www.nyas.org • Spring 2012

RevampingEntrepreneurial Education

Rafael Pérez-Escamillaon Public Health

Nutrition Programs

Fleur Strand:A Legacy of Giving

GLOBALIZATIONOF SCIENCE

THE

ChairNANCY ZIMPHER

President [ex offi cio]ELLIS RUBINSTEIN

Vice Chair KENNETH L. DAVIS

Secretary [ex offi cio]LARRY SMITH

TreasurerROBERT CATELL

PETER AGRENobel Laureate & Univ. Prof. and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Inst., Dept. Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public HealthRICHARD AXELNobel Laureate & Professor, Columbia Univ.; Investigator, HHMILEE BABISSExec. VP, Global Laboratory Services, Pharmaceutical Product DevelopmentDAVID BALTIMORENobel Laureate & President Emeritus, CaltechETIENNE-EMILE BAULIEUFormer President, French Academy of SciencesPAUL BERGNobel Laureate & Prof. Emeritus, Dept. of Biochemistry, Stanford Univ.LEN BLAVATNIKChairman, Access IndustriesGÜNTER BLOBELNobel Laureate & Director, Laboratory for Cell Biology, The Rockefeller Univ.IRINA BOKOVADirector General, United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)SYDNEY BRENNERNobel Laureate & Distinguished Prof., Salk Inst.MICHAEL S. BROWNNobel Laureate & Prof. of Molecular Genetics, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical CenterLINDA BUCKNobel Laureate & Investigator for HHMI; member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research CenterKAREN E. BURKEDermatologist & Research ScientistTHOMAS R. CECHNobel Laureate & Distinguished Prof., Univ. of Colorado, BoulderMARTIN CHALFIENobel Laureate & William R. Kenan, Jr., Prof. of Biological Sciences; Chair, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Columbia Univ.CECILIA CHANManaging Director, Gold Avenue Ltd.

AARON CIECHANOVERNobel Laureate & Distinguished Research Prof., Tumor and Vascular Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Inst. of Tech., Haifa, Israel GORDON CONWAYChair in International Development, Imperial College London PETER DOHERTYNobel Laureate & Researcher, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN; Univ. of MelbourneMIKAEL DOLSTENPresident, Worldwide Research and Development; Sr. VP, Pfi zer IncMARCELO EBRARD CASAUBÓNMayor, Mexico CityEDMOND H. FISCHERNobel Laureate & Prof. Emeritus, Dept. of Biochemistry, Univ. of WashingtonALAN J. FRIEDMANFormer Director, New York Hall of ScienceJOSEPH GOLDSTEINNobel Laureate & Chairman, Molecular Genetics, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical CenterS. GOPALAKRISHNANExec. Co-Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies LimitedPAUL GREENGARDNobel Laureate & Prof. of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller Univ.GLENDA GREENWALDPresident, Aspen Brain Forum FoundationPETER GRUSSPresident, Max Planck Gesellschaft, GermanyWILLIAM A. HASELTINEPresident, The Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts; Chairman, Haseltine Global Health, LLCERIC KANDELNobel Laureate & Prof., Physiology & Cell Biology, Columbia Univ.KIYOSHI KUROKAWAFormer Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan; Prof., National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)

LEON LEDERMANNobel Laureate & Pritzker Prof. of Science, Illinois Inst. of Tech.; Resident Scholar, Illinois Math & Science Academy GREGORY LUCIERChairman and CEO, Life Technologies CorporationRODERICK MACKINNONNobel Laureate & John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Prof., The Rockefeller Univ.; Investigator, HHMIJOEL S. MARCUSCEO, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.GERALD J. MCDOUGALLNational Partner, Global Pharmaceutical & Health Sciences Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLPRICHARD MENSCHELSr. Director, Goldman SachsRONAY MENSCHELChairman of the Board, Phipps Houses; Board of Overseers, Weill Cornell Medical CollegeFERID MURADNobel Laureate & Director, IMM Center for Cell Signaling, The University of Texas at HoustonJOHN F. NIBLACKFormer President, Pfi zer Global Research & DevelopmentPAUL NURSENobel Laureate & President, The Royal Society; former President, The Rockefeller Univ.ROBERT C. RICHARDSONNobel Laureate & Sr. Vice Provost for Research, Floyd R. Newman Prof. of Physics, Cornell Univ.RICHARD ROBERTSNobel Laureate & CSO,New England BiolabsEDWARD F. ROVERPresident, The Dana FoundationF. SHERWOOD ROWLANDNobel Laureate & Prof. of Chemistry & Earth Science, Univ. of California, IrvineBENGT SAMUELSSONNobel Laureate & Prof., Medical & Physiological Chem., Karolinska Inst.; former Chairman, The Nobel FoundationIVAN SEIDENBERGChairman of the Board, VerizonISMAIL SERAGELDINDirector, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, The Library of Alexandria, Egypt

PHILLIP A. SHARPNobel Laureate & Director, McGovern Inst., MIT Center for Cancer ResearchELLIOTT SIGALCSO, Bristol-Myers SquibbMICHAEL SOHLMANFormer Exec. Director, The Nobel FoundationPAUL STOFFELSCompany Group Chairman, World Wide Research & Development, Pharmaceuticals Group, Johnson & JohnsonMARC TESSIER-LAVIGNEPresident, The Rockefeller Univ.MARY ANN TIGHECEO, New York Tri-State Region, CB Richard EllisSHIRLEY TILGHMANPresident, Princeton Univ.FRANK WALSHCEO, Ossianix, Inc. GERALD WEISSMANNProf. of Medicine, NYU School of MedicineJOHN WHITEHEADFormer Chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corp.; former Co-Chairman of Goldman SachsGEORGE WHITESIDESMallinckrodt Prof. of Chemistry, Harvard Univ.TORSTEN N. WIESELNobel Laureate & former Secy. General, Human Frontier Science Program Organization; President Emeritus, The Rockefeller Univ.FRANK WILCZEKNobel Laureate & Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, MITERNST-LUDWIG WINNACKERSecy. General, Human Frontier Science Program; former Secy. General, European Research Council; former President, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, GermanyANDREW WITTYCEO, GlaxoSmithKlineDATO ZAKRI ABDUL HAMIDScience Advisor to the Prime Minister of MalaysiaELIAS ZERHOUNIPresident, Global Research & Development, Sanofi -AventisAHMED ZEWAILNobel Laureate & Linus Pauling Chair of Chemistry and Physics, CaltechGUANGZHAO ZHOUFormer Chairman, Chinese Association of Science & Technology

GovernorsLEN BLAVATNIKMARY BRABECKNANCY CANTORMARTIN CHALFIEMILTON COFIELDMIKAEL DOLSTENELAINE FUCHS

JAY FURMANALICE P. GASTBRIAN GREENETHOMAS L. HARRISONSTEVE HOCHBERGTONI HOOVERTHOMAS C. JACKSON

JOHN E. KELLY IIIMEHMOOD KHANJEFFREY D. SACHSKATHE SACKLERMORTIMER D.A. SACKLERJOHN E. SEXTON

GEORGE E. THIBAULTPAUL WALKERIRIS WEINSHALLANTHONY WELTERSFRANK WILCZEKMICHAEL ZIGMAN

International GovernorsSETH F. BERKLEYMANUEL CAMACHO SOLISGERALD CHANS. KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN

RAJENDRA K. PACHAURIRUSSELL READPAUL STOFFELS

Chairman EmeritusTORSTEN N. WIESEL

Honorary Life GovernorsKAREN E. BURKEHERBERT J. KAYDENJOHN F. NIBLACK

Board of Governors

President’s Council

On the cover: David Coder/iStockphoto.com

Executive Editor Diana Friedman

Art DirectorAsh Ayman Shairzay

ContributorsMandana Arabi, Douglas Braaten,

Christina Duffy, Marci A. Landsmann, Shaifali Puri, Noah Rosenberg

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contentscontentsColumns

Letter from the PresidentAn Important Addition to the Academy Team

Annals HighlightsRecent and upcoming Annals volumes

Inside the AcademyNews about Academy programs and activities

Academy eBriefi ngsSummaries of recent eBriefi ngs

Member NewsAwards, appointments, and announcements about Academy members

CalendarAcademy conferences and meetings in June, July, August,and beyond

Entrepreneurial Education

The Science of Start-upsA revamped “From Idea to IPO” program provides a crash course in entrepreneurship for the scientifi cally savvy.

Cover Story

The Globalization of ScienceScience is becoming an increasingly international eff ort.

Crowdsourcing for a CauseScientists Without Borders is bringing together researchers in human and veterinary science to tackle maternal and child malnutrition.

Getting Our Priorities StraightTh e Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science is creating a prioritized research agenda for the global nutrition science community.

Expanding Educational EmpiresHigher education is not immune to the eff ects of globalization.

Member Memoir

Nutrition on a Global ScaleRafael Pérez-Escamilla works to create and implement public health nutrition programs around the world.

Donor Profi le

A Lifelong VisionaryFleur Strand’s legacy continues to further the fi eld of science.

Spring 2012Spring 2012

2 www.nyas.org

Letter from the President

MM y columns are usually devoted to one of the innovative global initiatives your Academy has

recently launched—in science education, nutrition science, Alzheimer’s disease, “smart communities,” innovation and sustainability, open innovation challenges for the developing world, and so on. In these columns, I hope I have conveyed the fact that these extraordinary projects succeed only due to the support of our re-markable Board of Governors, President’s Council, unprecedented network of ex-perts and renowned academic, industry, government, and philanthropic partners, as well as our valued members.

But coordinating the eff orts of this complex ecosystem is our terrifi c staff . What makes them exceptional is the breadth of their experience, something you may only know if you have happened to interact with them. Th e entire senior staff and many of the junior team have had multi-sector career positions before coming to the Academy. Nearly all began at elite research universities, but they then moved through industry, government, scientifi c publishing, and/or philanthrop-ic positions before coming to 7 World Trade Center. (Th eir bios on our website express this point most powerfully, and if you haven’t perused them, I recommend a quick look.)

Th is brings me to the introduction of a very special, brand new member of the team. On May 29, Michael Goldrich as-sumed the enormous responsibilities in-herent in the positions of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Offi cer. Anyone who has worked with Mike dur-ing his four-decade career will tell you that the Academy has enticed a game-changer to join our family. Just consider the degree of diffi culty of his previous po-sitions…

Mike comes to us from the Inter-national Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), where he has been EVP, COO, and CFO since 2009. At IPM, he helped the CEO, Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, in her worthy quest to provide even the poorest women with an aff ordable, self-initiated HIV pre-vention strategy. An operation spending more than $40 million a year on novel research approaches on this challenge, IPM depends on a global public/private partnership (PPP) of US and European donor agencies, the Gates and other foundations, corporations, and academic researchers. Herding such a collection of powerful cats will be great training for what Mike will encounter at our Acad-emy. But that only scratches the surface of Mike’s career.

