma Study Group and then with the World Health Organization, Dr. Harris and colleagues published the Revised European American Classification of Lymphoid Neoplasms (REAL) in 1994 and in 2001, published a WHO Classification of Tumours of the Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. The classification was updated with a 4th edition in 2008, and an interim update is planned for 2015.  This classification represents the first true international consensus on the classification of hematologic neoplasms, and established a paradigm for arriving at consensus among pathologists and clinicians on disease classification. 

In editing the clinicopathologic conferences at Massachusetts General Hospital, which are published as the Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Harris has taken on the responsibility for educating readers about the contribution of pathologists, both laboratory medicine and anatomic pathologists, to the diagnosis and management of disease.  

Daniel W. Rosenn (MD ’69)

Recognizing his vision and lifelong commitment to treating high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Dr. Daniel W. Rosenn (MD ’69) is being honored by the Asperger/Autism Network (AANE).  

Dr. Daniel Rosenn is recognized for inspiring leadership in both the medical/clinical and human impact of high functioning ASD.  Asperger/Autism Network (AANE), formerly known as the Asperger's Association of New England, is a nationally known, 20-year organization of experts and families  that provides education, community, support, and advocacy to individuals, families and professionals.  AANE is honoring Dr. Daniel W. Rosenn by naming its annual fall conference, The Daniel W. Rosenn Annual AANE Connections Conference.  In conjunction with this tribute to Dr. Rosenn, AANE has also received generous donations to create a permanent endowment fund, the Daniel W. Rosenn Endowment Fund. This fund will help ensure ever-increasing understanding, acceptance and empowerment of individuals with high functioning ASD into the future.

Dr. Rosenn has focused much of his career on high functioning ASD, treating several thousand patients and families.  He has also shared his expertise and experience consulting over the years to hundreds of schools and professionals.  Announcing the honor, Dania Jekel, Executive Director of AANE noted, “With fascinating clinical vignettes, insights, and anecdotes from countless encounters with children and adults with ASD, Dr. Rosenn inspires colleagues, educators and other care-giving professionals to better understand and help children and adults living with ASD.” 

Following graduation from Stanford, Dr. Rosenn completed a fellowship in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and residencies in adult and child psychiatry at McLean Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Center. He also has a Master of Science degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is affiliated with McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and has a private practice in Wellesley, Massachusetts.  

Linda M. Boxer (MD ’81, PhD ’81)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA) has announced that Linda M. Boxer, MD, PhD, will receive the prestigious J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine. She will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on November 2.

Linda M. Boxer is a professor of medicine, chief of the Division of Hematology, and vice dean of Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Boxer obtained her MD and PhD degrees from Stanford University in 1981. She remained at Stanford to complete an internship and residency in internal medicine, and a fellowship in hematology/oncology. In 1990, she joined the faculty of Stanford University in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, and also held a position at the Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. In 2004, she was appointed chief of the Division of Hematology. During that same year, she served as fellowship director of the Division of Hematology, and director of the Clinical Investigator Pathway in the Department of Medicine.

In addition, Dr. Boxer served as interim chair of the Department of Medicine from 2010 to 2012 and senior vice chair of the department from 2012 to 2013. In 2013, she was appointed vice dean of the School of Medicine.

Dr. Boxer’s clinical expertise is in hematologic malignancies. She serves as an attending physician on the inpatient hematology consult service. Dr. Boxer’s research expertise is on the investigation into molecular abnormalities in hematologic malignancies. Specifically, she studied mechanisms of deregulated expression of oncogenes by translocation into immunoglobulin locus in B cell lymphomas. Her studies focused on deregulation at the transcriptional level, and she used a variety of techniques to define these. Her laboratory developed mouse models to further their investigations on transcriptional deregulation of oncogenes and to study how this leads to malignant transformation of B lymphocytes. She successfully administered several different projects and developed collaborations with other investigators.

Dr. Boxer has mentored many trainees, especially physician scientists, and she has helped with their development into independent investigators.

The J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award was first conferred in 1983. The award is named for the former Stanford University president who, in 1953, recommended that the Stanford Medical School be moved from San Francisco to join the main educational and research Stanford campus in Palo Alto. 

Richard P. Lifton (MD ’82, PhD ’86)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA) has announced that Richard P. Lifton, MD, PhD, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on November 2.

