December 2014

CRITICAL VALUES -

Visiting Dignitaries 1

NIH Funding—FY2014 1

NEW FACULTY -

Uma Krishnamurti, MD 2

CASE REPORTS -

Volkan Adsay, MD 2

Lauren Stuart, MD, MBA

Tesha Guillory, MD

Cliff Sullivan, MD

2

Guido Silvestri, MD, PhD 3

Bahig Shehata, MD 3

Sean Stowell, MD, PhD 3

INTERESTING WEB LINKS -

Pathologists in the News 3

PHOTO PAGES -

Pathology Faculty—2014 4

Winship 5K Race 4

Parkos Farewell 5

IN THIS ISSUE

CALENDAR EVENTS

December 24-25th

University Holiday

December 31-January 1st

Official University Holiday

January 19th

Official University Holiday

February 9th, Noon, TBA

Pathology Faculty Grand Rounds

Alexander Khoruts, MD

March 2nd, Noon, TBA

Pathology Faculty Grand Rounds Elaine Jaffe, MD

To contribute to the next newsletter, send an email to Donna Martin (dmart06@emory.edu).

Comment: Congratulations again to all our investigators; to the outstanding administrative staff who sup-

port them; and to everyone else who helps create an environment where world-class scholarship can thrive.

A surge of grant awards in the closing weeks kept

Emory securely within the top tier of Pathology depart-

ments nationwide, as measured by the amount of

funding received from the National Institutes of Health

(NIH). With $32.5 million of NIH research and training

support received during the 2014 federal fiscal year,

which ended on September 30, Emory Pathology

marked its fourth consecutive year among the top 3

NIH-funded Pathology departments in the U.S., and its

seventh straight year among the top 5. The official

rankings, which take into account both direct and indi-

rect costs of grants and fellowships but exclude con-

tracts, are compiled annually by the Blue Ridge Insti-

tute for Medical Research based on data released by

the NIH. Pathology’s third-place showing made it

Emory’s highest-ranked department for NIH funding in

2014. The Department accounted for 14.5% of all NIH

support to the School of Medicine, which itself ranked

18th nationally among medical schools for the year. A broader measure of grant, fellowship, and contract

awards from all outside sources, compiled by the School, revealed that 54 faculty and trainees in our Depart-

ment were awarded a total of $50.5 million in the fiscal year that ended August 31.

Emory Pathology Again Among the Top 3 for NIH Funding (see Comment)

NIH Rankings—FY 2014

Pathologists Join in Welcoming World Dignitaries to Atlanta (see Comment)

Emory pathologists were part of the attraction last

September as two prominent world leaders visited

Atlanta. President Barack Obama paid a visit to the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sept

16 to meet and honor those involved in combating

the West African Ebola outbreak and caring for people

afflicted with that disease. On hand to greet the

President and joining him at a news conference was

Associate Professor Charlie Hill, M.D., Ph.D., who

represented the team of more than a dozen Emory

Pathology faculty and laboratory staff professionals

who provided round-the-clock diagnostic testing with-

in the high-containment facility at Emory University

Hospital, where the first two Ebola patients in North

America were successfully treated. Three days later,

Jeannette Kagame, the First Lady of Rwanda, arrived

at Emory to deliver a campus-wide lecture on her

country’s progress since the 1994 genocide. Mme

Kagame’s hosts included Professor Susan Allen,

M.D., M.P.H., who established and directs one of the

world’s leading programs for HIV prevention, which is

based in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and has provid-

ed HIV-related healthcare services to more than

100,000 people in that nation during its 29 years of

operation thus far.

TOP (L-R): Charles Hill, MD, Carolyn Hill, President Obama, Bruce

Ribner, MD, MPH

BOTTOM (L-R): James Curran, MD, MPH; First Lady of Rwanda Jean-nette Kagame; Susan Allen, MD, MPH; Philip Wainwright, PhD

Comment: It’s no wonder that politicians, global leaders, and other celebs would want to rub shoulders with

Emory Pathologists.

December 2014

NEW FACULTY— Uma Krishnamurti, MD, PhD

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Sometimes we just get lucky.

Dr Uma Krishnamurti had

been perfectly content for

nearly 10 years as a Pitts-

burgh-based surgical

pathologist and cyto-

pathologist in the Allegheny

Health Network and as a fac-

ulty member at Temple Uni-

versity. She was Director of

Cytology at two major hospi-

tals and Associate Director of

the residency program there,

and had been promoted to

Associate Professor in 2011.

She had no intention of mov-

ing. But when her husband, a

pediatric hematologist, was

Volkan Adsay, MD

Our faculty’s conquest of leadership posts

in major Pathology organizations continues.

Two months ago, Professor Volkan Adsay,

M.D., our Vice Chair and Director of Ana-

tomic Pathology, was named Vice President

of the U.S.-Canadian Academy of Pathology

(USCAP), putting him on track to becoming

USCAP President for a two-year term that

will begin in April 2016. USCAP is the larg-

est and most distinguished academic pro-

fessional organization for anatomic

pathologists in North America. Dr Adsay

will be the second Emory pathologist ever

to lead the USCAP, joining Professor

Sharon Weiss, M.D., who was USCAP

President in 1997-98.