Before IPM, Mike spent six years as EVP & COO under our esteemed Gov-ernor, Dr. Seth Berkley. Before moving last year to the Global Alliance for Vac-cines and Immunization in Geneva, Seth created the model for global PPPs when he founded the International AIDS Vac-cines Initiative (IAVI) back in the early ‘90s. As IAVI grew and encountered un-precedented challenges, Mike helped Seth in innumerable ways. Perhaps his most signifi cant challenge was launching the fi rst NGO-directed in-house research laboratory at New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard. Th e experience of directly oversee-ing research will be crucial if the Acad-emy’s partners in nutrition science and Alzheimer’s disease ask us not merely to lead in the creation of roadmaps to ad-vance their fi elds but in overseeing actual precompetitive research in order to over-turn failing paradigms in these areas.

Finally, I will add that, in earlier pe-riods of his career, Mike was VP for Re-search Operations & Academic Aff airs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in

Boston; founding COO of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland (under the famous AIDS re-searcher Dr. Robert Gallo), Deputy Direc-tor and COO at the NIH Clinical Center, and COO (for a dozen years) under the world-renowned leader of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases of NIH, Dr. Tony Fauci. And before that, he was Administrative Director at the Na-tional Cancer Institute.

I trust that you will agree that Mike Goldrich promises to be not merely a seasoned and highly creative COO for the Academy but a game-changing part-ner to me as our Academy approaches its Th ird Century, empowered by its Board of Governors and remarkable public and private partners to execute a thrilling–sometimes bewildering and always chal-lenging–set of unprecedented local and global initiatives.

Ellis RubinsteinPresident & CEO

An Important Addition to the Academy Team

Anyone who has worked with Mike during his four-decade career will tell you that the Academy has enticed a game-changer to join our family.

Stay abreast of the most important developments in science, and those that matter most to your scientific career. Receive Nature as part of your Academy Professional Membership!

For more information contact the Academy Customer Service Department or access the Member Center.

FULL SUBSCRIPTION TO NATURE !

The No.1 weekly science journal

* 2010 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2011)

IMPACT FACTOR

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Annals is the premier publication of the Academy, off ering review articles in topical areas and proceedings of conferences. Learn more and order copies at www.nyas.org/annals.

Annals Highlights

Th e remarkable progress of scientifi c re-search in determining the causes of and cures for disease rests on global networks of laboratories and scientists, of govern-ments and funding agencies, and of pa-tients—young and old.

Th e Year in Human and Medical Ge-netics: Inborn Errors of Immunity presents a three-part series of expert reviews in the area of human immune diseases known

as primary immune defi ciencies (PIDs). Th ese diseases are disorders of genetic origin—they are acquired at birth by the inheritance of gene mutations that, ulti-mately, may lead to a specifi c type of im-mune system dysfunction, be it excessive immune responses, such as in allergies, dermatitis, and other types of abnormal immune activity, or defi cient immune responses, such as increased susceptibil-

ity to infections and cancer. While all of these diseases are grouped together as “primary immune defi ciencies,” that term does not always accurately indicate the clinical outcome, as many of these genetic disorders lead to hyperactivity of the im-mune system.

Th is collection of ~40 reviews covers a lot of ground, describing new insights into PIDs that have been known for some time, such as the “bubble boy” disease—famously portrayed in a Seinfeld episode in which a young man lives in a plastic bubble to avoid infections. Th e bubble boy disease, severe combined immune defi ciency syndrome, is actually a group of immune disorders caused by genetic mutations that lead to partial or com-plete failure of development of normal immune responses. Other reviews cover new developments in understanding and treating PIDs, including the possibility of using gene therapy to cure some PIDs.

Of particular interest are a collec-tion of short overviews of the types and incidence of PIDs in various regions of the world. From scientists and clinicians working in these areas, accounts of PIDs in Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, China, South and East Asian countries, and Iran provide a remarkable view of the scope and variability of PIDs, their eff ects on populations of those countries, and the specifi c eff orts being made to educate people on ways to reduce the incidence of PIDs (for example, by reducing consan-guineous marriage).

Th is multi-volume collection pro-vides one of the most extensive sum-maries of PIDs throughout the world, as well as a fi rst-hand view of the enor-mous, global eff ort underway to under-stand and alter the eff ects of inborn er-rors of immunity.

A Global View of Human Diseasesof the Immune System

Edited by Jean-Laurent Casanova (Th e Rockefeller University, New York, NY),Mary Ellen Conley (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN), andLuigi Notarangelo (Harvard University, Boston, MA)Volume 1238, November 2011 // ISBN 978-1-57331-849-5Volume 1246, December 2011 // ISBN 978-1-57331-851-8Volume 1250, March 2012 // ISBN 978-1-57331-878-5

The Year in Human and Medical Genetics: Inborn Errors of Immunity I, II, III

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 5

As Michelangelo declared, “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” Indeed, the entire series of events—what to paint, how to paint, and the physical execution of that fi rst brush stroke—is reliant on a cascade of neural processes.

It is nearly universally accepted that an ebb and fl ow exists between sensory information and neural computation—that there is a constant interplay between what and how information is processed in the brain. Th e early idea of simply map-ping brain regions with specifi c functions has given way to the more sophisticated view that the brain comprises many lev-els, from the most granular—for example, molecular neurobiology—to the most ab-stract, such as “the self ” or consciousness. Th ough cognitive neuroscience has come to be an umbrella term for the study of all sorts of heady phenomena, research-

ers continue to develop new ways to more specifi cally examine internal states, emo-tions, and concepts.

Th e Year in Cognitive Neuroscience se-ries refl ects the tides of neural function-ing research, from the most concrete to the abstract. Th e most recent edition in-cludes scholarly discussions on strategies involved in motor learning and sensori-motor adaptation, how bilingual infants use specialized perceptual mechanisms to acquire language, and how history, philos-ophy, and neuroscience converge on our perception of color. Other reviews cover the role of context—the visual or tempo-ral cues that individuate mental events—in neural coding of value; the neural basis of regulating emotions; the evolutionary development and signifi cance of disgust (from physical things that taste bad to ab-stract moral issues); how neuropeptides

contribute to social recognition; and how changes in aging brains aff ect the experi-ence of emotion.

Together, these reviews plumb the depths of some of the most challenging and contemporary questions in neurosci-ence, and highlight the fascinating direc-tion of work in years to come.

The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience: The Mind, That Ocean

The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience

Edited by Alan Kingstone (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Colum-bia, Canada) and Michael B. Miller (University of California, Santa Barbara, CA)Volume 1251, March 2012 // ISBN 978-1-57331-865-5

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Recent Annals

The Neurosciences and Music IV: Learning and MemoryEdited by Katie Overy (Institute for Music in Human and Social Development,

Edinburgh, United Kingdom), Isabelle Peretz (Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada), Robert J. Zatorre (McGill University, Montreal, Canada), Luisa Lopez (“Eugenio Litta” Center for Developmental Disabilities, Rome, Italy), and Maria Majno (Fondazione Pierfranco e Luisa Mariani, Milan, Italy)Volume 1252, April 2012ISBN 978-1-57331-841-9

Glycobiology of the Immune ResponseEdited by Gabriel Rabinovich (Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina),

Brian Cobb (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH), and Yvette van Kooyk (VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)Volume 1253, April 2012ISBN 978-1-57331-839-6

Evolving Challenges in Promoting Cardiovascular Health Edited by Valentin Fuster (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY)Volume 1254, April 2012ISBN 978-1-57331-859-4

6 www.nyas.org

Annals Highlights

Climate change, degradation of natural areas, pollution, and loss of biodiversity—these are some of the topic areas covered in the fi ft h installment of the scholarly re-views series Th e Year in Ecology and Con-servation Biology.

Th e volume opens with a discussion by Ilkka Hanski of how ecological and evolutionary dynamics (so called eco-evolutionary dynamics) are linked and can, perhaps surprisingly, occur on the same time-scale. Th is is followed by dis-cussions of the diminishing orangutan

populations in Malaysia and Indonesia, and the necessity of fi nding new solutions for conservation eff orts (Meijaard and colleagues); the ecology and management of white-tailed deer, with an emphasis on fi nding alternative management models using ecological benchmarks (William McShea); and the causes and conse-quences of vulture population declines, especially in Asia and Africa (Ogada and colleagues).

Buckley and colleagues discuss the utility of models in the study of plant

spread and management, and how these can be brought to bear on the problem of controlling the spread of invasive species. Seeley and Schlesinger discuss what sus-tainable harvests of rockweed mean given that it has critical value as habitat, food, and a nutrient source for more than 1,500 organisms in Maine and the Maritime provinces. Johnson and Miyanishi discuss the ecological impacts of humans on the boreal forest ecosystem, citing activities in prehistoric, historic, and recent times. And Windquist and colleagues describe the eff ects of organic farming on biodi-versity and ecosystem services.

Several articles review key issues im-pacted by climate change. Hellman and colleagues discuss how species interac-tions promote or prevent geographic range shift s under current (and future) climate change. Venter and Koh propose a method for pricing carbon storage and sequestration services provided by forests as a way of preserving tropical forests. Gilg and colleagues state that climate change occurs most rapidly and severely in the Arctic, exposing vertebrates to a host of changes. Afrane and colleagues discuss the impact of climate change on the ecology of Anopheles mosquitoes. And Samuel and colleagues review the ecology and epidemiology of avian ma-laria, its impact on avian communities, and how climate and landscape change may alter this disease system.

Other areas covered in this diverse collection of reviews include the down-stream eff ects of dams on ecosystems in case studies from the Missouri, Colo-rado, and Green Rivers (Sabo and col-leagues); the eff ects of contact with na-ture on human cognitive function and mental health (Bratman and colleagues); and the failure to halt the unsustainable predation on ecosystems as indicative of a moral as well as a scientifi c crisis (Mi-chael Northcott).

Ecology and Conservation Biology—Our Planet in View

Edited by Richard S. Ostfeld and William H. Schlesinger (Carey Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY)Volume 1249, March 2012 // ISBN 978-1-57331-863-1

The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 7

Reports from the directors of Academy programs and news about Academy activities. Read more online at www.nyas.org/academynews.

Inside the Academy

Earlier this year, the Academy launched the Chemical Engineer-ing Discussion Group to bring together a diverse group of scien-tists from academia, industry, and national laboratories to share new and relevant information at the frontiers of research and development. Th e fi eld of chemical engineering—poised at the interface of chemistry, engineering, physics, and biomedicine—is at a critical turning point, trending away from a focus on fossil fuel processing and chemical manufacturing and toward an in-terdisciplinary approach in various sectors of the research com-munity. Th e discussion group focuses, in particular, on graduate students and young researchers, with the goal of building net-works for their professional development and advancement.

