Starting this year, 2024, watch this page for updated information on awards, accolades and honors for the YCC/Smilow community. They will be posted here and in the DirectConnect newsletter.
APRIL
Lisa Arnel, Senior Administrative Assistant in Palliative Care at Smilow Cancer Hospital, was honored with an Out of the Blue Award for her work on the Yale Serious Illness Communication Skills Faculty Training Course held in February. Pictured with Lisa are Dr. Laura Morrison, director of Palliative Medicine Education, and Dr. Dmitry Kozhevnikov, director of Smilow Ambulatory Palliative Care. Dr. Morrison said: “Lisa went beyond in helping us put on this new course. Her preparation and creative solutions led to a very fruitful learning experience for our participants.”
At a recent ceremony at the Yale School of Medicine's historic library, YCC member Joachim Baehring, MD, professor of neurology and of neurosurgery was presented with a Distinguished Clinical Career Award. Dr. Baehring is associate chief of neurology; director of the Neuro-Oncology Fellowship Program; and vice chair of clinical affairs for Neurology. He joined YSM in 2002, and he built the medical Neuro-Oncology Program within Yale Cancer Center from the ground up. He established a practice for patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors, neurologic complications of cancer, and neurologic disorders of the highest complexity. For more than 15 years, Baehring led the multidisciplinary Brain Tumor Center — now named the Chênevert Family Brain Tumor Center after one of his patients. He established a Neuro-Oncology Patient Data Repository at the Brain Tumor Center, which serves as the basis for epidemiological, clinical, quality control studies, and basic science studies requiring correlation with clinical data. In 2009, Baehring established the Medical Neuro-Oncology Fellowship program at Yale and served as its director for over a decade.
Jun Deng, PhD, professor of Therapeutic Radiology and Director of Physic Research, recently was selected as one of the 15 experts for the NIH's Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) Program for Artificial Intelligence Readiness (PAIR). PAIR will connect institutions with AIM-AHEAD resources, AI/ML and health equity experts, and grant-writing coaches to help establish AI/ML Health Equity Research Labs that host cross-disciplinary teams for research projects and grant writing.
YCC Deputy Director Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Ensign Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Professor of Pharmacology as well as Chief of Medical Oncology, recently was honored at a gala benefitting the Ezra Academy and its fundraising goal of $200,000.
MARCH 2024
Director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers to Lead New ASCO Publication
Pamela Kunz, MD, has been named the inaugural editor-in-chief of a new open-access and interdisciplinary journal launched by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
JCO Oncology Advances will be dedicated “to accelerating progress in the global fight against cancer by providing a platform where innovation in cancer research meets accessibility.”
“I am committed to shaping this platform into the foremost oncology open-access journal. By publishing a wide array of content, we aim to engage a diverse audience, encompassing academics, community practitioners, international colleagues, and patient partners,” said Dr. Kun, who leads the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center and is chief of GI Medical Oncology.
“Our accessible online format empowers us to be innovative, agile, and impactful, extending our reach far beyond conventional boundaries,” she said. The journal will open for submissions in Spring of 2024.
New Ocular Oncology Physician to Join Faculty
Dr. Anthony Daniels, an ocular oncologist and vitreoretinal surgeon by training, will join the faculty March 1. He will see ocular oncology patients in ophthalmology and ocular oncology patients at Smilow and throughout the Yale Hew Haven Health system. Simultaneously, he is serving as Therapeutic Area Head of Ocular Oncology at Aura Biosciences, where he is responsible for leading the ocular oncology program and driving future strategy.
Dr. Daniels previously was an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Radiation Oncology, and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. He served as Chief of the Division or Ocular Oncology and Pathology at Vanderbilt. He majored in molecular biology at Princeton University and then earned a master’s degree in public health policy from the London School of Economics. Then he attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as the recipient of the institution’s most prestigious full scholarship. After his intern year at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he completed both his ophthalmology residency and vitreoretinal fellowship at the Massachusets Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School, followed by additional tumor training at the Mayo Clinic and at MSKCC.
As an ocular oncologist and physician-scientist, his research has focused on drug discovery and development. His lab developed novel animal models of adult and pediatric eye cancers, and identified novel antineoplastic therapies, and his research techniques and models are now being used by centers around the world. In addition, he brings expertise in clinical trial design.
Clinicians Receive a Variety of Awards
Recently, Jensa Morris, MD, Erin Gombos, MD,and Irene Piazza, DNP, RN, AOCNS, were recognized for their work.
• Irene Piazza, who is clinical program manager for Smilow Greenwich, was awarded the annual Greenwich Hospital Breast Center Award. Each year, the Breast Center selects an outstanding individual who continuously goes above and beyond to uphold its mission, vision, and values, and inspire the care center clinicians and staff.
• Dr. Morris was honored with the Department of Medicine Voluntary Faculty Inpatient Medicine Award. The award was given in recognition of outstanding contribution to the education of trainees through the Smilow Hospitalist Service.
• Dr. Gombos was honoroed by the Society of Hospital Medicine Connecticut Chapter Award for Excellence in Education. The chapter celebrates one physician, one APP, and one resident, each of whom who go beyond clinical expertise to actively shape the next generation of clinicians.
Cancer Publication Taps Yale Physician as Guest Editor
In its first issue on telehealth, The Cancer Journal chose Anne Chiang, MD as its guest editor. Her article "Telemedicine and Cancer: Shifting a Paradigm of Care" was published in the January/February 2024 edition. It summarizing and commenting on much of the content in this issue of the journal, Dr. Chiang noted the need for further study and that "the National Cancer Institute recently created the Telehealth Research Centers of Excellence supported by the Cancer Moonshot to study and develop evidence-based and innovative approaches to cancer telehealth in the future.... Truly understanding the barriers and challenges to care as well as available data on efficacy and patient-reported outcomes provides the opportunity to substantively improve telecare in the future." » READ MORE
Academy Awards Prestigious Fellow Status to Yale Cancer Researcher
Earlier this month, the American Association for Cancer Research elected its new class of fellows, including Yale’s Craig M. Crews, PhD. It cited his breakthrough cancer research, describing it as “trailblazing research involving the use of small molecules to manipulate intracellular protein levels via targeted protein degradation, pioneering the development of proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs), and leading critical investigations concerning synthetic proteasome inhibitors such as carfilzomib, approved for the treatment of multiple myeloma.”
Dr. Crews is John C. Malone Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; professor of chemistry, pharmacology, and management; and executive director, Yale Center for Molecular Discovery, Yale School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center
Academy fellows serve as a global brain trust of top contributors to cancer science and medicine who help advance AACR’s mission to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy and advocacy, and funding for cancer research.
The 2024 Eclipse Award for Innovation in High Throughput Biology
Dr. Giulia Biancon, currently a member in the laboratory of Dr. Stephanie Halene, was chosen by the The RNA Society for the award. Dr. Biancon obtained her PhD in 2018 from the University of Milan in the lab of Dr. Paolo Corradini. During her post-doctoral work, Dr. Biancon has used eCLIP to study the binding of mutant RNA splicing factor U2AF identified in a number of blood cancers. Using these data and additional high-throughput analysis such as TimeLapse-seq and single-cell RNA-seq, she was able to unravel the consequence of the altered U2AF binding profile on pre-mRNA splicing, linking U2AF1 mutations to enhanced stress granule response in these blood cancer cells. She currently serves as a Coordinator of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine.
Lung Cancer Research Award Bestowed
Gavitt Woodard, MD, received the AZ Lung Cancer Research award at the 60th annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in San Antonio in January. At the meeting she presented on immune cell infiltration and function after neoadjuvant chemo-immunotherapy in Non Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Breast Cancer Alliance Fellowship Announced
The Breast Cancer Alliance announced that Sarah K. Merkel MD has been selected for a 2024-2025 BCA Breast Surgery Fellowship at Yale University. Dr. Merkel is Chief Resident at University of South Florida Health in Tampa. She is a 2019 graduate of the Tulane University School of Medicine.