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FACULTY RECOGNIZED FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS

Congratulations to the following Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences faculty who were honored through the SUNY Distinguished Scholars program, and the UB Distinguished Scholars and UB Exceptional Scholars programs in 2018.

Christopher S. Cohan, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of pathology and anatomical sciences

Steven J. Fliesler, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of ophthalmology

Zhen Yan, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of physiology and biophysics

Laurie K. Read, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities

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Gil I. Wolfe, MD, professor and chair, Department of Neurology; SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. Wolfe also has been elected 2019 president of the New York State Neurological Society. Wolfe Meng

Hui Meng, PhD, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and professor of neurosurgery, UB Distinguished Professor

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Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, UB Exceptional Scholars – Sustained Achievement Award

Pinaki Sarder, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, UB Exceptional Scholar – Young Investigator Award

Z. Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, UB Exceptional Scholar – Young Investigator Award

Photos by Joe Casio

CORRECTION: Pictured third from the left is Lornette Mills, MD ’93, not Rogena Miller, MD ’93, as incorrectly stated in the fall 2018 issue. Pictured with Dr. Mills are, from left, classmates Karen Dugid, Wallace Johnson and Julene Evans-Murage. The group was celebrating their class’s 25th reunion.

NEUROLOGY PROFESSOR WILLIAM R. KINKEL, MD ’54, RETIRES -Pioneered the fi eld of neuroimaging

William Revere Kinkel, MD ’54, professor of neurology and a pioneer in the fi eld of neuroimaging, retired from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 2018, at age 91. In 2017, UB honored Kinkel for his 57 years of service, and the American Society of Neuroimaging awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award. Kinkel pioneered the fi eld of neuroimaging, which has grown exponentially in the last decade due to its application to sports injuries and war wounds. In 1963, Kinkel founded the Dent Neurologic Institute in Buff alo—now one of the largest neurologic clinics in the world—and in 1976, he helped found the Society of Neuroimaging, also in Buff alo. A passionate teacher who brought the third ever CT scanner to America, Kinkel developed an independent neurology residency at Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in 1977. The program merged with UB’s in 1986, at which time Kinkel was made a tenured professor of neurology in the Jacobs School. In 1980, Kinkel established the fi rst neuroimaging fellowship in the world at the Dent Neurologic Institute. In 2004, he established a second fellowship program at Kaleida Health’s Buff alo General Medical Center, a UB teaching affi liate. Today, these programs are two of only six such programs in the United States. Medical students, residents and fellows from across the globe have come to Buff alo to train with Kinkel. In 1986, UB medical students conferred upon him the Louis and Ruth Siegel Award for “the best teacher in clinical medicine,” and in 1987, he was runner-up for the award. Kinkel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and a Fellow of the American Society of Neuroimaging. He was the fi rst neurology resident trained at UB by the Department of Neurology’s fi rst chair, Bernard Smith, MD. Early in his career, Kinkel developed a team to evaluate and treat Parkinson’s disease stereotactically. In 1968, he became the only neurologist in upstate New York involved in a multi-hospital trial using L-dopa, now the cornerstone of Parkinson’s drug therapy. Kinkel’s professional accomplishments have left an indelible mark on neurology in Western New York and around the world. In 2018, he published a book titled “The Neurologist,” chronicling his career. Kinkel

BIOGEN NAMES CONFERENCE ROOM

Biogen has made a $150,000 gift to the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to name a conference room in the school. The University at Buff alo and Biogen have collaborated successfully for over two decades. In the early 1990s, the company supported clinical trials led by Lawrence Jacobs, MD, a pioneering neurologist in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Building on Jacobs’ research, the trials proved genetically engineered interferon beta-1a an eff ective treatment for some forms of multiple sclerosis. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996, the breakthrough drug is marketed by the company under the brand name AVONEX®.

Celebrating the naming of the conference room, from left, are Meg Bucello, Denise Campagnolo, MD, Brian Carroll, with Biogen; Bianca WeinstockGuttman, MD, professor of neurology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Christophe Hotermans, MD, PhD, Biogen; Gil Wolfe, MD, professor and chair of neurology, Jacobs School; and David Hojnacki, MD, associate professor of neurology, Jacobs School.

