FACULTY
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Appointments, Honors & Awards Matthew Layne Named Assistant Dean for Research Matthew Layne, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry, has been named assistant dean for research. Dedicated to facilitating, monitoring, and evaluating research experiences for medical students to expand and enhance student research opportunities at BUSM, Layne will report to Associate Dean for Research Andrew Taylor and work collaboratively with the Medical Education, Enrichment, and Student Affairs offices. In this role, Layne will maintain and develop new resources, programs, and curriculum for medical student research. Layne also studies the mechanisms of fibroproliferative diseases; current projects include identifying signaling pathways in the vasculature that lead to aortic aneurysm. Collaborative studies underway are defining the mechanisms of fat tissue expansion driven by changes in adipose tissue progenitors and identifying the mechanisms by which specific, disease-causing mutations lead to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. n Vasan Ramachandran Receives International Honors Vasan Ramachandran, MD, FACC, the Jay and Louise Coffman Professor in Vascular Medicine, has been recognized with two outstanding honors in the fields of cardiovascular medicine and circulatory diseases. Ramachandran was named the American Heart Association’s 2021 Distinguished Scientist in General Preventive Medicine and received the 2021 Louis and Artur Lucian Award, an honor bestowed annually to one researcher from around the world who has made exceptional contributions to the field of circulatory diseases. 12
Boston University School of Medicine
Ramachandran was selected for these honors due to the impact his work has had on clinical practice in hypertension and for his significant contributions to the genetic and nongenetic epidemiology of high blood pressure and heart failure. He has implemented population-based vascular testing (endothelial function and arterial stiffness), echocardiography, and exercise testing at scale in communitybased programs. He has also raised awareness of the lifetime risk for high blood pressure, examining young adult and midlife blood pressures as significant determinants of an individual’s risk for heart disease and stroke. Joining BUSM as an associate professor of medicine in 1998, Ramachandran was promoted to professor in 2006 and appointed professor of epidemiology at BU School of Public Health in 2013. Currently, he serves as chief of the section of preventive medicine and epidemiology in the department of medicine; principal investigator and director of the renowned Framingham Heart Study, with which he has been affiliated for the past 19 years; and principal investigator and founder of the Risk Underlying Rural Areas Longitudinal cohort study. He also is the founding editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics and has received many RO1 awards and a midcareer clinical investigator award (K24) from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute. Ramachandran has made major contributions to the genetic and nongenetic epidemiology of congestive heart failure; population-based vascular testing, echocardiography and exercise testing; the genetic and nongenetic epidemiology of high blood pressure; and cardiovascular disease risk prediction models. His many awards and honors include BUSM’s department of medicine’s Evans Scholar and Outstanding Mentor awards in 2010; Outstanding Mentor, American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Epi-
demiology Prevention in 2012; and the AHA’s prestigious Population Science Award in 2014. Ramachandran received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India, where he also completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in cardiology. n Sabrina Assoumou Named Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Professor of Medicine On September 29, Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH, was installed as the inaugural Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Professor of Medicine as colleagues, friends, and family gathered in person and virtually to celebrate the occasion and her contributions to the field of medicine. The installation was held in conjunction with the Race and Medicine symposium (please see story on page 3). Assoumou, a BUSM assistant professor of medicine as well as an attending physician in the section of infectious diseases at Boston Medical Center (BMC), is a clinician-investigator who cares for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients at BMC’s Centers for Infectious Diseases. Assoumou’s research focuses on medical complications of substance use, including HIV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV). This professorship honors Louis W. Sullivan, MD (MED’58), former secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and president of Morehouse School of Medicine. In 1966, he became the codirector of hematology at Boston University Medical Center and founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital one year later. Sullivan remained at Boston University until 1975, holding positions as assistant, associate, and professor of medicine. David Coleman, MD, FACP, Wade Professor and chair of Medicine, highlighted Assoumou’s achievements in medicine
