Yale Medical School To Celebrate Student Research Day on May 3

Faculty members and students gather yearly to learn about
the original research conducted by members of the
School of Medicine's graduating class.

All classes and conferences at Yale School of Medicine will be cancelled on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 3 as the medical community gathers to celebrate one of its oldest annual traditions: Student Research Day.
For more than 160 years, Yale School of Medicine has required that, in order to graduate, students must conduct original scientific research. Yale’s is one of only a few medical schools in the nation to require an M.D. thesis, according to Dr. John N. Forrest Jr., professor of internal medicine and director of the Office of Student Research.
On Student Research Day, the soon-to-be graduates present their work to a university-wide audience of interested faculty members and students.
All Student Research Day activities are free and open to the public.

Posters and presentations

The activities will begin at noon with a scientific poster session in the Anlyan Center lobby, 300 Cedar St.
Five students will then talk about their prize-winning theses in a plenary scientific session at 2 p.m. in the Anlyan Center auditorium (N107), chaired by the Dean of Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Robert Alpern.
The featured students, the titles of their research projects, and their faculty advisers and departments are:

• Vinay Rathi  — “Clinical Studies of High-Risk Therapeutic Medical Devices Receiving FDA Premarket Approval in 2010 and 2011: Total Product Life Cycle Evidence Generation” (Dr. Joseph Ross, Department of Internal Medicine)
• Radoslav Zinoviev — “Evaluating the Impact of Graduate Medical Education (GME) Funding on Hospital Performance” (Dr. Howard Forman, Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging)
• Adam Kundishora — “Restoring Consciousness During Seizures with Deep Brain Stimulation” (Dr. Hal Blumenfeld, Department of Neurology)
• Megan Rowlands — “Language at Rest: A Longitudinal Study of Intrinsic Functional Connectivity in Preterm Children” (Dr. Laura Ment, Department of Pediatrics)
• Victoria Clark — “Characterizing The Genomic Architecture And Molecular Mechanisms Driving The Formation Of Non-NF2 Meningiomas” (Dr. Murat Gunel, Department of Neuroscience)

 Farr Lecture

Yale College alumna Dr. Nancy C. Andrews, dean of the School of Medicine and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke University, will present the annual Farr Lecture at 4:30 p.m. in the Anlyan Center auditorium. Andrews will speak on “"Forging a Career in Iron Biology.”

Now in its 19th year, the Farr Lectureship has become the most prestigious lectureship at Yale Medical School. It is named in honor of the late Dr. Lee E. Farr, a 1932 graduate of the school.

In addition to serving as dean and vice chancellor at Duke, Andrews is the Nanaline H. Duke Professor of Medicine (pediatrics) and professor of pharmacology and cancer biology. Her research, continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, has led to major advances in understanding iron biology and iron diseases, and she is recognized internationally as a leader in her field.

Andrews received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale in 1980. She holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in biology from M.I.T. She remained at Harvard for her internship and residency, and later joined the faculty in the Departments of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital and Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber. She also was an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a position she held until 2006. She rose through the academic ranks at Harvard, leading a research laboratory; serving as an attending physician on the general pediatrics, oncology, and hematology clinical services; and teaching medical and graduate students. She became the Leland Fikes Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard in 2003 and the George Richards Minot Professor in 2006. From 1999 to 2003, Andrews was director of the Harvard-M.I.T. M.D./Ph.D. Program. From 2003 to 2007 she served as dean for basic sciences and graduate studies at Harvard Medical School, before being recruited to Duke.

As dean of the Duke School of Medicine, Andrews oversees more than 2,100 physicians and scientists. Under her leadership the school recently opened a new health education building, a satellite research campus, and a new clinical eye center. Duke has an ongoing capital campaign, and to date the School of Medicine, under Andrews, has raised more than $1 billion.

Andrews has received many awards for scholarship, mentorship, and leadership. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has served on numerous national committees. In 2008, she was named as one of 10 notable women leaders in Newsweek.