School Notes: School of Medicine
September/October 2021

Surgeon-scientist named new urology chair

Isaac Y. Kim has been appointed chair of the Department of Urology at Yale School of Medicine and chief of urology at Yale New Haven Hospital, effective September 1. A surgeon-scientist with more than a decade of leadership experience, Kim has been professor and chief of the Division of Urology in the Department of Surgery at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Medical School, and chief of the Section of Urologic Oncology and executive director of the Prostate Cancer Center at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Kim spearheaded the development of the robotic surgery program at RWJ University Hospital and is an expert in robot-assisted radical prostatectomy. He has managed a basic science research program on the mechanism of prostate cancer treatment resistance and investigates new treatment options for the disease. At Yale, Kim will focus on innovative patient care built on investigator-initiated clinical trials and visionary basic research programs. He also plans to increase the research exposure of resident physicians. 

Partnership with industry creates data science fellowships

Yale University, in partnership with the pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim, has launched a biomedical data science fellowship program designed to attract and support some of the brightest and most innovative minds in data science from around the world. Postdoctoral researchers awarded three-year fellowships will have access to Yale’s robust computational resources, biomedical data repositories, and faculty expertise. They also will benefit from access to Boehringer Ingelheim’s corporate labs, scientists, and executives. The program is based at the Yale Center for Biomedical Data Science, which is housed within the School of Medicine and is an essential part of a growing data science hub at the university. Yale has identified integrated data science as one of its primary investment areas over the next decade.