MED Promotes 14 to Associate Professor, 3 to Full Professor

Arvin Garg’s 2-step, 12-question tool to help parents with fewer resources is being used at several academic medical centers. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Any parent knows the anxiety of having a sick child. For parents with fewer resources, the threats to their children’s health from poverty—joblessness, food and housing insecurity, the costs of child care and heating—multiply the worries.

“We believe this has important public health implications,” says Arvin Garg (MED’99), a newly promoted School of Medicine associate professor of pediatrics, who is working to help such parents with a 2-step, 12-question tool, written at a third grade level, which parents can use to report their economic needs and desire for help. Doctors in turn give patients information on community resources, says Garg, who is evaluating the effectiveness of this approach with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Garg is one of 14 MED faculty recently promoted to associate professor for their teaching and research. Another three were promoted to full professor.

“I fell in love with pediatrics during my third year of medical school while rotating at a community health center,” Garg says. He sits on numerous committees, including the Academic Pediatric Association’s Task Force on Childhood Poverty. His screening technique is being used at several academic medical centers.

In addition to Arvin Garg, the following were promoted to associate professor. The list includes their departments and any other BU school appointments.

Laurence H. Beck, Jr., MED associate professor of medicine

Beck specializes in human membranous nephropathy, an inflammation of kidney blood vessels. His seminal discovery, identifying the major antigen in the disease, is considered one of the top kidney medicine breakthroughs in the past two decades, opening new investigatory fields and winning international patents. Beck’s work led the government to approve two commercial diagnostic assays. His research award grants have included one from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Margret E. Bell, MED associate professor of psychiatry

Bell specializes in the treatment of veterans who have experienced sexual assault or harassment while in the military. She is deputy director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) military sexual trauma support team and has developed initiatives studying how victims of sexual assault and other trauma interact with community agencies and institutions. She created training programs in military sexual trauma that are now required for VA primary care providers and policies for effective, victim-sensitive interventions.

Boris Nicolas Bloch, MED associate professor of radiology

Bloch specializes in the improvement of clinical care for breast and prostate cancer patients. He developed improvements in MRI scans for those cancers, aiding early diagnosis and treatment, and contributed to the new fields of radiomics (analyzing large amounts of advanced imaging data) and radiogenomics (studying the correlation between imaging and gene expression). He is a principal or co–principal investigator on multiple grants from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health and is a coinvestigator on a Coulter Translational Research Partnership Award at BU.

Paula M. Gardiner, MED associate professor of family medicine

Gardiner specializes in integrative medicine and the safety and quality of dietary supplements, with a focus on underserved populations. As assistant director of the Boston Medical Center (BMC) Program for Integrative Medicine and Health Disparities, her research involves chronic pain and evidence-based integrative medicine access for low-income patients. She has published more than 70 papers and is the principal investigator on numerous NIH studies, including one measuring the effectiveness of BMC’s mindfulness stress reduction-cum-education program to support healthy behavior and reduce pain and stress.

Amresh D. Hanchate, MED associate professor of medicine

Hanchate specializes in health economics and disparities in care and health outcomes. His work uses econometric methods to identify patterns in health care use and reveal disparities. Since 2008, he has been principal investigator on eight research awards from the NIH, the VA, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

William Johnson, MED associate professor of medicine and School of Public Health associate professor of biostatistics

Johnson specializes in computational biology and biostatistics, developing new tools to investigate disease prognoses and causes and to help determine effective regimens based on individual patients’ risk factors. He has published in the journals Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Biometrics, Nature Reviews Genetics, Annals of Applied Statistics, and Biostatistics. Johnson’s work has been funded by the NIH.

Matthew D. Layne (CAS’89, MED’97), MED associate professor of biochemistry

Layne specializes in cell and molecular biology, specifically, therapeutic inhibitors to regulate fibroblasts (cells contributing to connective tissue fibers). His work has had broad implications for a number of diseases, most notably atherosclerosis, pulmonary fibrosis, and obesity. A pioneer in the cloning of ACLP (a fibrosis-enhancing protein), he has been able to use ACLP inhibitors as therapeutic reagents to treat diseases such as scleroderma. The project is now supported by a grant from the Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation, one of only two awarded to MED faculty to date.

Nancy S. Miller, MED associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine

Miller specializes in clinical microbiology and pathogen diagnostics, working to develop innovative tools to detect infectious diseases. She is medical director of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics at BMC and is principal investigator on industry-related projects that build and test new diagnostic devices. She has published in the Lancet, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Journal of Clinical Virology, and Journal of Infection and serves on the editorial board of the Annals of Clinical and Medical Microbiology.

Gustavo Mostoslavsky, MED associate professor of gastroenterology and of microbiology

Mostoslavsky specializes in genetic manipulation to assist in stem cell–based therapy for disease. A founder and codirector of MED’s Center for Regenerative Medicine, he patented a special tool, STEMCCA, that is capable of efficiently generating new stem cells to treat sickle cell, renal, and gastrointestinal diseases. He has trained numerous BU undergraduates, MD and PhD students, postdocs, fellows, and visiting scientists in his lab.

Michael P. Platt (ENG’13), MED associate professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery

Platt specializes in diseases of the nose, sinuses, and anterior skull base, managing disorders from chronic sinusitis to nasal polyps through a trans-nasal approach. He serves on numerous editorial boards, including the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology and the American Rhinologic Society (ARS). He is an elected member-at-large of the board of the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy. His grants include a multiyear, multicenter coinvestigator award from the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy and the ARS to study sleep dysfunction in chronic sinusitis.

Lee J. Quinton, MED associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine

Quinton specializes in the treatment of lung infections and the immune response to microorganisms to prevent further injury. He has received several fellowships, including one from the American Lung Association and a Jere Mead Fellowship from Harvard’s School of Public Health for an outstanding postdoctoral fellow in respiratory research. A codirector of MED’s Physician Assistant Program, he has grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology.

Valentina Sabino, MED associate professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics and of psychiatry

Sabino specializes in the neurobiology of addiction and stress-related disorders, using genetic models to study eating behavior and alcoholism. Codirector of BU’s Laboratory of Addictive Disorders, she researches new therapeutic agents to alleviate alcohol addiction and studies the neurobiology of anxiety and depression. She’s twice received Peter F. McManus Charitable Trust grants and has awards from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Richard Wainford, MED associate professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics and of medicine

Wainford specializes in the pathophysiology of, and potential treatments for, hypertension. His research focuses on the central neural control of kidney function and systemic arterial blood pressure. He has been honored by the American Physiology Society, the International Society for Hypertension, and the American Heart Association’s Council on Hypertension. He is a principal investigator on several NHLBI awards.

The following were promoted to full professor:

Stephan Anderson, MED professor of radiology

Anderson specializes in in vivo and in vitro imaging, combining elements of mechanical engineering and nanotechnology to produce breakthroughs in the study of atherosclerosis and steatohepatosis (an inflammatory liver disease). A winner of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Fleischner Society Research Award, he has received National Science Foundation grants and has published a book and dozens of articles in major medical journals.

Alik Farber, MED professor of surgery and of radiology

Farber specializes in peripheral arterial disease and critical limb ischemia, focusing on endovascular therapy and open vascular surgery. His many grants include $25 million from the NHLBI for an endovascular-versus-surgical-therapy trial. He was named one of Boston magazine’s “Top Doctors” and has contributed to textbooks and written dozens of articles and editorials.

Flora Sam, MED professor of medicine

Sam investigates the role of intertissue communication in cardiac remodeling and heart failure. An elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, she is recognized for translational discoveries in diastolic heart failure. She has earned numerous fellowships and awards from the NIH and the American Heart Association, serves as a grants reviewer for many NIH sections, and has written dozens of research publication contributions and reviews.