Our residents are taking over the world, too. Cliff Sullivan, M.D., one of our

PGY-4 Chief Residents, was elected Vice Chair of the Resident Council of the

American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) for this year and will become

its Chair in October 2015. Meanwhile, our other PGY-4 Chief, Lauren Stuart,

M.D., M.B.A., is currently Chair of the Residents Forum for the College of

American Pathologists (CAP), while her PGY-3 colleague, Tesha Guillory,

M.D., serves as its Vice Chair; their yearlong terms continue until September

2015.

Uma Krishnamurti, MD, PhD

Case Reports

Tesha Guillory, MD Cliff Sullivan, MD Lauren Stuart, MD, MBA

offered an irresistible new post at CHOA, she found

herself looking for opportunities in Atlanta at the same

time we’d begun looking for someone exactly like her.

So it came to pass that, on November 1, our Depart-

ment welcomed a highly skilled and delightful new

colleague with special expertise in breast and gyneco-

logic pathology and a strong commitment to resident

education onto our faculty at Grady Hospital. This is

not the first time Dr Krishnamurti has relocated,

though: Born and educated in New Delhi, she had

already completed her Pathology training there before

moving in 1993 to the University of Minnesota, where

she earned her Ph.D. in Pathobiology and began a

second Pathology residency that she subsequently

completed, along with a Cytopathology fellowship, at

the University of Pittsburgh. All of that – plus a bit of

luck -- brought Dr Krishnamurti into our Department.

We count ourselves lucky indeed to have her here, and

wish her many happy, successful years on our Emory

Pathology faculty.

Guido Silvestri, MD, PhD

December 2014

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Bahig Shehata, MD

What does it take to win the

Neustein Memorial Award from the

Society for Pediatric Pathology

(SPP) three times? Ask the only

person who’s ever done it: Profes-

sor Bahig Shehata, M.D. This

distinguished award honors the

application of novel technology to

the study of pediatric disease. Dr

Shehata’s unprecedented three-

peat came in September at the

SPP’s annual meeting in Birming-

ham, England. Here’s a hint:

Spend decades amassing the

world’s largest collection of tissue

samples from children with histio-

cytoid cardiomyopathy; use ge-

nome-wide sequencing to identify

candidate mutations; and then

show that mutating one of those

candidates (ndufb11) causes cardiac anomalies in zebrafish.

Chalk up another one for

Assistant Professor Sean

Stowell, M.D., Ph.D., as a

recipient of the NIH Direc-

tor’s Early Independence

Award. This prestigious

$1.25 million, 5-year grant

is designed to enable

“exceptional junior scientists

to … start an independent

research career at a sup-

portive institution” (that’s

us!) without doing a post-

doctoral fellowship first. It

will support Dr Stowell’s

research on the glycobiology

and immunology of red

blood cell transfusion. The

NIH awarded only 17 such

grants nationwide in 2014.

Case Reports

Sean Stowell, MD, PhD

Professor Guido Silvestri,

M.D., Ph.D., has been

named as Vice Chair and

Director of our Depart-

ment’s top-ranked Division

of Experimental Pathology.

An internationally ac-

claimed researcher who

studies HIV pathogenesis,

prevention, and treatment

using non-human primate

models, Dr. Silvestri is also

the Georgia Research Alli-

ance Distinguished Scholar

in Comparative Pathobiolo-

gy and directs the Division

of Microbiology and Immu-

nology at the Yerkes Na-

tional Primate Research

Center.

Pathologists

in the News

Colleen Kraft Emory Magazine

Doc of the Day—What it takes to care for patients with Ebola virus

while President Obama visits

· http://www.npr.org/blogs/

goatsandsoda/2014/07/10/330217262/why-hiv-spreads-less-easily-in-heterosexual-couples

James Ritchie USA Today

Latest Ebola fear: Safety of lab equipment

· http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/06/

hospital-laboratories-ebola-equipment/18546709/

Erin Meyer 11 Alive (Video)

What your blood type says about you

· http://www.11alive.com/story/news/health/2014/11/14/blood-

type/19059477/ Colleen Kraft GQ

Out of Ebola

· http://www.gq.com/news-politics/201412/kent-brantly-ebola

Gabe Sica Emory Update

Annual external research funding total again exceeds $500 million

· http://whsc.emory.edu/home/publications/health-sciences/

update/2014/Oct/hsu-oct-2014.html

Interesting Links

Sean Stowell Emory Update

NIH selects Emory pathologist for Early Independence Award

· http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/10/

stowell_early_independence_award/campus.html Colleen Kraft The New York Times 90.1 WABE

An Ebola Doctor’s Return From the Edge of Death

· http://wabe.org/post/emory-doctors-detail-treating-anonymous-ebola-

patient-we-didnt-know-if-he-was-going-survive

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To contribute to the next newsletter, send an email to Donna Martin (dmart06@emory.edu) Page 4

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December 2014