PhD assistant professor of Computational & Systems Biology at Pitt Nathan Lord has been awarded an Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli New Innovator Award.

He will use it to study stem cell communication and spatial patterns in embryos, hoping to learn how to direct new tissue growth:

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Nathan Lord

Pitt Med students don’t need any particular crafting skill to join Knitt Med, copresident Siddhi Shockey (Class of ’26) says—just a desire to support patients in need.

The club helps aspiring MDs decompress while building community connections:

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Before retiring in 2014, Paul Rogers garnered numerous honors as the Ake Grenvik Professor of Critical Care Medicine.

To continue investing in young physicians, Rogers and his husband, Robert Barry, established a scholarship fund for Pitt Med students:

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Can you really outgrow a food allergy? It turns out that exposure to the food might help the allergy lessen over time—but if exposure stops, it might return!

Laura West of Pitt Department of Pediatrics and UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh shares all about allergies in our winter issue:

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Since 2012, Pitt Med has invited many Tsinghua University medical students to come to Pittsburgh and engage with biomedical research for two years. How many have been hosted so far?

Check out the answers to our winter trivia:

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Pitt Health Sciences

Thomas Rubino (Class of 2026), considers Victor O. Morell, chair of Pitt Cardiothoracic Surgery Department and Rubino’s own open heart surgeon, a mentor.

Now, he wants to pay it forward and one day become a resource for up-and-coming doctors:

pi.tt/thomasrubino

For 30 years, Dario A.A. Vignali has studied immune regulation and cell signaling, and translated his research into clinical practice.

The Distinguished Professor has now been appointed chair of the Department of Immunology:

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Vignali Lab Pitt Health Sciences

.@Thehandiestlab has patented a methodology for characterizing the specificity of antibodies in breast milk.

It will allow them to predict whether antibodies from different donors will protect infants against necrotizing enterocolitis:

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Pitt Department of Pediatrics

Through @PITTCMU_MSTP, Eric Strobl (PhD ’17, MD ’19) explored ways to determine cause-and-effect relationships from big data.

His work with Pitt Med bioinformaticians and Carnegie Mellon University philosophers led to new ways of thinking about causal discovery:

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Research collaborations between Pitt Med and Carnegie Mellon University raked in nearly $16 million in funding in 2023.

In his latest column, Dean Anantha Shekhar anticipates that the two universities’ alliance will only grow stronger:

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With the National Association of EMS Physicians and nhtsagov, Christian Martin-Gill (Res ’08, Fel ’10), EMS division chief at University of Pittsburgh, is leading efforts to standardize prehospital care guidelines using evidence-based procedures:

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The origins of Pitt Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, Pitt Critical Care Medicine, Freedom House Ambulance Service and CPR all tie back to Pitt Med's Peter Safar.

Learn more through Safar’s autobiography written before his death in 2003, a free digital version of which is now available:

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The Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology

Anne-Ruxandra @Carvunis, Alok Joglekar and Maninjay Atianand are among the researchers conducting NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research on microproteins—they’ll study their potential roles in the immune response and autoimmune diseases:

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Pitt Health Sciences

Ken Gabriel has been appointed the inaugural CEO of Pitt BioForge and director of Pitt’s Advanced Biomanufacturing Institute.

Gabriel’s history of innovation makes him a “perfect fit” to lead BioForge, says Dean Anantha Shekhar:

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University of Pittsburgh

.National Academy of Inventors and AAAS fellow and Inventors HOF inductee Rory Cooper recently earned the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Read more about the assistant vice chancellor for research for STEM-health sciences collaborations’ award:

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The Homewood Home Visits program brings Pitt Med students to seniors and other Homewood residents whose needs might otherwise fall through the cracks.

“If it was up to me, it would go on forever,” says a patient:

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Pitt Health Sciences

Long COVID, a condition that is often debilitating for patients, remains poorly understood.

University of Pittsburgh and UPMC will teach community providers about the condition and improve access to care in underserved populations, with the help of a HHS.gov grant:

pi.tt/longcovidgrant