Richard P. Lifton is chair of the Department of Genetics, Sterling Professor of Genetics and Internal Medicine, executive director of the Yale Center for Genome Analysis, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale School of Medicine. He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth, and received MD and PhD (in Biochemistry with David Hogness) degrees from Stanford. He then was resident and chief resident in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and continued on the Harvard Medical School faculty before being recruited to Yale in 1993.

Dr. Lifton has used human genetics and genomics to identify mutations that identify key genes and pathways underlying hypertension, myocardial infarction, osteoporosis, cerebral hemorrhage, congenital heart disease, and neoplasia. His work on hypertension, which affects one billion people worldwide, has demonstrated the key roles of renal salt and potassium handling in blood pressure regulation, leading to new approaches to treatment and prevention that have been applied to the general population. In 2009 his group developed exome sequencing and performed the first clinical diagnosis by genome-level sequencing.

Dr. Lifton is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He formerly served on the Governing Councils of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He is currently on the Advisory Council to the NIH Director, the Scientific Advisory Boards of Massachusetts General Hospital, the Whitehead Institute, the Broad Institute, the Simons Foundation for Autism Research, and the Board of Directors of Roche and Genentech. He recently served as co-chair of the Planning Committee for President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative.

Dr. Lifton has received the highest scientific awards of the American Heart Association, the American Society of Nephrology, the Council for High Blood Pressure Research, the American Society of Hypertension, the International Society of Hypertension, and the International Society of Nephrology. He received the 2008 Wiley Prize for Biomedical Sciences and the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

The Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences honors the legacy of Arthur Kornberg, MD, and Paul Berg, PhD, medical science pioneers and Nobel laureates who brought to Stanford a passion for discovery and groundbreaking research. Established in 2010, this award acknowledges and celebrates the lifetime career achievements of Stanford University School of Medicine alumni in the biomedical sciences. Several previous winners have gone on to win other prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize.

Ronald D. Vale (PhD ’85)

The Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA) has announced that Ronald D. Vale, PhD, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on November 2.

Ronald D. Vale is a professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, and is an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His laboratory studies the cytoskeleton and motor proteins, which are the intracellular roadways and engines that transport numerous different types of cargoes to various destinations within cells.

As a graduate student with Eric Shooter in the Stanford Neurobiology Department, Dr. Vale began studying nerve growth factor and became interested in how signals from this hormone travel from the nerve terminus to the cell body through the axon. Pursuing the topic of axonal transport at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Dr. Vale discovered a new type of molecule motor, which he christened “kinesin.” As a faculty member at UCSF, Dr. Vale and his laboratory, using structural approaches and single molecule microscopy, developed a detailed model of how kinesin generates motion. Dr. Vale currently studies the mechanism of dynein, another class of cytoskeletal motor, as well as the assembly of the mitotic spindle and the mechanism of T cell signaling.

Dr. Vale received BA degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980. After receiving his PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University in 1985, Dr. Vale began his faculty appointment at UCSF in 1987. At UCSF, he has served as the director of the Cell Biology Program, and vice-chair and chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. He also served as president of the American Society of Cell Biology. Dr. Vale’s awards include the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, and the Massry Prize. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Institute of Medicine, and the Indian National Science Academy.

Dr. Vale founded iBiology.org, which produces talks by leading biologists and makes them freely available on the web. He co-directed the Physiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory. In addition, Dr. Vale has helped young scientists in India by founding the popular Young Investigator meetings, the Bangalore Microscopy course, and IndiaBioscience.org.

The Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences honors the legacy of Arthur Kornberg, MD, and Paul Berg, PhD, medical science pioneers and Nobel laureates who brought to Stanford a passion for discovery and groundbreaking research. Established in 2010, this award acknowledges and celebrates the lifetime career achievements of Stanford University School of Medicine alumni in the biomedical sciences. Several previous winners have gone on to win other prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize.

Stephen D. Miller (MD ’72)

Dr. Stephen D. Miller has retired as vice-president of the Kaiser-Permanente Health Plan in Hawaii.  He was also chair of the Eye Department for many years with a retina sub-specialty.  He has taught surgery and management around the world with the Seva Foundation (www.seva.org), a non-profit which currently helps develop 61 eye hospitals in 21 countries. He is currently chair of their board of directors. Seva recently won the Champalimaud Award - the Nobel prize for international eye care. He has also written a book on adult life phases: What Do I Do Now?, meant to speed and ease our transitions through adult life, available on Amazon.

