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Patrice (Patrick) Delafontaine
Patrice (Patrick) Delafontaine, MD, has been named the Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean of the University of Missouri (UM) School of Medicine. Dr. Delafontaine's appointment became effective on Dec. 1, 2014. He joined UM from Tulane University, where he was Sidney W. and Marilyn S. Lassen Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and chief of cardiology.
Dr. Delafontaine had served on the Tulane faculty since 2003. During his tenure there, he was director of the Tulane University Heart and Vascular Institute at Tulane University School of Medicine and medical director of cardiovascular services at Tulane University Hospital and Clinic. He has also previously served in clinical leadership positions at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the University of Geneva and Emory University in Atlanta.
Dr. Delafontaine earned his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland. He completed a research and clinical fellowship in medicine (cardiology) at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Delafontaine's groundbreaking research demonstrating the link between the renin-angiotensin system and IGF-1 has yielded important insights into muscle-wasting diseases, and his work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for more than 18 years.
Osu Wexner Medical Center Names Ceo
Sheldon Retchin
Sheldon Retchin, MD, MSPH, has been named as executive vice president of health sciences and CEO of the Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center, effective March 2. He succeeds Steven Gabbe, MD, who has served as CEO since 2008. Dr. Gabbe is slated to continue as a senior vice president over health sciences through June of this year and then continue as a member of the faculty.
Dr. Retchin has served as the senior vice president for health sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and CEO of the VCU Health System in Richmond, VA since 2003 and is the Ruth and Seymour Perlin Professor of Medicine and Health Administration. He joined VCU in 1987, where he served as a professor in the departments of internal medicine, gerontology and health administration. He is an expert in health policy and health care delivery, and was one of the original technical advisors for Medicare's Consumer Assessment of Health Plans study.
Dr. Retchin earned his MD and MSPH degrees from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Medical Society of Virginia, the American College of Physicians, and AcademyHealth. In 2004, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the UNC School of Medicine. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Morehouse School of Medicine Names Chief of Cardiology
Anekwe E. Onwuanyi
Anekwe E. Onwuanyi, MD, has been named chief of cardiology in the department of internal medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Onwuanyi joined Morehouse as associate chief of cardiology in 2002 and he is a cardiology consultant for several Atlanta metropolitan hospitals.
Dr. Onwuanyi earned his medical degree from the College of Medicine at the University of Lagos in Lagos, Nigeria. He completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Cardiology at the college of Physician and Surgeons, Columbia University at Harlem Hospital Center in New York, NY. His research has focused on strategies to eliminate disparities in health outcomes, particularly in regard to heart failure. He has served as principal investigator for a number of clinical research projects in the area of hypertension, congestive heart failure and atherosclerosis, and his work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health. Prior to joining Morehouse, Dr. Onwuanyi served at Columbia University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, American College of Physicians and American Society of Hypertension.
Chair of Genetics Named at Baylor College of Medicine
Brendan Lee
Brendan Lee, MD, PhD, has been named chair of the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). He had been serving as interim chair since June of 2014, succeeding Arthur Beaudet, MD. Dr. Beaudet remains at BCM as a professor of molecular and human genetics, molecular and cellular biology and pediatrics.
Dr. Lee is the Robert and Janice McNair Endowed Chair and Professor in Molecular and Human Genetics. He is also director of the Center for Skeletal Medicine and Biology at Baylor and co-director of the Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Bone Disease Program of Texas, a collaboration of Baylor and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Lee is the founder and director of the Skeletal Dysplasia Clinic at Texas Children's Hospital. He is also a professor in BCM's Program in Integrative Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, Program in Developmental Biology and Program in Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine.
Dr. Lee earned his MD and PhD degrees at State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, where he was the first to clone two genes for Marfan syndrome and spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia. He then completed pediatric residency and two genetics fellowships at Baylor. In addition to Dr. Lee's research focused on understanding how gene mutations affect skeletal development, he also investigates metabolic disorders. He currently serves as the principal investigator for two large-scale grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Chair of Medical Genetics Named at UW-Madison
John Doebley, PhD, has been named as the new chair of medical genetics and the Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. The Laboratory of Genetics includes the medical genetics department of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the genetics department of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. His appointment was effective on January 1 this year.
Dr. Doebley earned his PhD in botany from UW-Madison and completed a fellowship at North Carolina State. Prior to joining the UW faculty as professor of genetics in 1999, he taught at Texas A&M and at the University of Minnesota. His research is aimed at understanding the genetic basis of the evolution of morphological traits in plants. His work has focused on the evolutionary genetics of maize and its wild relatives as a model system for investigation.