In March, the Academy hosted “Chemical Engineering Ap-proaches to Challenges in Biomedicine and Energy,” a sympo-sium created to discuss new and innovative ways to harness the Earth’s energy resources through natural solar or biochemical processes as well as to generate creative solutions to healthcare problems. Importantly, this symposium represented the fi rst such meeting of chemical engineers in the New York metropoli-tan area, bringing together individuals from academia, industry, and government sectors. For a full recap of the meeting, visit www.nyas.org/ChemEng2012-eB.

Th e Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Leadership Council was established through a joint collaboration of the New York Academy of Sciences and One Mind for Research in Novem-ber 2011. Since that time, the leadership council has made signifi cant progress toward its goals, including forming four working groups in the areas of: Basic Research, Early Devel-opment and Translational Re-search, Prevention Trials, and Policy for Public-Private Part-nerships. Following in-person and remote meetings, each group is now working towards providing recommendations for its topic area by summer 2012.

Additionally, the Leader-ship Council was recently in-vited by Ronald C. Petersen, chair of the National Alzheim-er’s Project Act (NAPA), Advi-sory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services, to submit a letter to Health and Human Services regarding ways in which the Leadership Council could partner with NAPA to help further the mission of the National Alzheimer’s Plan.

Academy Launches Chemical Engineering Discussion Group

Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Leadership Council Makes Progress

Attendees of the “Chemical Engineering Approaches to Challenges in Biomedicine and Energy” symposium network during the poster session and reception.

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Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Leadership Council Goals

» Explore methods for removing bottlenecks to understanding the biology of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. » Create stronger infrastructure, including precompetitive consortia, to support the development of new therapeutics. » Develop a common agenda to advance development of preventive approaches and treatments among the public, fi nancial, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical sectors.

8 www.nyas.org

On May 16, the Academy hosted the 2nd Annual Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC) Meeting. GSIAC is a joint initiative between the Malaysia Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) and the Academy.

As part of the Council Meeting, the Academy was pleased to host the Honorable Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato Seri Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, who serves as the chairman of GSIAC. Academy President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein and Science Ad-visor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia Dato’ Dr. Zakri Abdul Hamid serve as joint secretaries of GSIAC.

During the GSIAC Council Meeting, multiple memoranda of understanding (MOU) were exchanged outlining ground-break-ing new global partnerships between various organizations. One MOU details a partnership between the State University of New York (SUNY) system, the Malaysian Research University Net-work, and the Academy. Th e MOU covers the scope of coop-eration on so-called “Cradle to Career” education initiatives and human capital development.

Another MOU outlines a partnership between University Kebangsaan Malaysia and the Academy, which sets the ground-work for establishing a Nobel Laureate-in-Residence program in Malaysian research labs, as well as Academy-based training for Malaysian researchers.

On February 8, Scientists Without Borders was recognized at an event at the White House for its model to foster game-changing innovations with the potential to solve long-standing global de-velopment challenges. At the event, the Administration high-lighted select partnerships that demonstrate how the govern-ment, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations are harnessing science, technology, and innovation to promote global development.

Th e White House included two Scientists Without Borders projects as examples of its unique model for successfully com-bining the organization’s strength in crowdsourcing with its world-class strategic partner network to accelerate innovation in critical nutritional interventions.

Th e projects recognized included a global maternal mal-nutrition challenge with PepsiCo that asked users for scalable solutions for tackling micronutrient defi ciency among women of childbearing age in the developing world, as well as a new project with DSM and its humanitarian arm, Sight and Life, to design and issue a challenge seeking innovative ideas for more sustainable packaging for micronutrient powders.

“We are honored that the Administration has recognized our unique, open, and innovation-driven model for leveraging science and technology to surface and accelerate solutions to the most urgent development challenges, along with the other important eff orts announced today,” said Shaifali Puri, execu-tive director, Scientists Without Borders. “We believe that these projects demonstrate our capacity to leverage our highly cred-ible and independent network of scientifi c expertise and com-bine it with the resources and assets of our world-class partners to identify potentially game-changing solutions, and drive them to implementation and impact.”

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the Academy’s Aft erschool STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Mentoring Program have helped to take a team of New York City elementary school students to the fi nals in a nation-wide con-test. In April, the robotics team at Good Shepherd Services’ MS 45 Beacon Community Center was selected as one of four fi nal-ists in the “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If... Contest,” presented by Time

Inside the Academy

Afterschool STEM Mentoring Program Brings Home Win

University Kebangsaan Malaysia Vice Chancellor and President Tan Sri Dr. Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin (second from left) and Academy President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein (second from right) exchange a memorandum of understanding at the 2nd Annual Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council Meeting. The wife of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datin Paduka Seri Dr. Hajah Rosmah Mansor (third from left), witnessed the exchange.

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White House Recognizes SWB for Innovation Projects

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 9

Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds and i.am FIRST, for the team’s idea for vitamin-infused coff ee fi lters.

Th e members of the robotics team, nicknamed the Bronx Task Force, are all 10 to 12 years old and are part of an aft erschool program at the community center, for which the Academy pro-vides trained graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to act as mentors in STEM subjects through its mentoring program.

Th e Bronx Task Force came up with its idea for healthy coff ee fi lters aft er team members noticed parents and friends drink-ing large volumes of coff ee using standard fi lters. Th ey postu-lated that adding multivitamins and antioxidants to coff ee fi lters could infuse the coff ee with healthy ingredients.

“I got involved in the contest when the kids pitched the cool-est idea ever: ‘A to Zinc Coff ee.’ I helped them with the chem-istry part of the project, where we researched how coff ee and multivitamins can interact with each other at high temperatures and how to maintain the effi cacy of multivitamins when mixed with coff ee, among other questions,” says Ved P. Sharma, a post-doctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY, and an Academy aft erschool mentor. Th e team presented the idea to a panel of judges in St. Louis, MO, on April 25, with other fi nalists.

Th e Academy’s Aft erschool STEM Mentoring Program has, to date, trained more than 320 graduate students and postdoc-toral fellows to serve as mentors for aft erschool programs in New York City and Newark, NJ. More than 5,675 students have benefi ted from the hands-on activities the mentors use to teach STEM subjects.

Members of the Bronx Task Force work on a project at a March 2012 robotics scrimmage hosted at the Academy. Teams spent the day working on robotics challenges and research projects centered on the topic of food safety.

Academy Staff AccomplishmentsVice President of Innovation and Sustainability Karin Ezbiansky Pavese served as a keynote speaker for the Biotechnology Symposium 2012 held in May in Syracuse, NY. The topic of the talk was, “Public-Private Partnerships: Bridging Academia’s and Industry’s Role in Innovation and Economic Development.”

Director of Innovation and Sustainability Christopher S. Hayter contributed a chapter to the book Practicing Sustainability. The chapter is called “Bringing Organizational Sustainability to Public Postsecondary Education.”

Associate Editor of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Rebecca Cooney had a research paper on “Pubertal stage and brain anatomy in girls” accepted to Neuroscience. In February, her paper, “Neural correlates of automatic mood regulation in girls at high risk for depression,” was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Founding Director of the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences Mandana Arabi published a paper on “Infant and young child feeding in developing countries” in the journal Child Development. She also served as an expert on The Awards Judging Panel at the GBCHealth Conference in New York City in May.

Director of Science Alliance Monica Kerr became a certifi ed Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® practitioner, which will allow her to administer the MBTI tool in career development coaching, leadership training, and teambuilding exercises. She also served as a speaker for “The Postdoc Dilemma” panel at the New York Biotech Association’s 21st Annual Meeting in May.

Director of K12 Education and Science & the City Meghan Groome served as a panelist for the Youth Funders Network on STEM Education, the New Jersey STEM Summit, the Inspiring Women Scientists Panel, and the Girl Scouts Research Seminar–The Voices of Girls and Women in the future of STEM. She also served as a conference presider for the National Science Teachers Association, a reviewer for the National Science Foundation, and a grant reviewer for the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She has been appointed to the City Parks Foundation Education Advisory Board, the Qatar Foundation International STEM Education Advisory Board, and the City Science Advisory Board. Groome also serves as a representative for the education section committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Entrepreneurial Education

WW hen Ching Yao Yang, a PhD candidate working in materials chemistry at New York University, received an email

from his lab advisor detailing problems with lab management, he had a great idea for a new company: “I wanted to create an environ-ment for people to use technology in the lab, not only researchers, but primary investiga-tors and vendors.” But with no formal busi-ness training, he was not sure where to start.

Enter “From Idea to IPO,” a course off ered by the New York Academy of Sciences through the Academy’s Science Alliance, which provides career education, development, and training for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Sci-ence professionals enrolled in the 12-week course gain the tools necessary to understand, grow, and sustain a start-up business—moving ideas from the lab to the business world—and bring it to life in the ever changing marketplace of New York City.

Since Science Alliance introduced the “From Idea to IPO” course in 2004, it has been one of its most pop-ular and longest running programs; approximately 500 young scientists in the NYC metropolitan area have taken the course thus far.

A Fresh PerspectiveEarlier this year, Science Alliance Director Monica Kerr took over the direction and teaching of “From Idea to IPO,” using the opportunity to breathe new life into the program.

“My goal was to freshen up an ongoing, popular program that was running nearly unchanged since its launch in 2004 and also address some challenges I had observed,” says Kerr.

Kerr, who earned her PhD in cell and developmental biology from the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Har-vard Medical School, realized that in a world of constantly evolv-ing technology and business models, the course had, in recent years, lost some of its luster and that beneath its dulled surface lay the perfect marriage of science and business.

“As I was restructuring the curriculum, I aimed to not only teach the nuts and bolts of starting a new venture, but to also cultivate entrepreneurial skills, off er exposure to the start-up community in NYC, and increase awareness of various career paths supporting the commercialization of science,” says Kerr, who took a systematic approach to revamping the course cur-riculum through use of existing successful models.

“I accomplished this by incorporating more active learn-ing approaches, which have been shown to be highly eff ective

in increasing student learning, and recruiting 15 guest contributors from the local entrepreneur-

ial ecosystem,” says Kerr. Th ese changes were directly infl uenced by a similar course taught at Stanford University School of Engineer-ing by Consulting Professor Tom Kosnik, who was instrumental in sharing course lecture notes and materials, says Kerr. An-drew Nelson, co-author of Technology Ven-tures: From Idea to Enterprise, also assisted

in thinking about syllabus design and how to utilize and incorporate the textbook.