This is a photo of Dr. Miller teaching the use of the YAG laser (which he donated to Lhasa Menzikhang Hospital) to Yengi-la, the chief of the ophthalmology service which the Seva Foundation helped create at this traditional Tibetan medicine hospital.  That department has been designated the referral department for advanced eye surgery for all of the Tibet Autonomous Republic of China.

Hossein Jadvar (Resident ’98)

Dr. Hossein Jadvar, MD, PhD, MPH, MBA, FACNM, was installed as the President of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging for the term 2015-16 which is the premiere international society in nuclear medicine with over 18,000 members worldwide. He also recently received the Academy of Radiology Research Distinguished Investigator Award. He is now a tenured Associate Professor in Radiology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. 

After completing his residency in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine at Stanford from 1994-1998, Dr. Jadvar went on to receive a MPH degree from Harvard University and an executive MBA degree from USC. He also holds a MD from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and a PhD in bioengineering from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Dr. Jadvar’s post-graduate medical training included an internship in internal medicine at University of California, San Francisco prior to Stanford. 

“I often visit the beautiful campus of Stanford and reminisce about my wonderful days there. I live with my wife, Mojgan, and my two daughters Donya and Delara, in Pasadena, CA."

William H. Frist (Resident ’85, Fellow ’85-’87)

Carrick Capital Partners, LLC, an investment firm focused on fast growing software and technology-enabled services firms, announced that Senator William H.  Frist, MD, Resident ’85, Med Fellow ’87, has become a Special Advisor to the firm. 

Dr. Frist is a nationally acclaimed heart and lung transplant surgeon, former U. S. Senate Majority Leader, and chairman of the Executive Board of the health service private equity firm Cressey & Company. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate for 12 years where he served on both the Health and Finance committees responsible for writing health legislation. He was elected Majority Leader of the Senate, having served fewer total years in Congress than any person chosen to lead that body in history. His leadership was instrumental in passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act to provide prescription drugs at lower costs to seniors and the historic legislation (PEPFAR) that reversed the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Currently Frist serves as an adjunct professor of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University and clinical professor of Surgery at Meharry Medical College.  He is also the chairman of both the Hope Through Healing Hands foundation, which focuses on maternal and child health and SCORE, a K12 education reform organization that has helped propel Tennessee to prominence as a reform state.

William B. Wood (PhD ’64)

The Stanford University Medical Center Alumni Association (SUMCAA) has announced that William B. Wood, PhD '64, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. He will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on October 18.

He is Distinguished Professor of MCD Biology, Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he moved in 1975 after 12 years on the biology faculty at Caltech. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1964. In recognition of his pioneering research with Robert Edgar on the assembly of complex viruses that infect bacteria, he received the National Academy of Sciences Molecular Biology Award in 1969, and was elected to the National Academies in 1972 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. At Caltech, where he taught biochemistry, he was lead author (with John Wilson and Leroy Hood) of the innovative textbook Biochemistry, A Problems Approach.

In Boulder, he chaired his department from 1978 to 1983, building a strong group of faculty in molecular genetics to complement the existing expertise in cell biology, and switched his field of research and teaching to developmental genetics. His subsequent research interests included genetic control and molecular biology of axis formation, pattern formation, and sex determination in development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as biology education. In 2002 he was awarded a Humboldt Research Prize recognizing scientific achievements in understanding the genetic control of early development, and in 2004 he received the Bruce Alberts Award for Distinguished Contributions to Science Education from the American Society for Cell Biology.

In the years prior to his retirement in 2008, he devoted increasing attention to education issues. With Jo Handelsman, now at Yale University, he founded in 2004, and until 2013 co-directed, the National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education in Biology, a national HHMI-supported professional development workshop for college biology faculty, and from 2005 to 2010 he served as Editor in Chief of the premier biology education research journal CBE-Life Sciences Education. He was also a member of the NRC Board on Science Education (BOSE) for six years, and served on national committees that produced the NRC reports Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools (2002), which led to the recently completed revision of the Advanced Placement Biology curriculum and exam, and the more recent Discipline-based Educational Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering.

Since retiring he has continued to serve on the HHMI Science Education Advisory Board and to lecture at a variety of universities on the need to improve undergraduate science education at the college level, and how it can be done.  In 2013 he received the Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Award from the Society for Developmental Biology.

The Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences honors the legacy of Arthur Kornberg, MD, and Paul Berg, PhD, medical science pioneers and Nobel laureates who brought to Stanford a passion for discovery and groundbreaking research. Established in 2010, this award acknowledges and celebrates the lifetime career achievements of Stanford University School of Medicine alumni in the biomedical sciences. Several previous winners have gone on to win other prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize.

Tania A. Baker (PhD ’88)

The Stanford University Medical Center Alumni Association (SUMCAA) has announced that Tania A. Baker, PhD '88, will receive the prestigious Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences. She will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on October 18.

Tania A. Baker is the Edwin C. Whitehead Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University in 1988. Her graduate research was carried out in the laboratory of Professor Arthur Kornberg and focused on mechanisms of initiation of DNA replication. She did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Kiyoshi Mizuuchi at the National Institutes of Health, studying the mechanism and regulation of DNA transposition.  

Her current research explores mechanisms and regulation of enzyme-catalyzed protein unfolding, ATP-dependent protein degradation and remodeling of the proteome during cellular stress responses. Professor Baker has served terms as both the Associate Head and Head of MIT’s Biology Department. Professor Baker received the 2001 Eli Lilly Research Award from the American Society of Microbiology. In 2000 she was awarded the MIT School of Science Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education and in 2008 she was elected as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow for her contributions to education. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Microbiology. Professor Baker is coauthor (with Arthur Kornberg) of the book DNA Replication (2nd edition) as well as of the 5th, 6th and 7th editions of Watson’s influential text Molecular Biology of the Gene. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with her husband and two children and enjoys sea kayaking and fiber arts.

The Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences honors the legacy of Arthur Kornberg, MD, and Paul Berg, PhD, medical science pioneers and Nobel laureates who brought to Stanford a passion for discovery and groundbreaking research. Established in 2010, this award acknowledges and celebrates the lifetime career achievements of Stanford University School of Medicine alumni in the biomedical sciences. Several previous winners have gone on to win other prestigious awards including the Nobel Prize.

Debra A. Schwinn (MD ’83)

The Stanford University Medical Center Alumni Association (SUMCAA) has announced that Debra A. Schwinn, MD '83, will receive the prestigious J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award, presented annually to a Stanford University School of Medicine alumnus MD. She will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford campus on October 18.

Dr. Schwinn is currently completing her second year as Dean of the University of Iowa Roy J. & Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine as well as serving as Professor of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Biochemistry.

Dr. Schwinn received her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine. She completed a residency in anesthesiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a clinical fellowship in cardiac anesthesiology at Duke University Medical Center. This was followed by a research fellowship in α1-adrenergic receptor molecular pharmacology in the laboratory of Bob Lefkowitz in the Departments of Biochemistry and Medicine at Duke. Dr. Schwinn served for 18 years on the faculty at Duke University in North Carolina where she ultimately received a James B. Duke Professorship. Following her time at Duke, she moved to the University of Washington in Seattle where she served as Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, and was both the Allan J. Treuer Endowed Professor of Anesthesiology and Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology and Genome Sciences.  

Dr. Schwinn is a nationally known investigator in molecular pharmacology with an interest in the mechanisms underlying the stress response. Her recent interest in perioperative genomics has led to research examining the role of genetic variability on perioperative outcomes. She maintains active funding from the National Institutes of Health, and as a result of her research, holds several U.S. patents. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science (2002), Association of American Physicians (2005), and member of many other national and international organizations.

An invited lecturer and visiting professor throughout the world, she has served on many national and international committees and boards, including her role as 2002-2014 member (2012-2014 Chair) of the Board of Trustees for the International Anesthesiology Research Society. Dr. Schwinn has authored or co-authored more than 180 journal articles and book chapters, edited two books, and served on the editorial boards of several journals. During her academic career she has received many honorary awards, including several teaching awards.

Dr. Schwinn brings a passionate vision of academic medicine in a changing health care environment. She has laid the groundwork for innovations in medical education, bench to bedside research, and team-based patient care. During her tenure as Dean, she has overseen the implementation of a new medical education curriculum that incorporates professional skills and wholistic elements of medicine in society as well as introducing novel mechanisms-based biomedical sciences as first in the United States. She has also successfully recruited a nationally-renown leader for the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Diabetes Research Center and envisions several similar inter-disciplinary disease-based research centers that incorporate basic science research, clinical research, and patient care.  