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LIPSHULTZ NAMED NEW CHAIR OF PEDIATRICS —Holds joint appointments with UB and Kaleida Health

Steven E. Lipshultz, MD, Carman and Ann Adams Endowed Chair of Pediatric Research at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Michigan, has been appointed the A. Conger Goodyear Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He also serves as the pediatric chief-of-service at Kaleida Health and the medical director, pediatrics services business development, for John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital. In addition, Lipshultz is to be president of UBMD Pediatrics. Lipshultz is the fi rst chair of pediatrics to be located in the Jacobs School’s new downtown home on the Buff alo Niagara Medical Campus, just steps from Oishei Children’s Hospital, further cementing collaborations between the two institutions. Lipshultz has been with the Children’s Research Center of Michigan since 2013 and was pediatrician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital of Michigan until 2017. He also was specialist-in-chief, pediatrics, at the Detroit Medical Center and president of University Pediatricians. Lipshultz

Previously, he was the inaugural holder of the George E. Batchelor Chair in Pediatrics and the Batchelor Family Pediatric Cardiology Endowed Chair at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Lipshultz is credited with having helped establish the fi eld of pediatric cardio-oncology and has been principal investigator of several landmark National Institutes of Health studies on the causes and treatment of cardiomyopathy in children. His clinical studies have established the effi cacy of therapies that can prevent heart disease in children with HIV. He also uses comparative genomics and proteomics to study the development of pediatric cardiomyopathy. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Lipshultz received his MD from Dartmouth Medical School and completed a pediatrics residency at the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, in the Department of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. At Children’s Hospital in Boston, he completed both a fellowship in clinical cardiology and a research cardiology fellowship at the American Heart AssociationBugher Foundation Centers for Molecular Biology in the Cardiovascular System. To read more, visit medicine.buff alo.edu and search “Lipshultz.”

BANGS NAMED A FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLOGY

James (Jay) D. Bangs, PhD, Grant T. Fisher Professor and Chair of Microbiology and Immunology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has been named a fellow of the American Society of Microbiology. ASM fellows, recognized for their excellence, originality and leadership in the microbiological sciences, are elected annually through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientifi c achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. Bangs will be offi cially inducted into the ASM fellowship at the organization’s annual meeting in San Francisco in June. For more than 35 years, Bangs has conducted research on African trypanosomes, single-celled parasites transmitted by the tsetse fl y, which cause African sleeping sickness in

GRANTS ADDRESS SHORTAGE OF NON-MALIGNANT BLOOD DISORDERS SPECIALISTS —Generous support from Western New York BloodCare

Western New York BloodCare, formerly known as the Hemophilia Center of Western New York, has awarded the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences two grants aimed at addressing a shortage of physicians in the region who specialize in treating nonmalignant blood disorders. The fi rst grant for $890,000 establishes the Robert Long Career Development Award. It invests in a junior physician-scientist who is dedicated to conducting advanced research, facilitating training for medical professionals and providing expert care to local patients and families with these disorders. The inaugural recipient of the award is pediatric hematologistoncologist Beverly Schaefer, MD, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics in the Jacobs School and attending pediatric hematologistoncologist at the Roswell Park Oishei Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Program. She is also a physician with UBMD Pediatrics. The second grant for $675,000 establishes the Rosemary “Penny” Holmberg Hemostasis and Thrombosis Clinical Fellowship in nonmalignant hematology at UB and Roswell Park. It provides one to two years of training in advanced medical management of patients with complex bleeding and thrombotic disorders. “We are very grateful for these generous awards from Western New York BloodCare,” said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. “They are strategic investments that directly impact the quality of health care in our community by working to close a gap in specialty care. Not only will they help attract and retain top-level physician-scientists who specialize in non-malignant blood disorders, but they will help ensure that generations of specialists in this fi eld are trained in Buff alo.” In Western New York, as in many parts of the country, there is an acute need for pediatric and adult hematologists who are trained

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and skilled in the management of complex bleeding and thrombotic disorders as well as in state-of-the-art clinical and translational investigation. “Multiple factors contribute to this shortage, including a scarcity of training programs, salary disparities and limited availability of experienced mentors, explains Laurie Reger, executive director of Western New York BloodCare. “Yet in the Greater Buff alo area, we are fortunate,” she says. “With full-service bleeding- and clotting-disorders care available through Western New York BloodCare, and an academic health center anchored by the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, our organizations are uniquely positioned to form a philanthropic partnership that can work together to build and retain a local workforce of highly trained physicians focused on providing the highest quality care to individuals with hemophilia and nonmalignant hematologic disorders.”

humans, a fatal, re-emerging disease throughout subSaharan Africa. His pioneering research specializes in the biochemistry and cell biology of African trypanosomes and their secretory processes; it has illuminated the biosynthesis and traffi cking of key virulence factors in this important human and veterinary parasite. He organizes the premier annual international meeting in his discipline—the Molecular Parasitology Meeting at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. A faculty member at UB since 2013, Bangs was previously on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin. He received his PhD in biochemical, cellular and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed postdoctoral training in cell biology at Yale University School of Medicine and in microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine.