School Notes: School of Medicine
November/December 2009

Stimulus funding supports research

As of August 31, Yale scientists had been awarded over 100 research grants totaling $36 million since February 2009, when the American Recovery and Revitalization Act of 2009 (ARRA) was signed into law. Some of the research projects being supported by ARRA funding at Yale involve chemotherapy in cases of ovarian cancer, pain-fighting drugs derived from the potent venom of Australian funnel-web spiders, the links between stress and addiction, and the malfunction of transfer RNAs, which are intermediaries between DNA and the cell's protein-making machinery. The ARRA grants will supplement current National Institutes of Health (NIH) spending, which totaled $341 million for Yale School of Medicine scientists this past fiscal year.

Using math to beat the flu

To prepare for outbreaks of influenza, both seasonal flu and the H1N1 ("swine flu") strain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) have compiled mass vaccination guidelines. But in the August 20 issue of Sciencexpress, Alison P. Galvani, associate professor of epidemiology, and Clemson University's Jan Medlock published mathematical models predicting that current CDC/ACIP recommendations would produce far from optimal results in a pandemic. The team found that prioritizing vaccination for the 5-to-19 age group—which is responsible for most flu transmissions—and the 30-to-39 age group would be more effective than CDC/ACIP guidelines. For example, the model showed that if 40 million doses of H1N1 vaccine were distributed by ACIP guidelines in an outbreak following the pattern seen in the 1918 flu epidemic, there would be 59 million infections, 853,000 deaths, and a total cost of $939 billion. Under Medlock and Galvani's proposal, those numbers were cut to 44 million, 645,000, and $703 billion, respectively.

MD/PhD scholarships get boost from program director

Launched in 1969 and supported by competitive grants from the NIH since 1973, the School of Medicine's Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)—known informally as the MD/PhD program—is one of the oldest and most successful of its kind. And for nearly 29 years, professor of cell biology James D. Jamieson has been the program's director. "I believe I have the distinction of being the oldest living MD/PhD program director in the world," says Jamieson, who recently added to his legacy of leadership a $1 million gift to fund scholarships for Yale MD/PhD students and to help defray some administrative expenses. Jamieson's gift comes at a time when Dean Robert J. Alpern hopes to increase the size of the program's yearly enrollment—now about 12—to 20 students, a number comparable to that at other major medical schools. The aim of Yale's MD/PhD program, one of 40 nationwide funded by the NIH, is to prepare students for careers and leadership in academic medicine.