PHOTO CREDIT: Mayo Clinic

News, Continued

  • 2022 Gerstner Sloan Kettering Chairman’s Prize Celebrates Research That Sheds Light on Cellular Metabolic Processes
    September 12, 2022

    Paige Arnold, who will graduate from the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSK) next spring, has been awarded the 2022 Chairman’s Prize. The competitive award is presented annually and was established by GSK’s Board of Trustees Chair Emeritus Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., for whom the school is named. This year’s Chairman’s Prize, in the amount of $2,000, honors Arnold’s research, which she conducted in the laboratory of Lydia Finley, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI). The Finley Lab studies how metabolic pathways regulate stem cells and cancer cells. Arnold’s work focuses on the characterization of a novel, alternative tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle that is a major driver of the metabolic diversity observed across mammalian cells. Her research sought to understand how this metabolic diversity is achieved, and whether it is important for the establishment of cell identity.

    Read More at: mskcc.org
  • Diocese of Palm Beach Awarded $1.68 Million Grant from Gerstner Philanthropies to Support Scholarship Program
    August 3, 2022

    Gerstner Philanthropies has awarded the Diocese of Palm Beach a grant of $1.68 million over the next seven years to continue the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Distinguished Scholars Program at the three diocesan high schools: Cardinal Newman High School (West Palm Beach), John Carroll High School (Fort Pierce) and St. John Paul II Academy (Boca Raton). Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito expressed his appreciation for the gift by saying, “The Diocese of Palm Beach is grateful to Mr. Lou Gerstner and the Gerstner Family Foundation for their continued support of academic excellence in our three Catholic high schools. These scholarships assist families with outstanding students, who have financial need, to be able to attend our Catholic high schools. I know that these families appreciate this wonderful opportunity offered to their children.”

    Read More At NCEA Momentum Magazine
  • MSK Announces The 2022 Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Physician Scholars

    Memorial Sloan Kettering announced their first cohort of the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Physician Scholars Program on Monday. In 2021, the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Physician Scholars Program was established at MSK to support the translational science initiatives of talented early-career physician-scientists across multiple specialties. Mr. Gerstner’s generosity and continued dedication to the education and training of future leaders in cancer care make this farsighted opportunity possible. Through this highly competitive program, top-tier physician-scientists will be provided with a level of support that is otherwise difficult to obtain this early in their careers. The scope of innovation and excellence achieved at MSK depends on the work of a diverse scientific and clinical community of investigators, including these four promising physician-scientists, who were carefully selected for the inaugural class of Gerstner Physician Scholars: Susan De Wolf, MD, Juan Osorio, MD, Samir Zaidi, MD, PhD and Morgan Freret, MD, PhD.

    Read more at mskcc.org
  • Four VP&S Physicians Named 2022 Gerstner Scholars

    Four physician-scientists were recently named 2022 Gerstner Scholars: Rebecca Muhle, MD, PhD; Jennifer Small-Saunders, MD, PhD; Neil Vasan, MD, PhD; and Peter Yim, MD. The program also awarded the Gerstner Merit Award to 2019 Scholar Amélie Collins, MD, PhD. The Gerstner Merit Award, created in 2014, provides an additional year of funding and recognizes an exceptional third-year Gerstner Scholar who conducts innovative research, has shown significant growth as an academic medicine investigator, and is ideally positioned to secure a significant principal investigator award.he Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholars Program provides exceptional physician-scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) with vital funding. Each scholar receives a stipend of $75,000 per year for three years for salary or laboratory support. The support allows early-career scientists to conduct pioneering research and gather the pilot data necessary to apply for grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources. The Gerstner Scholars Program, established in 2008 by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. and the Gerstner Family Foundation, helps make VP&S a major engine of medical innovation.

    Read more about the 2022 Scholars at columbia.edu
  • Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics Researchers Develop New Approach called MAESTRO to advance Cancer Detection

    A team led by researchers at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Medical School has developed a new method to identify thousands of DNA mutations accurately and efficiently in a patient's blood sample with minimal sequencing. The approach, called MAESTRO, could one day enable the detection of residual cancer in patients who have undergone treatment, alerting doctors to disease recurrence earlier and more cheaply than current techniques allow. MAESTRO works to identify Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) markers in the blood using less sequencing than more conventional approaches, enabling researchers to detect cancer mutations more quickly, efficiently and at a low cost. “This project has been a great reminder that new methods can make DNA sequencing even more powerful,” added Golub. “It will be exciting to see how MAESTRO can impact basic discovery and, in the future, clinical care.”

    Read more at broadinstitute.org