School Notes: School of Medicine
July/August 2011

Yale and biopharmaceutical company collaborate on cancer research

Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Yale School of Medicine have entered a multi-year research collaboration focused on the discovery of novel cancer therapies. The effort will initially span four years with an option to renew for up to ten years. Gilead will provide $40 million in research support and basic science infrastructure development during the initial four-year period and will provide a total of up to $100 million over ten years should the collaboration be extended through that time frame. Yale will retain ownership of all intellectual property generated by School of Medicine research, and Gilead will have the first option to license Yale inventions that result from the collaboration.

Yale and Gilead will develop a multidisciplinary research program to search for the genetic basis and underlying molecular mechanisms of many forms of cancer. Scientists from both organizations will work together to identify new molecular targets that provide better understanding of the basis of disease and enable development of novel targeted therapies, including new therapies that overcome drug resistance that develops in some cancer patients treated with current targeted therapies.

Professor honored for pioneering body of research

The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) has awarded Professor Mary E. Tinetti the Edward Henderson Award, which recognizes a distinguished clinician, educator, or researcher who has made significant contributions to the field. The AGS is honoring Tinetti for her pioneering work on falling in the elderly and its prevention. Tinetti is the Gladys Phillips Crofoot Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health and director of the Yale Program on Aging at the School of Medicine. She was the first investigator to show that older adults at risk for falling and injury could be identified, that falls were associated with a range of serious adverse outcomes, and that multifaceted risk-reduction strategies were both successful and cost-effective. Her work has transformed the prevailing view of falls as an inevitable consequence of aging into that of a preventable event with a multidimensional set of risk factors that can be identified and controlled. In 2009, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (popularly known as a “genius” award) recognizing her contributions to the area of fall prevention in older adults.