Spring 2023 @umasschan magazine

UMass Chan Medical School is the commonwealth’s first and only public academic health sciences center, home to three graduate schools. Our mission is to advance the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service.

Land acknowledgment

UMass Chan Medical School acknowledges that its campus is located on lands that were once part of the original homeland of the Nipmuc people. We denounce the violence that stripped these original stewards of lands that were their ancestral home and denied their descendants the opportunity for an authentic connection to it. In making this acknowledgment, we announce our intention to listen to and follow the lead of our Indigenous neighbors and work together to create new legacies of equity and respect.

Land acknowledgment adopted

At UMass Chan Medical School, promises made more than a year ago to right relationships with tribal nations began with a conversation about the importance of acknowledging that the land on which the Medical School sits was once part of the original homeland of the Nipmuc people. From that conversation, a collaborative group was formed and a land acknowledgment was created.

In 2022, Chancellor Michael F. Collins approved the statement appearing here and it was introduced at the September town hall meeting. The land acknowledgment will appear, among other places, with the mission statement of UMass Chan Medical School in all future issues of @umasschan magazine.

UMass Chan Medical School acknowledges that its campus is located on lands that were once part of the original homeland of the Nipmuc people. We denounce the violence that stripped these original stewards of lands that were their ancestral home and denied their descendants the opportunity for an authentic connection to it. In making this acknowledgment, we announce our intention to listen to and follow the lead of our Indigenous neighbors and work together to create new legacies of equity and respect.

Convocation highlights UMass Chan’s ambitious future

In his annual Convocation address to the UMass Chan Medical School community in September, Chancellor Michael F. Collins expressed optimism for the Medical School’s ambitious future and touted the enormous momentum moving the school forward. Chancellor Collins highlighted the many milestones marked at UMass Chan in the previous academic year, including the Morningside Foundation’s $175 million transformational gift, the opening of the VA Communitybased Outpatient Clinic and the groundbreaking for the new education and research building.

A highlight of the ceremony was the announcement of the recipients of the 2022 Chancellor’s Medals for excellence in teaching, scholarship, service and clinical excellence.

Melissa Fischer, MD, MEd, professor of medicine and assistant vice provost for interprofessional and instructional innovation, received the Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Fischer was invited to present the 2023 Last Lecture, a celebration of teaching, and received the Manning Prize, a $10,000 prize established by former UMass Board Chair Robert Manning and his wife, Donna Manning, both of whom are UMass alums.

Marian Walhout, PhD, the Maroun Semaan Chair in Biomedical Research and chair and professor of systems biology, was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Scholarship.

The Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Clinical Excellence was presented to Ira Ockene, MD, the David J. and Barbara D. Milliken Professor in Preventive Cardiology and professor of medicine. Dr. Ockene has been teaching at UMass Chan since 1975.

The Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Service was awarded to Deborah DeMarco, MD, professor of medicine, senior associate dean for clinical affairs and associate dean for Graduate Medical Education. Dr. DeMarco was invited to carry the Medical School’s ceremonial mace at events throughout the academic year.

Above:

Chancellor Michael F. Collins spoke at the 2022 Convocation about the enormous momentum moving the school forward.

Left:

Chancellor's Medal recipients Ira Ockene, Marian Walhout, Melissa Fischer and Deborah DeMarco with Chancellor Collins.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBERT CARLIN

The following faculty members were honored and invested as named professors:

Eric Baehrecke, PhD, professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology, is the inaugural holder of the Our Danny Cancer Fund Chair in Biomedical Research II.

Roberto Caricchio, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Rheumatology, was named the Myles J. McDonough Chair in Rheumatology.

Michelle A. Kelliher, PhD, interim chair and professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology and co-leader of the Cancer Genetics Program, is the inaugural holder of the Our Danny Cancer Fund Chair in Biomedical Research I.

Jeanne B. Lawrence, PhD, professor of neurology and pediatrics, is the new Leo P. and Theresa M. LaChance Chair in Medical Research.