Kerr has divided the course into two mod-ules: “Opportunity Recognition and Evalua-

tion,” which covers innovations in technology, the creation of business models, and entrepreneur-

ial marketing, and “Pursuit of Opportunity,” which covers the more concrete components of business, including patent protection, fi nance, accounting ba-sics, and start-up and venture capital. Students put this knowledge to use by undertaking course-long team projects where they work through the process

of starting a mock company using a science-based business idea they decide upon as a team. Each team is

assigned a local mentor who works in the entrepreneurship fi eld, who they can go to for support and advice.

It Takes a VillageGuest speakers for the course include entrepreneurs as well as members of the technology transfer, legal, accounting, and fi -nance communities. Many of these guest speakers also come back to serve as judges for the fi nal day of the course, when stu-dents “pitch” their mock companies to a panel of experts and get personalized feedback on everything from their business idea to their presentation style.

New York City Entrepreneur-in-Residence Melinda Th omas, who serves as both a guest speaker and a judge for the course, has noticed a positive change in the course over the past year. “I was very impressed by the change in terms of it being more engaging. Monica is using the case method to teach points. Stu-dents work through a real company that has a real issue and they become more engaged in having to think it through.”

Th omas—who has been the business brains behind several successful medical and science start-ups and is now a leader in the NYC start-up community—believes that the team building component of the course is very benefi cial in craft ing profi table science-based business ideas.

The Science of Start-UpsA revamped “From Idea to IPO” course program provides a crash course in entrepreneurship for the scientifi cally savvy.

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“Once you have an idea and start your company, you won’t have all the skills needed to create the product. You’re going to have to work in a team and learn how to ask the right questions.” While scientists are used to working together to solve problems, points out Th omas, working through problems in a business ca-pacity can take some practice.

From Mock Project to MarketplaceOne illustration of exemplary teamwork that came out of the most recent “From Idea to IPO” course is Team Benchsoft . Com-prised of scientists from a variety of disciplines, three members of Team Benchsoft —including Ching Yao Yang, who came up with the idea for a better lab management system—have forged ahead with their mock class project, taking it to the marketplace.

With their only formal business training coming in the form of Kerr’s instruction in “From Idea to IPO,” Yang, Jasmin Hume, and Raul Catena have made the commitment to start a real com-pany. Since taking the course, they have written a business plan, created an advisory board, and incorporated the company. Th ey are currently shopping the company around to angel investors.

“We are moving really quickly,” says Hume. “During the course, we were learning and implementing simultaneously.” Hume, a PhD candidate who works in the lab with Yang, feels that the material they learned in the course was directly—and imme-diately—applicable to the process of creating a start-up company.

“Learning about the sequence of events has been really help-ful. It’s important to know where to focus at each point in the process, whether it’s on building a prototype or looking for mon-ey” says Catena.

Yang cites the expert guest speakers and the team’s mentor as a big part of their early success. “Our mentor has the same background as us (a PhD) so he was able to give us constructive criticism on both the technical and business aspects of our idea.”

Success StoryWhen asked about the ideal outcomes of the course, Kerr cites a variety of potential results—from students obtaining positions in technology transfer, patent law, venture capital, or at a start-up to students gaining new skills that are helpful for advancement regardless of career path. However, it’s clear that she is particu-larly proud of Team Benchsoft and Yang, Hume, and Catena’s transition to real-life entrepreneurs.

“It has been very inspiring to instill in students very prac-tical information and skills that they can begin to implement immediately. Hearing them report that they feel equipped with the tools to start a new venture, and then to see one team actu-ally in the process of pursing this with their team project, is very validating.”

Christina Duff y is a freelance writer in New York City.

Intense. Inspiring.Interdisciplinary.FREE.

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Chicago, IL - August 9-17, 2012University of Illinois at Chicago

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12 www.nyas.org

Cover Story

IImagine that a ground-breaking research fi nding in your fi eld of study comes out of a lab halfway around the world. Chances are good that you will not only hear about it almost immediately, but that your work may have played a role in the new fi nding.

International scientifi c collaboration is the new norm—from niche projects to large-scale research eff orts—and its eff ects can be staggering. Just consider the incred-ible success of Th e Human Genome Project.

“Talent comes from everywhere. Th ere are 6 billion people in the world and there-fore at least that number of reasons why it’s important to go global in science,” says Szabolocs Márka, an associate professor in the department of physics at Columbia Uni-versity in New York, as well as a past winner of the Academy’s Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.

Science is becoming anincreasingly international effort.

byline ruleby Diana Friedman

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All Hands On DeckMárka is intimately familiar with the benefi ts of international collaboration because of his work on LIGO (the Laser Interfer-ometer Gravitational Wave Observatory), which measures the birth and death of black holes and neurostars—good tests for the eff ects of the laws of relatively on astrophysical objects. Using “exquisitely precise” interferometers placed in the US and Italy, LIGO researchers record distortions in space. Th e interferom-eters bounce lasers off of one another to discover the origin of seismic sound. “Th ey are like ears,” says Márka, “if you only have one ear, it’s hard to decipher where sound is coming from.”

Researchers at Columbia University are building part of a new detector that may be placed in India—an ideal location according to Márka. But critical hardware is coming from re-searchers all over the globe, including France, Poland, Hungary, Japan, China, Canada, and Germany.

Research Realities“Th e success of the LIGO project gives confi dence to everyone in the astrophysics fi eld,” says Márka. A side benefi t of this is in-creased interest in astrophysics among a wider array of investors. “In Russia, for example, the government is funding some top-notch instrument engineers who are thinking about what might go wrong with the detectors and how they could fi x it.”

Indeed, just as a diversity of ideas and knowledge are critical to the success of large-scale research projects, so too are a diver-sity of funding sources.

“Certainly, we need all of the people in the various countries involved because the experiment is technically complex and we require a variety of expertise,” says Howard Gordan, deputy op-erations program manager at Brookhaven National Lab in New York, where he works on the US portion of the ATLAS Experi-ment, part of the Large Hadron Collider—the world’s biggest particle collider. But, Gordan also cites multi-national funding as part of the recipe for research success.

“Th ere were billions of dollars put towards the Supercon-ducting Super Collider in Texas and the project was later killed. It was not an international project and that’s what killed it; it simply got too expensive.”

Culture ShockWhile the benefi ts of global science are clear, widespread col-laboration also brings challenges. Márka has become especially attuned to these challenges through his work in malaria research (in which he uses his background in astrophysics to study the use of optical irradiation, or infrared light, in disrupting mos-quitoes’ sensory systems so they cannot locate human hosts). “Th ere are both sociological and instrumental challenges when working with people of diff erent cultures—and not just diff erent nationalities, but people from diff erent fi elds and environments.”

Th ese challenges underscore the value of good communica-tion skills. “It’s very important to be able to communicate your thoughts and results, not just to the people you work with every-day, but to the broader scientifi c community,” says Márka, who believes that the extra eff ort is worth it. “In science, one good idea leads to another.”

Diana Friedman is executive editor of Th e New York Academy of Sciences Magazine.

Working Together for the Global Good“No one can do science in isolation,” says Abdelali Haoudi, vice president for research at The Qatar Foundation, which promotes regional and international scientifi c partner-ships through coordinated top-level efforts. “The Foundation shares the Academy’s mission in supporting scientifi c personnel who work on the cutting edge of science to target problems in the world’s poorest countries.”

Through its work, the Qatar Foundation hopes to propagate a scientifi c renais-sance in the Middle East that will ulti-mately spark scientifi c solutions to global problems in developing countries. “We are working to establish strategic partner-ships with elite institutions to help create a research powerhouse attracting high-level scientists,” says Haoudi. “This will not only benefi t Qatar but the entire region and,

through important discoveries, the world.” Haoudi cites the Academy as an

important partner for the Foundation in building up areas of scientifi c research that are currently lacking in the Middle East region. “Working with reputable partners is critical to building a network and credibility in niche areas of science, while bringing different research dimensions to tackle key national and global issues.”

Cover Story

Global from the StartThe Academy is based in New York City and even contains “New York” in its name, but the Academy has always sought to be global, from its members to its impact on the scientifi c community. The Academy’s original logo (seen here) features a globe and Latin words meaning, “by land, through the sea, through the air, by means of the heavenly”—a good re-minder that the pursuit of science knows no boundaries.

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 15

Crowdsourcing for HealthThrough a novel crowdsourcing exercise, Scientists Without Borders leverages insights from animal science to tackle malnutrition.

GG lobal problems demand global resources to solve them—such is the theory behind the creation of Sci-entists Without Borders, an initiative that designs and

executes projects to tackle these challenges, and provides a free web-based platform where users from around the world con-nect to address pressing global needs. While Scientists Without Borders works on a diverse array of challenges, we have recently focused signifi cant attention on the critical issue of maternal and child malnutrition. We are excited to be working in conjunction with Th e Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences, which focuses on advancing the fi eld of nutrition science, on several of these projects.

Indeed, the work of both initiatives refl ects the awareness that despite renewed global attention to the catastrophic con-sequences of maternal and child under-nutrition, the burden of the problem looms large over eff orts to solve it—and those in the developing world are particularly hard hit. If we are to reverse this trend, coordinated, multi-sector approaches are required.

Closing Knowledge GapsA major barrier to improving maternal and child nutrition is the existence of gaps in scientifi c knowledge about essential process-es and biological mechanisms related to healthy fetal growth and nutrition for infants and children. Th is lack of understanding impedes the development of eff ective evidence-based approach-es and interventions for vulnerable populations.

To fi ll in the gaps, we need collaboration and knowledge-exchange among stakeholders in the nutrition space, as well as the ability to harness the capacity of people and institutions from outside the traditional nutrition science community. It is for this reason that Scientists Without Borders recently launched an exciting crowdsourcing project in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in conjunction with Th e Sack-ler Institute, to connect hundreds of diverse participants among the human nutrition, animal science, and veterinary science communities. By engaging in high-level discussions about the knowledge needed to advance these fi elds, these participants have the potential to generate signifi cant and disruptive advanc-es for maternal and child nutrition. For example, when we spoke to scientists in these disciplines, they noted that there is com-mon interest and urgency in understanding in the role of the microbiome, as well as clearly identifying biomarkers in human and animal nutrition.

How We’re Doing ItIn order to compress the timeframe on these kinds of cross-dis-ciplinary insights and advances, we designed an invitation-only crowdsourcing platform. We leveraged our global network to in-vite hundreds of experts from a variety of fi elds to participate in a 45-day crowdsourcing activity where participants could freely pose questions and ideas and engage in discussions about voids in scientifi c research, promising interventions or innovations, and unique collaborations or areas of priority. Specifi cally, we encouraged discussion around seven areas: biomarkers and me-tabolomics, nutrition and epigenetics, vaccines and immunol-ogy, animal models, biofortifi cation, and dietary change.

