News | Page 19 | Graduate School of Medical Sciences

Outstanding Students Celebrated at Convocation

On the eve of their commencement, students from Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences were recognized for their outstanding achievements.

Some 75 medical and graduate students received special awards, prizes, certificates and the Weill Cornell seal during three ceremonies on May 29 in Uris Auditorium and Griffis Faculty Club. The awards acknowledge the students' exceptional academic achievement, scholarship, research, teaching and service....

Becoming a Doctor – and a Mom

Video of Becoming a Doctor – and a Mom | Ngozi Monu | Weill Cornell Medicine

For Ngozi Monu, the key to success is balance. By the time she entered medical school, she was a two-time Olympian with a doctorate. She then discovered new challenges as she became a mother of two while earning her medical degree. Now Monu is working to balance her home life with her future career as an obstetrician/gynecologist – while striving for excellence in both.

A Scientist Returns to a First Love

Video of A Scientist Returns to a First Love | Claire Oh | Weill Cornell Medicine

An athlete, artist, writer and scientist, Claire Oh allowed her disparate passions to guide her career. Her undergraduate bioengineering studies at Cornell University exposed her to the use of nanoparticles to target cancer cells, ultimately inspiring her decision to earn her PhD in pharmacology at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. As she looks ahead, Oh considers what it will...

The company Iris takes first prize in the $100,000 Biomedical Business Plan Challenge. Team members from left to right: Drs. Rochelle Joly, Alison Herman, Meghan Reading Turchioe, Jyotishman Pathak, and graduate student Andrea Cohen. [Not pictured:Dr. Yiye Zhang]. All photos: Ashley Jones.

Biomedical Business Plan Challenge Nurtures Weill Cornell Medicine Entrepreneurs

Dr. Jyotishman Pathak, the Frances and John L. Loeb Professor of Medical Informatics, and chief of the Division of Health Informatics in the Department of Healthcare Policy and Research at Weill Cornell Medicine, wanted to improve the way clinicians treat the more than 1.5 million U.S. women who suffer from mood and anxiety disorders related to pregnancy and childbirth. So, working closely Weill Cornell Medicine’s BioVenture eLab, he formed a company to do just that., The company seeks to...

Dr. Matthew Greenblatt. Credit: John Abbott

Dr. Matthew Greenblatt Wins Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research

Dr. Matthew Greenblatt, an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the 2019 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research to support his work studying tumor growth in bone.

Established in 2013, the prize is awarded each year to New York-based scientists pursuing compelling cancer research and provides $200,000 in funding annually for up to three years. The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer...

Dr. Rajiv Ratan (center) and his research team at the Burke Neurological Institute.

A New Strategy for Protecting the Brain After Strokes

The chemical element selenium, an essential nutrient for humans and other animals, protects the brain after a stroke and may be a basis for future stroke therapies, according to a study from scientists at Burke Neurological Institute and Weill Cornell Medicine.

The study, published in print on May 16 and online May 2 in Cell, found that selenium drives a molecular response in brain cells that protects them from a cell-killing process arising in the hours after stroke. Delivering a...

Tracking the Epigenetic Evolution of a Cancer, Cell by Cell

A powerful new set of scientific tools developed by Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Genome Center (NYGC) researchers enables them to track the molecular evolution of cancers. The tools should enable a better understanding of how cancers arise and spread in the body, and how they respond to different therapies.

Described in papers on May 15 in Nature and April 23 in Nature Communications, the new approach allows researchers to isolate individual cancer cells sampled from patients...

Helping Hand

Dr. Omar Vandal, Ph.D. ’07, came to Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences determined to make a difference in the world—focusing his studies on tuberculosis, the world’s most deadly infectious disease and one that sickens an estimated half-million people each year in his homeland of Pakistan. He did innovative doctoral research, identifying a key protein that the TB bacterium needs to survive within the host cell—information that may help scientists develop better drugs. But after...

Discovery Reveals Potential New Pathway for Treating Obesity and Related Disorders

A molecule that helps prevent fat accumulation in mammals is produced within fat tissues by stem-like cells that may be therapeutic targets for obesity and related disorders, according to a new study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Obesity has become a global pandemic in recent decades, and presently affects more than 90 million Americans and hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Obesity can be debilitating on its own, but it also increases the risk of other major...

Study Shows How Ketamine Reverses Depression—and How its Benefits Could Be Extended

The powerful but temporary benefits of ketamine against depression might be extended if the new brain-cell connections it promotes could be preserved, according to a new study published April 12 in Science from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Depression affects tens of millions of people in the United States alone, which could lead to suicide in severe cases, and ketamine is the only widely-tested antidepressant drug that relieves depression symptoms within hours of taking it—as...