School Notes: School of Medicine
March/April 2013

Neuroscientist joins Institute of Medicine

Marina Picciotto, the Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the branch of the National Academies that provides science-based advice on medicine and health to policy makers, professionals, and the public at large. Picciotto, also professor of neurobiology and pharmacology, investigates the molecular underpinnings of tobacco and alcohol abuse, depression, and eating behaviors. The molecules that have attracted most of her interest are nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), proteins embedded in nerve cell membranes that are activated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine but also respond to chemicals like nicotine. In addition to a fundamental involvement in tobacco addiction, nAChRs have been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and in the dysfunctional sensory processing seen in schizophrenia. Picciotto has also done important studies of nicotine exposure during gestation and adolescence and its effects on learning and memory, and of the neuropeptide galanin, which modulates ACh release and may exert a protective effect against addiction to drugs of abuse such as cocaine, amphetamines, and opiates. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the health sciences.

Ob/Gyn chair has deep Yale roots

At the beginning of October, Hugh S. Taylor ’83 took up his new post as chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the medical school and chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale–New Haven Hospital (YNHH). Taylor graduated from Yale College and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, then completed his residency at YNHH in 1992. Pursuing parallel careers at bench and bedside at the School of Medicine, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology as well as a fellowship at Yale’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI). He has been a Yale faculty member since then, going on to serve as chief of REI. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over 20 years for his research into endometriosis, adult stem cells, and reproductive developmental biology, among other areas. He has also been a lauded mentor to students, residents, and faculty.