We built in functionality that allowed participants to rate the contributions of their peers by awarding scores for innovation, feasibility, and expertise. In this way, the ideas with the great-est traction among, or of the greatest interest to, users could be elevated and identifi ed for further refi nement and amplifi cation.

Subsequent to the crowdsourcing event, Scientists With-out Borders, in partnership with the Gates Foundation and in conjunction with Th e Sackler Institute, is hosting a small group of select stakeholders (leaders from academia, policy, multina-tionals, and funding entities) to discuss and build on the most promising ideas. Th e in-person convening will provide the op-portunity for dialogue and brainstorming between high-level stakeholders around new ideas and new opportunities for col-laboration, which they can then translate into actionable steps and outcomes.

We believe that bringing together leading thinkers—through both crowdsourcing activities and in-person exchanges—will create the foundation for a global community of interested ac-tors contributing their unique insights and perspectives to the critical area of nutrition, and beyond. To this end, we will soon open the crowdsourcing platform to the public at large.

In the meantime, I encourage you to visit www.scientistswith-outborders.org to respond to or post a challenge that sparks your professional or humanitarian interest. Science is the path to a bet-ter future for humankind and strategic collaboration between sci-entists will get us there.

Shaifali Puri is the executive director of Scientists Without Borders.

byline ruleby Shaifali Puri

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Cover Story

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WW hen Th e Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences

was founded in 2010, we started out with three goals: 1) advancing nutri-tion science research and knowl-edge, 2) mobilizing communities, and 3) applying the research in improving nutrition program-ming in the fi eld. Almost two years later, we have made sig-nifi cant progress toward the fi rst two of those goals, and are ex-panding our eff orts in address-ing the third.

How have we approached these goals thus far? Many organizations are already performing cutting-edge research to understand the physi-ological basis of nutrition-related problems, designing behavioral in-terventions, and working to advance policy. When you consider that more than 2 billion people are aff ected by malnutrition (which includes both un-der- and over-nutrition), it is clear that all of these eff orts are desperately needed, and much more.

Could these eff orts be made more eff ective through coordi-nation? We, along with many stakeholders across functional and geographic sectors, believe the answer is yes (and therein lays Th e Sackler Institute’s approach). We believe that a multi-stake-holder process to develop and reach consensus towards a global research agenda would be the most impactful form of coordina-tion among the global nutrition science community.

Such an agenda would clearly delineate gap areas where more research and funding is needed—identifying those research ar-eas that will lead to important gains in knowledge and could ultimately translate into the design and implementation of bet-ter nutrition interventions. Furthermore, a prioritized research agenda would be craft ed and vetted by a large group of interdis-ciplinary and multi-sector stakeholders, thereby enhancing the probability that the agenda would lead to activation of recom-mended research, as well as public policy changes.

Th e Sackler Institute, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), has taken up

this very task, relying on a steering committee of global nutrition experts to guide these

eff orts. As a starting point, a panel of independent experts from the non-

profi t and academic sector identi-fi ed three broad focus areas for further inquiry: 1) environmental and societal trends aff ecting food and nutrition among vulnerable populations, 2) unsolved issues of nutrition in the lifecycle, and 3) delivery of nutrition interven-tions and the associated opera-

tional gaps. Working groups were then as-

signed to each focus area and these groups created a list of approxi-mately 25 issues of interest and criti-cal gaps in knowledge that fall un-der the broad focus areas. In June, these issues of interest will be made

available as part of a public comment period to ensure that nutrition science professionals from diverse sectors, fi elds of study, and geographical areas have the

opportunity to contribute to the agenda-setting process.During the next stage, working group members will refi ne

these topics, extracting the most relevant ones for in-depth ex-plorations of knowledge gaps. A second public comment period will allow for additional input. With this input, the working groups will create the strategic research agenda and formally present it to the WHO. Th e Sackler Institute and WHO will then begin the process of dissemination, including publishing the re-search agenda in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and activation of the agenda by facilitating the development of action plans by various sectors, and forming public-private alli-ances to address research gap areas.

To fi nd out more about the Sackler Institute’s recent and up-coming activities, including conferences and publications, visit www.nyas.org/nutrition.

Mandana Arabi is the founding director of Th e Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Getting Our Priorities StraightThe Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, is creating a much-needed prioritized research agenda for the global nutrition science community.

byline ruleby Mandana Arabi

The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science engages a diverse group of nutrition experts

from around the globe, hailing from every continent, to contribute to its initiatives.

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 17

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ExpandingEducational EmpiresHigher education is not immune to the effects of globalization.

TT he concept of “study abroad” experiences has changed drastically since I began my career in education. Th irty years ago, studying abroad was thought of as something

“those humanities students do.” Rather than being seen as in-tegral to succeeding in a future career, it was a life experience, and it was heavily concentrated on Europe, the humanities, and female students.

Flash-forward three dozen years and international student mobility is a huge trend with the numbers of students cross-ing borders for education increasing by the day. While the US is currently the top destination for education in terms of raw numbers, it is losing market share, as higher education becomes more commoditized and students can “shop around” for their education the way we might shop around for a car.

Part of the reason for this is that there is a growing awareness that being prepared for the workforce means being prepared to work between not only job verticals, but cultures—and with some frequency (the average person now has 4.6 jobs in their

lifetime). Even one job can require a transition between cultures and languages. A means to gain these skills is exposure of an international context, whether through a distinct study abroad time period, or the undertaking of an education entirely in a dif-ferent country.

One of the benefi ts of higher education is that it is a large and growing market, not a zero sum market. To capitalize on this, many universities are looking to move into regions where the opportunities for expansion are greater than at their home bases. Th e State University of New York (SUNY), for instance, recently launched a physical campus in Korea. I believe these expansion eff orts are generally positive, both for universities and potential students, so long as they are undertaken with care.

It is hard work to set up an overseas branch campus with comparable quality and experience as the original location (some universities franchise their brands to third-parties, result-ing in signifi cant compromises). It is even harder to do it and create a situation where the branch campus is economically sus-tainable—that is, it is sustainable on tuition alone. Th is can be diffi cult as many students look to international schools for good educational value.

Th ere are success stories, however: INSEAD’s Singapore-based outpost of the European business school has been so suc-cessful that it can command tuitions similar to the original loca-tion, and students go back and forth between the campuses in France and Singapore to further strengthen their education.

Just as globalization has contributed to the geographical spread of universities, branch campuses can have globalizing eff ects on their geographical areas. To start, there’s a multiplier eff ect on the local economy because of the sheer number of busi-nesses and services that are required to support international students. Right here in New York, we now have the Cornell Uni-versity/Technion-Israel Institute initiative—a New York City-based engineering campus. Having a lot of Israeli and Middle East researchers come to the US for engineering education may change the trade relationship between these countries.

Th ere’s also oft en a cultural impact as well. One can hope that the University of Nottingham and New York University—both of which now have campuses in China—may help the Chinese liberalize their approach to undergraduate education. As for SUNY, we look forward to expanding our global reach not only through programs established abroad, but also through cross-cutting research and teaching—bringing the benefi ts of interna-tional education to students at all of our campuses, whether local or abroad.

Based on an interview with Mitch Leventhal, vice chancellor for Global Affairs at the State University of New York, as told to Diana Friedman

18 www.nyas.org

GG ood health” is more than a fortuitous platitude; a nu-tritious diet can help humans plot the course to life-long wellness—a fact not lost to scientists and public

health experts. But despite eff orts of governments and international organi-

zations to equitably provide nutritious food supplies, more than 2 billion people worldwide are still malnourished. Working to further understand the variables at play, Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, professor of epidemiology and public health and director, Offi ce of Community Health, Yale School of Public Health, has spent his career elucidating the roots of nutrition inequities—in addi-tion to paving the way for practical solutions.

“Of course, it’s important to understand the mechanisms of nutrition at the molecular and cellular levels,” Pérez-Escamilla says. “But on the other hand, we have to be able to translate the vast knowledge that we now have into eff ective public health programs and there is a science to this too.”

Measures & Models Pérez-Escamilla has used the precision of science to track the impact of food insecurity in Brazil. His eff orts started on a small scale with an experience-based household survey of some 120 households in the city of Campinas, which quickly grew into a national project. Th is major undertaking has not only helped

byline ruleby Marci A. Landsmann

Member Memoir

Nutrition on a Global ScaleRafael Pérez-Escamilla works to create and implement public health nutrition programs around the world, but realizes that effective programs must take both a global and local view.

Rafael Pérez-EscamillaProfessor of Epidemiology & Public Health and Director, Offi ce of Community Health, Yale School of Public Health

PhD: University of California at Davis, Nutrition

MS: University of California at Davis, Food Science

BS: Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Chemical Engineering

Favorite Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez

Hobbies: Visiting art museums and reading global contemporary literature

“It’s fundamental to be able to compare progress across countries but also for countries to have simple but valid measures that they can trust and build policies around...”

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 19

the Brazilian government target and monitor the impact of its hunger eradication programs but has also allowed researchers to identify the causes of food insecurity and how this condition aff ects human development.

Since being put into wide-scale use in Brazil, as well as Co-lombia and Mexico, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has been disseminating the Latin America and Caribbean Food Security Scale, developed under the leadership of Pérez-Escamilla and colleagues, as a standard for the entire region. Th is is a major step forward for improving food security governance, as the scale allows key stakeholders to accurately measure strides in their eff orts against household food insecu-rity and malnourishment.

“It’s fundamental to be able to compare progress across coun-tries but also for countries to have simple but valid measures that they can trust and build policies around,” says Pérez-Escamilla.

With funding from Th e Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pérez-Escamilla has also recently led the development of a breastfeeding scale up model that encourages new mothers to breastfeed. Exclusive breastfeeding for six months is one of the most cost-eff ective maternal-child health interventions, but many barriers have prevented the successful promotion of this optimal infant feeding behavior on a global scale. Pérez-Esca-milla aims to overcome these barriers with well-coordinated, in-tersectoral strategies that engage new mothers in health facilities as well as in community settings.

Whether analyzing the best way to promote breastfeeding or craft ing metrics to realistically paint pictures of household food insecurity and malnutrition around the world, Pérez-Escamil-la’s goal is to help “all people at all times to have access to suffi -cient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” Th is seemingly simple defi nition of food security, craft ed at the World Food Summit in 1996, provides an ideal expectation but in no way draft s a map to that end

Understanding Household Food InsecurityLess-developed countries are increasingly inheriting some of the nutritional problems of more developed countries, largely because of the adoption of Western diets and lifestyles. For ex-ample, rates of overweight/obesity in some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are now comparable to those in the United States, Pérez-Escamilla points out.

“In middle income countries food insecurity at the house-hold level is not really related as much to food quantity anymore as it is to dietary quality. A low quality diet among the poor is oft en times the result of lack of economic or physical access to nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables and easy access to highly caloric, unhealthy foods,” says Pérez-Escamilla. Th is is refl ected in the alarming increases in obesity among the poor in these countries.

