School Notes: School of Medicine
March/April 2012

Unlocking access to HIV care

Frederick L. Altice, a pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher, epidemiologist, and clinician, has been honored with a gift from the Indonesia-based Nusantara Trust Fund Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that provides aid and assistance for humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia. Altice, professor of medicine and public health, has traveled the world pursuing his work on the interface between infectious diseases and substance abuse. He has helped to improve access to care and treatment programs for HIV-infected drug users in Malaysia, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Peru. The gift, which includes a resource fund of $2 million, will enable Altice to expand on the research infrastructure he’s helped to build in Southeast Asia over the last decade.

A new window on the life of the brain

A new study of remarkable size and scope offers clues to how the human brain develops, from its early stages into old age. The landmark research, conducted by an international team of scientists led by Nenad Sestan, associate professor of neurobiology and a member of Yale’s Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, found that gene expression in the human brain is exquisitely choreographed across developmental periods and brain regions. This tailoring of gene expression occurs particularly during the prenatal period, during which there are rapid changes in brain structure and function. The study was published in the October 27 issue of Nature.

Pioneering psychiatric telemedicine

Linda S. Godleski has received the David M. Worthen Award for Career Achievement in Educational Excellence from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the VA’s highest recognition for academic accomplishments. Godleski, associate chief of staff for education for the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Connecticut, and associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, has pioneered the application of telemedicine (the use of technology to provide medical care when distance separates providers from patients) to psychiatry, in an emerging field known as “telemental health medicine.” As director of the VA National Telemental Health Center, Godleski has been a leader in developing telemental health curricula for the VA, which has one of the largest such programs in the world.