Dr. Doebley is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chair of Neurosurgery Named at Baylor College of Medicine
Daniel Yoshor
Daniel Yoshor, MD, has been named chair of neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). He succeeds Raymond Sawaya, MD. Dr. Sawaya stepped down as chair at the end of 2014 to return full time to MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he is chair of neurosurgery and director of the Brain Tumor Center.
Dr. Yoshor earned his MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed residency training at Baylor and a fellowship in epilepsy and brain tumor surgery at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. He subsequently joined the faculty at Baylor.
Dr. Yoshor is a professor in the department of neurosurgery and chief of the neurosurgery service at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, part of CHI St. Luke's Health. He maintains a clinical practice and is surgical director of the Baylor Pituitary Center and the brain tumor and epilepsy surgery programs. He has served as program director for the Baylor/MD Anderson neurosurgery residency program since 2008. He is principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research program on the neurophysiology of human visual perception.
In addition to a number of NIH grants, his work has also been supported by grants from the Department of Veteran's Affairs. He is an active member of many academic societies, including the Society of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Yoshor is a coauthor of the textbook “Clinical Brain Mapping.”
Director of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cell Therapies Named at Upci
Warren Shlomchik, MD, has been named director of stem cell transplantation and cell therapies for the University of Pittsburgh's Division of Hematology-Oncology and University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter. He was also appointed as scientific director of hematopoietic malignancies for UPCI and will serve as a professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His appointment was effective on March 1.
Dr. Shlomchik earned his MD at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center and was a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in hematology-oncology. He joins Pittsburgh from Yale Cancer Center at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he served as a senior faculty member for 16 years. He is a recognized expert in graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD). He will continue his research at Pitt with the aim of developing new immunologic-based and cell therapy approaches to circumvent and/or overcome the development of GVHD.
Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health Named at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System
Sharmila Makhija, MD, MBA, has been named professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System. Her appointment becomes effective on April 1. She joins Einstein and Montefiore from the University of Louisville School of Medicine, where she served as chair and professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Dr. Makhija earned her MD at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Louisville Hospital and a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She holds an executive MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School.
In addition to serving at the University of Louisville, Dr. Makhija has held faculty posts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine/Magee-Women's Hospital, the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and Emory University School of Medicine. She is a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is a member in a number of professional associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the American Society of Gynecologic Cancer.
New Chair of Department of Microbiology & Immunology Named at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Steven A. Porcelli, MD, has been named as the new chair of the department of microbiology & immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He succeeds Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, who chaired the department of microbiology & immunology since 2006. Dr. Casadevall left Einstein to accept a position at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Porcelli has served on the faculty at Einstein since 1999, when he was recruited as the Irene Diamond Associate Professor in Immunology. He currently holds the Murray and Evelyne Weinstock Chair in Microbiology & Immunology and is a professor of medicine. Since 2004, he has served as scientific director of Einstein's Flow Cytometry Core facility and of FACS (fluorescence-activated cell sorting) resources for the Einstein-Montefiore Center for AIDS Research.
Dr. Porcelli earned his MD from Yale University. He completed a medical residency at Temple University Hospital and fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, where he subsequently served as a junior faculty member in the division of rheumatology, immunology and allergy. While at Harvard Medical School during the 1990's, he discovered the CD1-dependent pathway for antigen presentation to the immune system's T cells. His work demonstrated that T-cells can recognize lipid antigens as well as protein antigens. His subsequent work has focused on studying tuberculosis, including the development of a more effective vaccine for the disease. His work has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1996. He is also funded by a $113,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help develop vaccines to prevent HIV infection.
University of Minnesota Names Regional Campus Dean for Duluth
Paula Termuhlen
Paula Termuhlen, MD, has been named as the new regional campus dean for the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her appointment is effective on March 31. She succeeds Alan Johns, MD, MEd, who has served as interim regional campus dean since July 2014. Dr. Johns serves as Duluth's Assistant Dean for Medical Education and Curriculum and will also resume his role as a faculty member in Duluth.
Dr. Termuhlen joins the University of Minnesota from the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she was a professor of surgery and director of the Surgery Residency Program. She also served as medical director of the High Risk Breast Cancer Program and leader of the Community Medical Education Program. She earned her MD at St. Louis University School of Medicine and completed surgical training at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. She completed a surgical oncology fellowship at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and subsequently served on the faculty at the University of Nebraska. Dr. Termuhlen has also previously served on the faculty at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Ohio, where she was medical director of the High-Risk Breast Center.