“Sadly, little is being done to try to apply lessons learned from countries more advanced in this nutrition transition to prevent

the same outcome from happening in areas where the transition is less advanced, as in Sub-Saharan Africa. I believe addressing this gap should be a major global health focus.”

In addition, Pérez-Escamilla has learned that people in de-veloped countries are not immune to nutrition-related health inequities. Th is motivated him to lead a National Institutes of Health-funded study examining the impact of community health workers at improving behavioral, metabolic, and health out-comes among Latinos with Type 2 diabetes in the United States.

“When I came to Connecticut in the early ‘90s and learned about the major health inequities aff ecting Latinos in the wealth-iest state in the country, I decided to reconsider the single focus of my work in developing countries,” says Pérez-Escamilla. “As soon as I started doing this work, I realized how common the root of health inequities is regardless of geographical location. Th e root is what we now refer to as ‘the social determinants of health’ that calls for well-integrated, multi-level and multi-sec-toral solutions developed and governed in strong partnership with aff ected communities.”

A Global Eff ortJust as systems biology analyzes the interplay between biologi-cal systems, the problems of malnutrition and global health are also intertwined and complex. “Global health is local health. I understand global as a complex system and local as the cells that form the system. As a result of globalization, local communities, or the cells, are strongly interlinked with each other both within regions and countries and across countries and global macro-regions,” says Pérez-Escamilla.

“If the architecture of global health governance continues to be fundamentally inequitable, then the ultimate global health goal of attaining ‘health for all’ regardless of where a human be-ing is born becomes impossible to achieve.”

To increase the chances that such a goal is not only possible, but probable, Pérez-Escamilla is joining in the eff orts of Th e Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Acad-emy of Sciences. “Th e Sackler Institute is focusing on an incred-ibly important issue, which is to identify nutrition-based global health research priorities in collaboration with the World Health Organization through a highly inclusive and well-managed con-sensus-building process,” he says. Pérez-Escamilla is especially impressed with the Institute’s “multi-level, interdisciplinary, and inclusive approach to guide this eff ort”— an important aspect to ensuring that the resulting research priorities refl ect the most pressing needs.

“Having been a public health scholar based in academia practically all of my professional life, the Institute’s contribution toward identifying the best approaches for developing a global public health nutrition workforce that meets the needs of the 21st century is indeed very close to my heart.”

Marci A. Landsmann is a medical writer in Philadelphia.

20 www.nyas.org

Academy eBriefi ngseBriefi ngs are online multimedia reports documenting recent Academy events.Find new and noteworthy ones previewed here and more at www.nyas.org/eBriefi ngs.

II n December 2011, the US National Science Advisory Board for Bios-ecurity (NSABB) recommended that

journals Nature and Science remove cer-tain methodological details from contro-versial research papers on the avian infl u-enza virus (H5N1) prior to publication to minimize the risk of these fi ndings being misused by would-be bioterrorists.

Th e two papers in question, one sub-mitted by Ron Fouchier’s group at Rot-terdam’s Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands and the other by Yoshihiro Kawaoka’s team at the University of Wis-consin in the US, describe two genetically engineered mutant strains of H5N1. Th e described mutant viruses are capable of airborne transmission in a ferret model, thus raising the threat that a bioterrorist could engineer a strain of the virus with the potential for airborne transmission among humans, some argue.

In response to the unprecedented re-quest of the NSABB and heated debate among the scientifi c community, on February 2, 2012, the Academy’s Emerg-

ing Infectious Diseases & Microbiology Discussion Group presented “Dual Use Research: H5N1 Infl uenza Virus and Beyond.” Representatives from Science, Nature, and the NSABB, along with key scientists in the fi eld (see box for panel-ists), participated in a lively discussion that explored the myriad issues sur-rounding the publication of these two papers and the measures that need to be undertaken to ensure the security of fu-ture such research.

In front of a packed house, panelists debated the value and risk of publishing the H5N1 papers—both in full and in redacted form. Discussions centered on the merits and drawbacks of ferret mod-els, the value of seroprevalence tests ver-sus hospital diagnoses in determinations of H5N1 infection rate, and the prob-lems of using natural virus transmission to predict how leaked mutant viruses might behave.

Vincent Racaniello of Columbia Uni-versity warned the audience that an ani-mal model is not an exact standard for accurately predicting what will transpire in humans. Peter Palese of Mount Sinai School of Medicine added that the ferret model is much too sensitive to model hu-man-to-human transmission and incon-

clusive results are being used improperly to shut down further scientifi c investiga-tion that may provide critical insight on the genetic characteristics of infl uenza.

By contrast, Arturo Casadevall of Al-bert Einstein College of Medicine of Ye-shiva University and Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota (both members of the NSABB) affi rmed that many fl u experts from around the world,

Dual Use Research:H5N1 Infl uenza Virus and Beyond

Full eBriefi ng by Anubhav Kaul, PhD: www.nyas.org/H5N1-eB

On the Web

Event ParticipantsMODERATOR:W. Ian Lipkin, John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Center for Infection & Immunity, Columbia University; Director, Northeast Biodefense CenterPANELISTS:Arturo Casadevall, Leo and Julia Forchheimer Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and Department Chair, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and member, NSABB; Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations; Barbara R. Jasny, Deputy Editor for Commentary, Science; Veronique Kiermer, Executive Editor, Nature Publishing Group; Michael T. Osterholm, Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, and member, NSABB; Peter Palese, Professor and Chair, Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Vincent Racaniello, Higgins Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; Alan S. Ruldolph, Director, Joint Science & Technology Offi ce for the Chemical and Biological Defense Program, Defense Threat Reduction Agency

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 21

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in their discussions with the NSABB, agreed that the ferret model was a suit-able predictor of transmission in humans.

Restriction of information that has the potential for public harm is critical, said Osterholm, and such restriction should be proportional to the risk involved, which in the case of these studies is extremely high. Racaniello disagreed and said that the research community oft en inaccu-rately predicts both the risks and rewards of research programs. He raised the ex-ample of the accidental discovery of E. coli restriction enzymes, which ultimately revolutionized the fi eld of biotechnology.

Based on the NSABB’s recommenda-tion, Nature and Science had previously agreed to consider redacting the papers in question. Panelists were eager to discuss the merits—and the future—of this response. Panel moderator Ian Lipkin questioned the eff ectiveness of sharing the methods sec-tions of the papers only with pre-selected researchers (a proposed workaround to the issue of redacting the papers), given the serendipitous nature of science.

Additional topics of discussion in-cluded the need for vetting dual-use re-search earlier in the process (before pa-pers are submitted) and the necessity of involving the public in a debate that cen-ters on public safety.

Editor’s Note: An expert panel con-vened by the World Health Organiza-tion in mid-February disagreed with the NSABB’s initial recommendation not to publish sections of two papers on H5N1. NSABB has since reviewed revised ver-sions of the papers and in late March offi -cially changed its position. NSABB mem-bers have cited more robust explanations of the benefi ts of such research in the re-vised papers as well as the diffi culty of de-vising a mechanism for limited, selective sharing of the full H5N1 studies in the reversal of its earlier recommendation. On May 2, Nature published the study by Kawaoka et al. online. Science plans to publish the revised paper by Fouchier et al. in the near future.

The Forever War:Malaria versus the World

In spite of the greater-than-a-century-long battle scientists and clinicians have waged to control or eradicate malaria, this disease remains a leading cause of illness and death in underdeveloped regions of the world.

Th is battle against malaria—its suc-cesses, its failures, and its future—was the focus of “Th e Forever War: Malaria ver-sus the World” symposium at the Acad-emy on November 16, 2011. Th e confer-ence was presented by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Academy in honor of the 10th an-niversary of the founding of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. Th e symposium featured presentations from the world’s leading physicians, public health experts, and scientists who com-bat malaria head-on in the disease’s most endemic areas or on a molecular level in laboratories all over the globe. Mayor Mi-chael Bloomberg was also in attendance to congratulate the Malaria Research In-stitute on its anniversary and to commend the Institute’s members for their eff orts to combat this devastating disease.

During the symposium, attendees learned about the Plasmodium parasite—the organism that causes malaria—and

Full eBriefi ng by Christine Crane, PhD:www.nyas.org/Malaria2011-eB

On the Web

about its complex life cycle. Speakers delved into a discussion of the progress of eff orts to thwart the disease in the lab, on the ground, and in policy.

On the lab front, speakers revealed the latest biological discoveries aimed to un-ravel the genetic basis of drug resistance,

22 www.nyas.org

the biochemical processes that result in parasite infection in the human host, and the mosquito’s immune response to the parasite. On the clinical front, attendees heard about the latest progress to carry out vector and disease control strategies on the ground and about the fi ght against pockets of disease resurgence.

From a public health perspective, pre-senters looked at the current global fi ght through a historical lens, the policy-driven progress in controlling the disease and the on-going battle to secure enough support—fi nancial and otherwise—to fund available vector- and disease-control strategies or to facilitate the development of new ones.

Worldwide, more than 17 million people die each year of cardiovascular disease, most as a result of coronary artery disease or stroke. Th e complex biology and clini-cal importance of these syndromes form fertile ground for a wide range of research, from basic cellular and molecular stud-ies on pathological mechanisms, to large population studies intended to elucidate evidence-based best clinical practices. In November 2011, distinguished cardiolo-gist Valentin Fuster organized an interna-tional conference “Evolving Challenges in Promoting Cardiovascular Health,” held in Barcelona, Spain, which included re-

searchers from all over the world. Conference speakers presented work

addressing a broad range of challenging basic research questions, including stud-ies intended to measure plaque progres-sion in living organisms, to elucidate the role of high density lipoprotein cholester-ol, and to describe the molecular pathol-ogy of vascular disease progression. Th ey also described new imaging techniques, new drugs, and new surgical and stem cell transplant techniques for the repair of damaged hearts.

Clinical experts described the latest trial fi ndings that will inform future prac-tice in challenging disorders such as atrial fi brillation and refractory angina. Oth-ers discussed the current state of the art in preventive care, including control of high blood pressure and lipid disorders. Altogether, the meeting provided a broad, multidisciplinary overview of cardiovas-cular disease research, and demonstrated how these diverse research approaches intersect with one another in the continu-ing quest to reduce morbidity and mor-tality from these ubiquitous disorders.

From November 20–22, 2011, Doha, Qa-tar, the capital of this small, energy-rich Gulf nation, hosted the “Qatar Founda-tion Annual Research Forum,” an inter-national conference showcasing emerging

research from Qatar and featuring keynote lectures by government, industry, and ac-ademic leaders. Th ese leaders discussed the promise and challenge of building a knowledge-based economy in Qatar, a na-tion in the midst of vast economic growth and poised for extraordinary scientifi c and technological advancement.

