Gates Foundation Awards BIDMC Major Grants for HIV Vaccine
(L-r): Barouch, Letvin, Dolin and Seaman
BIDMC is among an international group of prominent research institutions that have been awarded generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of a sweeping global initiative to develop a vaccine to protect against HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS. The awards were announced on July 19.
The laboratory of Norman Letvin, MD, chief, division of viral pathogenesis, will receive a five-year, $18 million Gates Foundation grant for his work on adenovirus-vector based and mycobacteria-vector based vaccines, while BIDMC scientists Dan Barouch, MD, PhD, Raphael Dolin, MD, and Michael Seaman, PhD, as members of this and other teams, will also receive significant funding from the foundation. The generous grants are part of a large-scale, coordinated international initiative – involving more than 165 investigators from 19 countries – to develop an HIV vaccine and control the growing AIDS epidemic.
“This is a truly extraordinary accomplishment,” notes BIDMC Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey Flier, MD. “In addition to providing our scientists with critically important funding as they continue to gain a better understanding of the HIV virus, these grants from the Gates Foundation offer further confirmation of the leading role BIDMC plays in the worldwide fight against this devastating disease.”
Last year, Letvin was named a scientific leader of the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), a new consortium established by the National Institutes of Health to design, develop and test HIV vaccine candidates. Both the newly developed network of Gates Foundation grants and CHAVI were created as part of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a plan proposed in 2003 by an international group of 140 scientists who gathered at a summit to determine the best way to collectively – and urgently – deal with the AIDS crisis.
“There are 5 million new HIV infections each year,” says Letvin. “Forty million individuals are currently living with the HIV virus and 20 million people have already died from AIDS. And all of this has happened in the span of only 25 years. It’s clear that developing an HIV vaccine is one of the greatest priorities in all of public health, and these extremely generous grants from the Gates Foundation help bring us one step closer to achieving this goal.”
– Bonnie Prescott
Published monthly for the people of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to build community, communicate direction, foster pride and recognize accomplishments.
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Shapiro Institute Celebrates Education
Scenes from the Shapiro Institute week celebration.
With a nod to its innovative beginnings and an eye on today’s complex medical education challenges, the Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research marked its 10th anniversary at BIDMC in June.
When the Shapiro Institute was founded in 1996 by Harvard Medical School and BIDMC, it was a unique collaboration between a hospital and a medical school. “The Institute was dedicated to the education of physicians from medical school through postgraduate work, and to the development of faculty as professional educators,” notes Richard Schwartzstein, MD, BIDMC’s vice president of education and director of the Shapiro Institute. “The breadth of activities during the 10th anniversary week reflected how the Institute continues to be a national leader in education.”
Other events included:
• An inaugural Medical Education Grand Rounds:
Gail Morrison, MD, vice dean for education, director of academic programs and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Luann Wilkerson, EdD, senior associate dean for medical education and professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, shared their experiences with redesigning medical education curricula. They were also honored with the prestigious Daniel C. Tosteson Award for Excellence in Medical Education, named for the former HMS dean and co-founder of the Shapiro Institute.
• Rabkin Fellowship Symposium:
Stuart Altman, PhD, Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy at Brandeis University and a member of the BIDMC Board of Overseers, spoke on the financial challenges facing medical care. As part of the session, Charles Hatem, MD, director of faculty programs in medical education, was honored with an Excellence in Professional Development Award.
• Resident and Fellow Research Session:
Six residents and fellows were chosen to present the results of their research projects from among 29 studies submitted. Trainees and faculty discussed a wide range of topics, including a study on head of bed elevation to prevent aspiration pneumonia and immunophenotypes in breast disease. Jason Ryan, MD, MPH, chief medical resident, earned top honors for his presentation, “Weekend vs. Weekday Timing of Intervention in Non-ST-Segment Elevation Acute Coronary Syndromes.”
Nowhere was that leadership more evident that in the opening of the Carl J. Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center (SASC) on June 13. A brief opening ceremony was attended by the center’s namesake and his family, along with BIDMC President and CEO Paul Levy, SASC co-directors David Feinstein, MD, and Daniel Jones, MD, and Shapiro Institute Scholar-in-Resident Mitchell T. Rabkin, MD, among others. After the ceremony, 100 staff members and other guests toured the center, which features sophisticated mock operating and patient care rooms outfitted with the most advanced training technology available. (See the July 2006 edition of BIDMCtoday on the general Web portal for more on the SASC.)
Called a “Celebration of Education at BIDMC,” the week’s highlights included the first annual Teaching Awards Ceremony on June 15. Beginning what is hoped to become a new tradition, hundreds of faculty, housestaff (interns, residents and fellows), medical students and their supporters gathered in the Shapiro Atrium for refreshments and the bestowing of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and BIDMC department teaching awards.
Almost 50 awards were presented, including the 2006 S. Robert Stone Award for Excellence in Teaching, given to C. Christopher Smith, MD, an internist at Healthcare Associates and an assistant professor at HMS.
See the insert in this publication for a full list of honorees.
– Cindy Whitcome