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Collaborative Grants 
honors & awards
Carolyn Britton, M.D., associate professor of clinical neurology, has been named president-elect of the National Medical Association (NMA). She will become president in 2008. The NMA, which was founded in 1895, represents more than 30,000 African-American physicians.
Martin Chalfie, Ph.D., the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences at Morningside, and a faculty member in CUMC’s doctoral program in neurobiology and behavior; Ruth Fischbach, Ph.D., M.P.E. professor of bioethics (in psychiatry and sociomedical science, Mailman); Stephen P. Goff, Ph.D., Higgins Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and professor of microbiology; and James Rothman, Ph.D., Clyde ’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Physiology (Chemical Biology), department of physiology and cellular biophysics, have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Chalfie was honored for contributions to the fields of neurobiology and developmental biology, particularly for dissecting pathways underlying mechanosensation, and innovating methods for fluorescently marking live cells. Dr. Fischbach was honored for her contributions to the field of medical ethics, and for research on issues in bioethics including neuroethics, stem cell research, and advances in assisted reproductive technology. Dr. Goff was honored for his contributions to molecular biology and virology. Dr. Rothman was honored for his contributions to the understanding of protein trafficking, in particular the mechanisms by which proteins are transported in vesicles between intracellular organelles.
Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., University Professor, director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences, and senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medicine Institute, won the 2007 Best Book Award given by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, with the support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. Dr. Kandel’s book, “In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of the Mind,” was published by WW Norton & Co in 2006.
Awards
The 2007 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, awarded annually by Columbia to outstanding basic researchers in the fields of biology or biochemistry, has been awarded to Joseph Gall, Ph.D., a cell biologist at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Embryology; Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., a biologist and physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco; and Carol Greider, Ph.D., a molecular biologist and geneticist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The awardees, who represent three generations of teacher-student scientists, will be honored for work that has contributed to the fundamental understanding of the aging process.
Nominations for the 2008 Horwitz Prize must be submitted electronically by Jan. 31, 2008, at http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/horwitz
The 2007 Katz Prizes in Cardiovascular Research were awarded in October to James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and a leading cardiology researcher, and Thomas G. Diacovo, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and pathology and director of neonatal research at CUMC. Dr. Willerson was recognized with the Lewis Katz Visiting Professorship in Cardiovascular Research for excellence in cardiovascular research and education. Dr. Diacovo was awarded the Lewis Katz Cardiovascular Research Prize for a Young Investigator, which recognizes a junior faculty member at CUMC with great promise for contribution to the study of heart disease.
Allan Rosenfield, M.D., professor of ob/gyn and dean of the Mailman School of Public Health, and Barry Honig, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, were inducted in October into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