Panels of dignitaries and keynote pre-sentations by Paul Alivisatos, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and by Moncef Slaoui, chair of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, focused on harnessing the opportunity of this unique historical moment for Qa-tar, on setting Qatar’s national research agenda, on fostering entrepreneurship, on funding and supporting research in Qatar, and on sharing the success of Qa-tar’s research programs in international and domestic publications. Beyond these broad reaching panels, workshops ad-dressed navigating the unique research and entrepreneurship culture in Qatar, measuring the success of research and de-velopment enterprises, and building and sustaining research partnerships nation-ally and regionally.

Th e Annual Research Forum is or-ganized by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community De-velopment, a non-profi t organization es-tablished in 1995 to promote Qatar’s tran-sition to a knowledge-based economy and society. Toward this end, the Foundation sponsors programs to enhance education and career opportunities for Qataris, to build a vibrant science and technology capacity, and to foster a progressive soci-ety while attending to short-term social needs. Th is work was given new mandate by the 2008 publication of the Qatar Na-tional Vision 2030, which designated the Foundation as the “engine” for unlocking the potential of the Qatari people.

In addition to the general sessions and workshops at the Forum, investiga-tors shared the fruits of their work in fi ve specifi c tracks: energy, environmental, biomedical, computing, and arts and hu-manities research.

Evolving Challenges in Promoting Cardiovascular Health

Full eBriefi ng by Megan Stephan, PhD: www.nyas.org/Cardiovascular-eB

On the Web

Academy eBriefi ngs

Full eBriefi ng by Sharon Begley, PhD, Peter Fairley, PhD, Erica Gies, PhD, Ruth Mas, PhD, and Don Monroe, PhD:www.nyas.org/QF-ARF2011-eB

On the Web

Building a Knowledge-based Economy in Qatar: Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum 2011

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 23

Th e Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science has been awarded to Benjamin tenOever, a member of the Academy’s Non-coding RNA Biology Discussion Group Steer-ing Committee, and Songhai Shi, a winner of the Academy’s 2010 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Th e Vilcek Prize is awarded by the Vilcek Foundation, which honors and supports foreign-born scientists who have made outstanding contribu-tions to society in the United States.

Academy member Michael W. Young, Richard and Jeanne Fish-er Professor, vice president of Academic Aff airs, and head, Labo-ratory of Genetics, Th e Rockefeller University, was named a win-ner of the 2012 Canada Gairdner International Award, which recognizes signifi cant achievements in biomedical science from medical researchers around the world. Young was selected “for his pioneering discoveries concerning the biological clock re-sponsible for circadian rhythms.”

Academy Board Governor Elaine Fuchs, Rebecca C. Lancefi eld Professor and head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biol-ogy and Development, will receive the 2012 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, an award given to honor ad-vancements that further our understanding of birth defects. She will share the prize with Howard Green, George Higginson Pro-fessor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School.

Fuchs and Green, lifelong colleagues, have revolutionized the understanding of skin biology, creating crucial advances in treating skin cancers and other diseases as well as severe burns. Th eir work pioneered innovative technologies that explain the molecular workings of skin stem cells and inherited skin disor-ders, including cancers and some birth defects.

Academy member Harvey Zar is a founding member of the start-up company that created ShugaTrak, a phone app that uses motivational techniques and emotionally intelligent messaging to help teenagers and their parents manage the teen’s diabetes. Th e team behind ShugaTrak took fi rst prize at “Startup Weekend New Haven,” a Connecticut-based entrepreneur competition.

Zar, who has a broad background in technology and chemi-cal engineering and is also a practicing emergency room physi-cian, used his unique perspective to help his team see teens not only as technology users, but as patients. “Teens with diabetes have unique problems—they are dealing with a serious disease, in addition to undergoing a transition to adulthood,” says Zar.

Th e ShugaTrak app allows parents to create a variety of incen-tives—such as having money deposited into an iTunes account—for teens to regularly track and control their blood glucose levels.

“By automatically messaging parents when teens test their blood glucose, it allows teens to feel in charge, and means parents are not constantly checking in with their teens for updates,” says Zar.

Academy member E. Peter Greenberg, professor, Department of Microbiol-ogy, University of Washington School of Medicine, has been honored with the 2012 D.C. White Research and Mentor-ing Award from the American Society for Microbiology.

As stated by his nominator, former graduate student Heidi Kaplan, now at the University of Texas Medical School,

“Greenberg’s career is marked by outstanding success in what continues to be recognized as interdisciplinary research in quo-rum sensing. In addition, his mentoring qualities are legendary. He has made an indelible impact on the scientifi c careers of his students and postdoctoral fellows, and most have gone on to be leaders in microbiology.”

Roland Staal, principal sci-entist at Lundbeck, joined the Academy’s Steering Committee of the Bio-chemical Pharmacology Discussion Group, one of the longest-standing Dis-cussion Groups (founded in 1964). “I have been attend-ing Academy events since graduate school and became more involved in the last two years with respect to or-ganizing symposia because the symposia were always so good (speakers, attend-ees, and, of course, the loca-tion),” says Staal.

“Roland Staal helped me organize scientifi c symposia on the biology of apolipo-protein E (which plays a ma-jor role in a pathway that may lead to novel treatment options for Alzheimer’s), and neuroinfl ammation and the role of the innate immune system in central nervous system disorders. He was

Awards

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» Attend Academy symposia in your area of interest; » Learn about key players and developments outside your direct area of expertise; » Introduce yourself to the appropriate Program Manager or Director; and » Express interest in joining the Steering Committee for a particular discipline.

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Member News

able to help connect key researchers in a wide range of thera-peutic areas and bring them into the Academy community,” said Jennifer Henry, director of Life Sciences at the Academy.

Daniel Duzdevich, a second-year PhD candidate in the Department of Biologi-cal Sciences at Columbia University and a freelance Science Writing Associate at the Academy, has won a 2012 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Working in Professor Eric Greene’s laboratory, Duzdevich is aiming to devise a way to visualize DNA replication and repair at the molecular level.

Duzdevich also has a deep interest in making biology acces-sible to a general audience. His “translation” of Charles Darwin’s Victorian prose in Th e Origin of Species into “clear modern Eng-lish” will be published by Indiana University Press in early 2013. He plans a career in basic research as well as in popular science writing about biology.

Valentino Tosatti, the Joseph Fels Ritt Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University and a past winner of the Academy’s Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, has been named a research fellow by the Alfred P. Sloan Foun-dation, which awards two-year, $50,000 grants to support the work of exceptional young researchers early in their careers.

Stuart Firestein, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, and William Zajc, chair of the Department of Physics, both at Columbia University, have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Fires-tein and Zajc both serve as judges for the Academy’s Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.

Firestein was selected for his “distinguished contributions to the fi eld of neuroscience,” according to the AAAS citation. Fires-tein’s lab focuses on understanding how mammals, equipped with what he describes as “possibly the best chemical detector on the planet,” are able to sense and discriminate a vast number of molecules known to us as odors.

Dedicated to promoting the accessibility of science to a pub-lic audience, Firestein wrote a book on the workings of science for a general audience called Ignorance, published by Oxford University Press in the spring of 2012.

Zajc was selected for his work in the fi eld of relativistic heavy ion physics, in which high-energy nuclear collisions are used to study the state of matter in the early universe. In particular, Zajc was recognized for his leadership of the PHENIX experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. In 2005, the experiment made the surprising discov-ery that the extraordinarily hot and dense matter that fi lled the universe a few millionths of a second aft er the big bang was not a gaseous plasma but instead a “perfect liquid” that fl owed 100 times more easily than water.

Academy President’s Council member Kiyoshi Kurokawa, pro-fessor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan was, in December 2011, asked to chair the Parliamentary com-

missioned Independent Task Force on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Th e task force is the fi rst independent committee com-prised of non-government offi cials to investigate a national di-saster in the 65-year history of democratic Japan.

Academy member Sue Rosser, provost and professor, San Francisco State Uni-versity, has authored a book that takes a candid look at the barriers women scien-tists and engineers face throughout their careers. In Breaking into the Lab: Engi-neering Progress for Women in Science, Rosser uses examples from her own ca-reer as well as interviews with successful women scientists to explore the “micro-

inequities” that continue to challenge young researchers.Rosser feels that many of the same inequalities that existed

when she was a young researcher still exist today, but to a lesser extent. “An issue that seemed to be raised very frequently was the importance of the mentor’s willingness to permit fl exibility in the research timetable and understand that sometimes allowing a bit more time to complete a degree or post-doc because of childbear-ing or other family issues might permit a woman scientist with great potential to stay in the fi eld.” Rosser’s own experience in-cluded mentors who encouraged and pushed her greatly, as well as those who assumed she would not be interested in certain assign-ments because of potential family obligations.

Asked why she wrote the book, Rosser answers, “I hope that the insights from so many successful women scientists will help to guide mentors and women scientists, mathematicians, and engi-neers along paths to help them remain in science and experience happy productive careers in areas so critical for society.”

F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel Prize-winning UC Irvine chem-istry professor who warned the world that man-made chemicals could erode the ozone layer, died in March 2012 of complica-tions from Parkinson’s disease. Rowland, who was 84 at the time of his passing, was a long-standing member of the Academy’s President’s Council.

Rowland was one of three people awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work explaining how chlorofl uorocar-bons, substances once used in a variety of products from spray deodorant to industrial solvents, could destroy the ozone layer. Th e prize was awarded more than two decades aft er Rowland warned of the problem, and his work was challenged for many years by both the scientifi c community and the public before be-ing accepted as true.

“We have lost our fi nest friend and mentor,” Kenneth C. Jan-da, dean of Physical Sciences at UC Irvine, said in an email to faculty. “He saved the world from a major catastrophe: never wa-

Publications

In Memoriam

The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 25

vering in his commitment to science, truth and humanity, and did so with integrity and grace.”

Rowland’s discovery “was the start of the global era of the environment,” said Donald Blake, a chemistry professor at UC Irvine in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Submitted by members of the Academy’s Machine Learning Steer-ing Committee

Our colleague and friend David Waltz passed away on March 22, 2012, at the University Medical Center at Princeton in NJ. His pioneering contributions to various areas of artifi cial intel-ligence (AI), such as vision interpretation, natural language un-derstanding, and massively parallel AI, are widely recognized in the fi eld. David helped found the Academy’s Machine Learning Symposium, which is now one of the premier machine learn-ing events in the NY area, with an attendance surpassing that of many high-quality computer science conferences.

“Th e New York Academy of Sciences will always be grateful for David Waltz’s eff orts in creating the Machine Learning sym-posium,” said Jamie Kass, senior scientifi c program manager at the Academy.