Dr. Schwinn lives in the Iowa City area with her husband, Bob, who is a theologian and computer scientist. They have two adult daughters, Anna and Heidi.

The J. E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award was first conferred in 1983. The award is named for the former Stanford University president who, in 1953, recommended that the Stanford Medical School be moved from San Francisco to join the main educational and research Stanford campus in Palo Alto.

Andrew Serafini (PhD ’94)

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton announced today the addition of Andrew Serafini (PhD '94) to the firm's Seattle office. Dr. Serafini will be a Partner in the internationally recognized Intellectual Property Group's Health and Life Sciences Team.

Dr. Serafini, who is joining the firm from Fenwick & West, focuses his practice on representing biotechnology, biopharmaceutical, and other life sciences clients on intellectual property strategy and counseling. He has worked extensively on the strategic development of patent portfolios in numerous areas including immunology, molecular biology, antibody engineering and therapeutics, vaccines, stem cell technologies, molecular genetics, genomics, proteomics and protein chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medical therapeutics, nanotechnology, cleantech, medical diagnostics and personalized medicine. Early in Dr. Serafini’s career, he was an associate with the predecessor firm to Kilpatrick Townsend.

Dr. Serafini earned his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford University School of Medicine and his B.S., with honors, in Biochemistry from the Case Institute of Technology of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Serafini is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Law and a mentor with their Entrepreneurial Law Clinic. He a member of the Seattle Trade Alliance Advisory Council and the China Policy Committee for the Washington Council on International Trade.

Dr. Serafini was named “Volunteer of the Year,” by the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA) in 2013 and has been recognized as a "Rising Star" in Intellectual Property category by Washington Super Lawyers for multiple years.

James C. Tsai (MD ’89)

James C. Tsai, MD '89, MBA has been appointed President of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai and Chair of Ophthalmology for the Mount Sinai Health System, effective September 2014. A world-renowned physician-scientist and administrator, Dr. Tsai will apply his multiple talents to enhance the clinical, scientific and educational programs of Mount Sinai's Department of Ophthalmology and continue to secure New York Eye and Ear Infirmary's reputation as a local, national and global leader.

Dr. Tsai is an expert in the diagnosis and management of challenging glaucoma cases. He specializes in glaucoma implant surgery, trabeculectomy with antimetabolite surgery, combined glaucoma and cataract surgery and sutureless cataract surgery in patients with glaucoma. His research interests include the identification of neuroprotective molecules that can shield the optic nerve from damage without lowering intraocular pressure, evaluation of surgical outcomes in glaucoma patients and development of advanced vision testing techniques.

Dr. Tsai serves on numerous editorial boards and panels and has authored a wide range of scientific articles, abstracts, and book chapters on glaucoma, as well as three editions of the medical textbook, Medical Management of Glaucoma and the Oxford American Handbook of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Tsai is a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American College of Surgeons and the Royal Society of Medicine in the United Kingdom. He is an elected member of the American Ophthalmological Society, the American Eye Study Club, the New York Ophthalmological Society and the Manhattan Ophthalmological Society. Dr. Tsai currently serves as Chair of the Glaucoma Subcommittee of the National Eye Health Education Program Planning Committee of the National Institute of Health, Chair of the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Global Ophthalmic News & Education Network Advisory Board, Chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Glaucoma Foundation and Secretary for the English Language Region of the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology.

Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Tsai served as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science in the School of Medicine at Yale University and as Chief of Ophthalmology at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He previously directed the glaucoma division at the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Tsai earned his Medical Degree from Stanford University School of Medicine, and his MBA from Vanderbilt University, followed by residency training in ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute, which at the time was affiliated with the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He conducted his glaucoma fellowship training at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami Health System, and at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, and University College London's Institute of Ophthalmology.

John Arbo (Fellow ’10-’12)

John Arbo completed a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Stanford from 2010-2012. He recently published Decision Making in Emergency Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Handbook, a concise and authoritative resource to help you manage the types of complex cardiac, pulmonary, and neurological emergencies you encounter as a resident or attending emergency room physician. This portable guide to rational clinical decision-making in the challenging – and changing – world of emergency critical care provides in every chapter a streamlined review of a common problem in critical care medicine, along with evidence-based guidelines and summary tables of landmark literature.

