Inside Einstein
Training Tomorrow’s Leaders — Dr. Robert Marion was awarded a $ 3.9million grant over five years by the Health Resources and Services Administration for an interdisciplinary leadership training program in neurodevelopmental and related disabilities, conditions which affect more than 10% of American preschool- and school-aged children. The program will consist of a didactic and hands-on curriculum that provides research projects, community-based clinical experiences and administrative and leadership training to at least 50 trainees in various medical and allied health disciplines each year. The public health goal of this project is to prepare future leaders to provide interdisciplinary services and special healthcare needs to children with developmental disabilities and their families, with an emphasis on educating professionals to work in underserved urban environments. Dr. Marion, professor of pediatrics and of obstetrics & gynecology and women’s health, is chief of the divisions of developmental medicine and genetics in the department of pediatrics. He is also director of the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center.
Tolerable Improvements — Dr. Sridhar Mani has been awarded a $1.5 million grant over five years from the National Cancer Institute to improve tolerability of the anti-cancer drug CPT-11 (Irinotecan), whose effectiveness is reduced by its dose-limiting side effect, diarrhea. Building on previous work with collaborators at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, identifying promising compounds that have inhibited the effects of gut bacteria-derived metabolites implicated in CPT-11-induced diarrhea, Dr. Mani and his team plan to use in vivo assays and humanized animal models of CPT-11 pharmacokinetics to characterize the effects of these inhibitory compounds on the anti-tumor activity and tolerability of CPT-11. This work represents a key effort to fine-tune the approach to treating cancer with the proven therapeutic agent, CPT-11. Dr. Mani is professor of medicine and of genetics,and is the Miriam Mandel Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research.
Book Talk − Dr. T. Byram Karasu is author of Maxims Minimus: Reflections in Microstyle (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.). Dr. Karasu is the university chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Einstein and psychiatrist-in-chief at Einstein’s University Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center. He also is the Dorothy and Marty Silverman Chair in Psychiatry.