Waltz was, since 2003, the director of the Center for Compu-tational Learning Systems at Columbia University, which, among other contributions, helped improve Con Edison NY’s costly main-tenance of its wide and complex systems by using machine learn-ing techniques to predict power failures and other defi ciencies.

Prior to this position, he served as the vice president of the computer science research branch (1993-2000) and later as the president of NEC Research Institute in Princeton (2000-2003). Earlier, he also held several academic positions; in particular he was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for 11 years.

Waltz completed his PhD in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. He was a fel-low of the American Association for Artifi cial Intelligence and served as president of that association for several years. He was known as one of the creators of memory-based reasoning, an important branch of case-based reasoning. Waltz was also an early advocate for the use of massively parallel computer systems in information retrieval, which are now routinely used to that end in search engine companies and academic environments.

Th e Academy acknowledges Waltz’s many contributions to the promotion of machine learning research in the NY area and his help and eff orts in creating the Machine Learning Sympo-sium. “David Waltz was a wonderful mentor. Despite the very busy schedule typical of a professor of his stature, he always made time for me and the nascent Physical Sciences & Engineer-ing program at the Academy,” said Karin Pavese, vice president of Innovation & Sustainability at the Academy. Waltz’s enthusi-asm and wise advice will be missed by all members of the Ma-chine Learning Steering Committee.

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June August

Beyond

July

For further details on meetings and conferences,visit our calendar at www.nyas.org/events.

Academy Calendar

Jun 15 – 16Imaging Neurodegeneration and Repair in Multiple SclerosisExplore new brain and nerve imaging meth-ods to monitor disease progress and treat-ment outcomes in Multiple Sclerosis patients.

Th u, Jun 21 • 11:30 AM – 3:00 PMLyceum Society: PrionsTh e Lyceum Society is comprised of the Acad-emy’s retired and semi-retired members. Talks cover various scientifi c fi elds. All Academy members are welcome.

Jun 26 – 27Inositol Phospholipid Signaling in Physiology and DiseaseExamine the role of Inositol Phospholipid (IP) signaling in cancer, metabolic, and infl ammatory disease. Th is exploration of the specifi city and interplay of diverse IP-modifying enzymes aims to identify novel approaches for therapeutic intervention.

Tue, Jun 26 • 6:30 PM – 8:00 PMThe Science of Local FoodFrom improved nutrition to better environ-mental stewardship, local food systems have been off ered as a panacea for much of what ails us. Join us for a panel discussion, with ex-perts from across the local food community, on the intersection of the science and culture of local food. Th ere will be a tasting aft er the discussion.

Jul 18 – 19Seventh Annual New Energy SymposiumTh e 2012 New Energy Symposium will con-vene multi-sector stakeholders to showcase the latest technology in clean energy and discuss hot topics in the fi eld. Th e confer-ence will feature an investment pitch com-petition, as well as expert panel sessions and presentations.

Th u, Aug 23 • 5:00 PM – 7:00 PMConsciousness: Confessions of a Romantic ReductionistJoin us in Aspen, CO, for a public lecture by Christof Koch, PhD, Chief Scientifi c Offi cer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle and Professor of Biology and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Aug 23 – 25Cracking the Neural Code:Third Annual Aspen Brain ForumTh is meeting in Aspen, CO, presented by the Academy and Th e Aspen Brain Forum Foundation, will bring together researchers working at the forefront of systems and com-putational neuroscience to discuss cutting-edge developments in understanding neural coding from the micro, meso, and macro scale. Keynote speakers include Drs. Christof Koch and Allan Jones (Th e Allen Institute for Brain Science), David Van Essen (Washington University in St. Louis), and Sean Hill (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne).

Tue, Sep 25 • 8:30 AM – 6:00 PMAutophagy as a Therapeutic Target in Multiple Diseases: From Molecular Mechanisms to Drug DiscoveryAutophagy is a route for degradation of ag-gregated cellular proteins and dysfunctional organelles. Th is symposium, presented by the Academy’s Biochemical Pharmacology Discussion Group and the New York Chapter of the American Chemical Society, reviews molecular mechanisms of impairment, and discusses drug discovery strategies for modu-lating autophagy for therapeutic benefi ts.

Tue, Oct 23 • 8:30 AM – 5:00 PMThe New Age of Antibody TherapeuticsTh ere are many monoclonal antibody thera-peutics on the market, and myriad develop-ment candidates. Presented by the Academy’s Biochemical Pharmacology Discussion Group and the New York Chapter of the American Chemical Society, this symposium will review the application of cutting-edge technologies to the development of next-generation antibody therapeutics and address translational challenges.

» DATES, TIMES, AND TOPICS OF EVENTS LISTED HERE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. For up-to-date information, including ticket prices, please visit our online calendar at www.nyas.org/events.

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The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine • Spring 2012 27

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A N D S L I D E P R E S E N TAT I O N S

SAVE THE DATEFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Join Johnson & Johnson in honoring the winners of the 2012 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research with a

scienti c symposium at the New York Academy of Sciences. Featuring industry thought-leaders, the symposium will

explore the di erent mechanisms that impact human disease.

Visit www.pauljanssenaward.comfor more information on the award.

Did you know that the Academy is active in social media? That’s right; you can expand your scientifi c network on the same platforms you use to catch up with friends, update your status, and watch the occasional funny video.

Visit and “like” our Facebook page (search “NYAS”) to interact with Academy members, view photos from events, and get updates on everything from publications to podcasts as they become available. And to prove that Twitter isn’t just for the under-30 crowd, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences—the oldest continuously published scientifi c serial in the United States—can be followed @AcademyAnnals.

Finally, take full advantage of the Academy’s vast network of talented science professionals by connecting with other members directly through the Member Directory (once logged in to the Academy site, go to “My Profi le,” and click on the “My Account Home” tab), as well as on the Academy’s LinkedIn page (search “The New York Academy of Sciences”).

Keep in TouchIt’s Easier than Ever

28 www.nyas.org

Donor Profi le

II t was a simple dinner party, a gath-ering of two families from opposite corners of the globe, but it would

shape Curt Strand’s life—and perhaps al-ter the course of scientifi c research in this country. Th e year was 1946, and Strand, then 25 and fresh out of the military, was so smitten with a young woman sitting at his parents’ Manhattan dinner table that he insisted on walking her family home aft er the night had come to an end.

“She had this wonderful British South African accent,” Strand recalled recently. “She was an extremely warm, outgoing person, and very beautiful.” Of possi-bly greater signifi cance, the 17-year-old woman brimmed with intelligence and maturity and was “scientifi cally ambi-tious,” Strand remembers.

He would eventually marry her. Fleur Strand would go on to become a distin-guished author, innovator, and educator in the fi elds of biology and neural science, and serve as the New York Academy of Sci-ences’ second female president. She would break ground in scientifi c research, pio-neering the neuropeptide concept and be-coming New York University’s fi rst female full-professor in the sciences, Strand said.

Along the way, Fleur would forge a path for untold female scientists. “She just lived for that,” Strand said. “She pushed women wherever she could.”

But Fleur, who passed away in De-cember at the age of 83, might never have become such an infl uential fi gure in the sciences had she not accompanied her parents to that dinner in 1946. She had had plans to attend medical school in Ed-inburgh, Strand explained, but in those days a married woman could not re-ceive her medical degree—and marriage between the two was inevitable. “So she switched to biology and absolutely loved it from the beginning,” Strand said.

It is clear that scores of scientists and researchers—from leaders of the Acad-

emy to the grad-uate students whom Fleur mentored over so many years—are grateful for her decision. Acad-emy President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein praised Fleur as “a lifelong supporter of the next generation” and said her work and philosophy “aligned perfectly with the Academy’s inspirational goals: to ad-vance science, address global challenges, and support and nurture the scientists and science-literate of tomorrow.”

Susi Lee, who met Fleur as an under-graduate student at NYU in 1989, credits Fleur with inspiring her to pursue a PhD in neurobiology. “She was a true mentor, even long aft er I graduated,” said Lee, now a clinical scientist with Merck. “She was one of the most amazing and generous people I ever met. She was really a role model for me as a woman scientist—she showed me that women can have a great role in science.”

As much as Fleur adored working with students—whom she aff ectionately called her “lab rats”—she also felt an obligation to democratize the sciences, “to spread the word of science to people who weren’t scientists,” Strand said. She frequently gave pro-bono lectures to non-scientists and was once heartened to learn that an inmate on death row had been moved by one of her talks, Strand recalled.

Indeed, Fleur lived, and died, as a pas-sionate and dedicated scientist. She was instrumental in creating the Academy’s “Past President’s Fund,” which encourages former presidents to pledge fi nancial sup-port, and she was a regular contributor to Th e Darwin Society, a network of in-dividual Academy supporters. But Fleur’s patronage, both fi nancial and otherwise, did not end there: upon her passing, she bequeathed a substantial gift to the Acad-

emy as a vehicle for further scientifi c ex-ploration and discovery.

“Other than her marriage and her daughter, of course, and family, the New York Academy of Sciences and NYU, that was her life,” Strand said. “And so she felt that she should give something back.”

Strand has fond memories of living with Fleur on 63rd Street, just a few blocks from the Academy’s location when she became its president in 1987. He said she cherished that period in her life, noting that the proximity between their home and the Academy “certainly increased her ability to spend time there.” A short commute, Strand said, was an invaluable luxury for someone whose personal life, passion, and profession were so inextrica-bly linked.

Despite her success, Strand empha-sized that his wife, a member of the Acad-emy since 1950, had always maintained an air of modesty and that “her ambition was never overt.” Until the day she died, Strand said, Fleur saw science “as a world mission for advancement and for peace.”

“She would never have conceived of doing anything else,” he said, his voice fi lled with pride. “To her it was every-thing.”

Noah Rosenberg is a journalist in New York City.

Contribute to the Academy’s programs by contacting Kiryn Haslinger Hoff man, VP Development, at 212.298.8673 or khoff man@nyas.org.

Invest in the Academy

A Lifelong VisionaryFleur Strand’s legacy continues to further the fi eld of science.

byline ruleby Noah Rosenberg

The Charles Darwin Society

Donors who demonstrate an annual philanthropic commitment of $1,000 or more are named Members of the Charles Darwin Society, entitling them to unique privileges that provide an insider’s look into the Academy.

The generosity of these donors is essential to the Academy. Their gifts directly support our basic operations and programs: everything from keeping the lights on at our headquarters to building strong new initiatives.

For more information, please contact the Academy’s development department at development@nyas.org or 212.298.8675.

The New York Academy of Sciences is proud to thank the 2011 members of the Charles Darwin Society. Your individual contributions keep the Academy strong, and support both our valuable ongoing programs and vital new initiatives.

$100,000+Len BlavatnikJim and Marilyn SimonsPaul Walker, Goldman Sachs Gives

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