Darrick Antell (Resident ’85)

The Human Genome Exhibit, currently on display in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, features the groundbreaking identical twins research conducted by New York City plastic surgeon, Darrick Antell M.D. F.A.C.S. Dr. Antell completed his surgery residency in 1985 at the Stanford University Medical Center.

Dr. Antell’s published work, “How Environment and Lifestyle Choices Influence the Aging Process”, sought to understand how lifestyle choices such as excess sun, smoking, and stress can contribute to the aging process. Through this study, it was concluded that environmental and lifestyle factors can accelerate the aging process independently of genetic influences.

His research is highly regarded among scientific journals and consumer publications and has even been featured nationally by programs such as Good Morning America. Dr. Antell has recently reached a new level of recognition as his findings were deemed worthy of display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Visitors to the Smithsonian can view Dr. Antell’s work as part of the Human Genome Exhibit, a display commemorating the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome. Next year, the Human Genome Exhibit will tour other natural history museums around the country and the world. (www.antell-md.com)

Ilene Wong (Resident ’10)

In September 2013, Ilene Wong sold a young adult novel, None of the Above, to Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins for publication in Spring 2015 under the pen name I. W. Gregorio. The book, which was pitched as Middlesex meets Mean Girls, was inspired by an intersex patient she treated while a resident at Stanford. Visit www.iwgregorio.com for details. The day after her book deal, Ilene gave birth to her second child, Gabriel Gregorio, 6 lbs., 10 oz., and 19 in. Ilene currently resides in Philadelphia and would love to get in touch with any alumni in the Philly area and beyond. She can be reached at ilene.wong@gmail.com.

Abraham Verghese (Faculty)

Abraham Verghese, MD, professor of medicine and best-selling author of the novel Cutting for Stone, has been selected to receive the $250,000 Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities.

"Dr. Verghese's widely acclaimed writings touch the heart and inform the soul, giving people of all walks of life a true understanding of what it is to heal the whole person — not just physically, but emotionally," Teresa Heinz, chair of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in a news release announcing the annual Heinz Awards in five different categories: arts and humanities, the environment, the human condition, public policy and technology, the economy and employment.

Verghese is vice chair for the theory and practice of medicine in the Department of Medicine and the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor. He is a strong advocate for the value of bedside manner and the physical exam — skills he sees as waning in an era of increasingly sophisticated medical technology.

"As a teacher and a caregiver, Dr. Verghese has shown how the best physicians are those who understand that healing is about more than medicine," said Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the medical school. "As a writer, he has shared this message broadly, reminding us all of the enduring power of the human touch."

Cutting for Stone was on The New York Times bestseller list for more than two years. Verghese's first book, My Own Country, a memoir about AIDS in rural Tennessee, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been published extensively in the medical literature. His writing also has appeared in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, among other magazines.

"In my work as a writer, I have always tried to convey the notion that medicine is a uniquely human, person-to-person endeavor," Verghese said. "In my view, it is a ministry with a calling."

The Heinz Awards are given in memory of U.S. Sen. John Heinz, a Pennsylvania Republican who died in 1991.

The 19th annual awards will be presented April 3 during a private ceremony at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Kenneth Kendler (MD ’77)

The New York Academy of Medicine has honored Kenneth Kendler, MD’77, with the Rachel Brown Banks Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and professor of Human Genetics, with its 2013 Thomas William Salmon Award in Psychiatry.

In making its award, the academy noted “his brilliant and determined quest to illuminate the etiology of schizophrenia, substance abuse, and personality disorders. … Dr. Kendler’s research has truly revolutionized our knowledge of the foundations of mental health. His academic work and translational contributions to the field have set the stage for the next chapters of research and practice in the science of psychiatry.”

Each year The New York Academy of Medicine’s Salmon Committee on Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene recognizes a prominent specialist in psychiatry, neurology or mental hygiene by presenting The Thomas William Salmon Award for outstanding contributions to these fields. On the same occasion, The Thomas William Salmon Lecturer, chosen from among the nation’s most talented investigators, is invited to share his or her research with the New York area psychiatric community. Kendler was honored as the Thomas William Salmon Lecturer in 2001.

Dr. Kendler earned his medical degree from Stanford in 1977 and completed a psychiatry residency at Yale University in 1980. He now is the Rachel Brown Banks Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and professor of Human Genetics at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics.