Research

Barbara Kazmierczak, MD, PhD, Vice Chair, Basic Research

Harriet Kluger, MD, Vice Chair, Collaborative Research

Robert Soufer, MD, Vice Chair, Clinical Research

In 2022, research leadership outlined goals to expand departmental research initiatives through select priority areas. The work to refine the priorities and build out program structures continues.

In September 2023, the translational Geroscience initiative was officially launched with lectures from a visiting professor, Luigi Ferrucci, MD, PhD. This initiative seeks to bring together diverse physician investigators and scientists in areas relevant to aging, including infectious diseases, pulmonary medicine, rheumatology, and other subspecialties.

Other priority areas identified by the department included bioinformatics and metabolism. These two initiatives were centralized across Yale School of Medicine. The new Department of Biomedical Informatics & Data Science and the Yale Center for Molecular and Systems Metabolism have affiliated faculty within internal medicine. Planning is ongoing within other focus areas, including coordination and alignment for department researchers in fibrosis, addiction medicine, and emerging pathogens.

New Research Centers

In March 2023, Yale School of Medicine announced the establishment of the Yale Obesity Research Center (Y-Weight), led by Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD. The new center’s mission is to improve the lives of individuals living with obesity through cutting-edge research, leading to the development and application of novel therapies and targeting such obesity-related diseases as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer.

Research Honors & Awards

American Society for Clinical Investigation

Over the past year, the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) recognized the following faculty members for their accomplishments:

• David A. Braun, MD, PhD: Young Physician-Scientist Award
• Benjamin Goldman-Israelow, MD, PhD: Young Physician-Scientist Award
• Ya-Chi Ho, MD, PhD: new member
• Rohan Khera, MD: Young Physician-Scientist Award
• Elise Liu, MD, PhD: 2023 Emerging-Generation Award
• Andrew Wang, MD, PhD: new member

Janeway Society

The Janeway Society was developed to create infrastructure and oversight for career development and to shorten the time to independence at Yale. The department has 55 members of the Janeway Society, with nine new members elected between September 2022 and September 2023:

• Diana Athonvarangkul, MD, PhD
• Michael Chiorazzi, MD, PhD
• Eugenia Chock, MD, MPH
• Allison Gaffey, MD
• Sang Taek Kim, MD
• Mengfei Liu, MD
• Edward Manning, MD
• Minhee Sung, MD
• Louise Wang, MD, MSCE

Yale Physician-Scientist Development Awards

The Office of Physician-Scientist and Scientist Development provides grants to junior physician-scientists to conduct mentored research that will facilitate the development of independent research programs through the Yale Physician-Scientist Development Awards program.

The Department of Medicine had numerous award winners for 2022 and 2023:

• Irene Chernova, MD, PhD
• Eugenia Chock, MD, MPH
• Genta Ishikawa, MD, MPH
• Snigdha Jain, MD, MHS
• Lisa Korn, MD, PhD
• Elise Liu, MD, PhD
• John Stendahl, MD, PhD

The Program in Translational Biomedicine accepted its first PhD students this academic year. Led by Megan King, PhD, and Richard Kibbey, MD, PhD, the program aims to train students who wish to study human disease through the lens of fundamental mechanisms. Faculty members from across YSM, including department members David Braun, MD, PhD; Lloyd Cantley, MD; Fred Gorelick, MD; Stephanie Halene, MD, Dr Med; Erica Herzog, MD, PhD; Monique Hinchcliff, MD; Madhav Menon, MBBS, MD; Ruth Montgomery; PhD; Gerald Shulman, MD, PhD; Stefan Somlo, MD; Daniel Vatner, MD, PhD; and Lawrence Young, MD; mentor PhD students in applying cutting-edge research techniques to solve clinical problems.