Alan C. Mullen, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and academic chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, was invested as the Mary C. DeFeudis Chair in Biomedical Research.

Celia A. Schiffer, PhD, chair and professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology, is the new holder of the Arthur F. and Helen P. Koskinas Professorship in Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology.

Lahey agreement sets stage for health systems learning

UMass Chan Medical School and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, are launching a new regional campus of the Medical School. Approved by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in March, the new UMass ChanLahey campus will be based at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington and will feature the new LEAD@Lahey medical education

track, focused on leadership, health systems science and interprofessional education. The first UMass Chan-Lahey students will matriculate in the summer of 2024. Each year UMass Chan will enroll approximately 25 students at the regional campus. These medical students will follow the core curriculum of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine at UMass Chan in Worcester, with their clinical

experiences taking place at Lahey. UMass Chan and Lahey will also form a new research collaboration, creating a new institute for health care delivery and implementation science and a quantitative science research hub, which will advance innovation in digital medicine, population health and health care delivery.

Commonwealth Medicine is now ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School

The health care consulting division at UMass Chan Medical School, formerly known as Commonwealth Medicine, became ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School in February.

ForHealth Consulting continues its work with clients and partners across the U.S. to improve the health care experience, making it more equitable, effective and accessible.

“Our consulting capabilities have expanded over the years based on our client needs and the everchanging health care landscape, and our partners rely on our connection to UMass Chan for access to renowned experts with experience implementing innovative and actionable health care solutions,” said Lisa M. Colombo, DNP, MHA, RN, executive vice chancellor for ForHealth Consulting. “Our new name, ForHealth Consulting, clearly articulates our mission, our relationship with UMass Chan, and how we support our clients and

the people they serve by improving the health care experience— from payment and financing to clinical practice and information management.”

ForHealth Consulting employs more than 1,100 people who provide services in Massachusetts and more than 25 states across the country, overseeing approximately 400 contracts with organizations that include state Medicaid agencies and other health and human service partners.

The new identity, ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School, was revealed at a presentation for stakeholders. Lisa Colombo spoke with pride about the rebranding of UMass Chan's health care consulting division, saying that the name now aligns with the mission.

“

Our new name clearly articulates our mission, our relationship with UMass Chan and how we support our clients.

LISA M. COLOMBO DNP, MHA

Clockwise from above left: Chancellor Collins with Lisa Colombo

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FAITH NINIVAGGI

Boston Globe names UMass Chan among best places to work

UMass Chan Medical School was named to The Boston Globe’s 2022 list of Top Places to Work in Massachusetts. UMass Chan is the only institution of higher education in the commonwealth to be included on the 2022 list, which includes 150 organizations of all sizes and industries.

This distinction is based on results of a confidential employee engagement survey that 55 percent of UMass Chan’s full-time benefited employees participated in last June. Words that came up most in the survey to describe the UMass Chan experience were “inclusive” and “collaborative.”

Employees also frequently used the words “welcoming,” “supportive” and “respectful” to describe company culture.

“The survey results provide us with feedback about our medical school’s collaborative, connected and inclusive community; strong performance in research, education and public service; and areas of opportunity and potential improvement,” Chancellor Michael F. Collins said in a memo to employees. “The leadership team recognizes that our employees are by far our most important asset and they are key to achieving our ambitious strategic plans.”

Diversity Engagement Survey conducted

More than 2,500 UMass Chan Medical School faculty, staff and students participated in the 2023 Diversity Engagement Survey, which is administered every three years to assess progress in building a more diverse and inclusive culture at UMass Chan. Results from the 2023 survey are being analyzed and will be used to guide future diversity endeavors.

The previous survey, administered in 2020, had approximately 2,000 people respond.

Since the inception of the survey in 2011, participants have consistently responded favorably in regard to trust in the institution’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Though the data

show that the community applauds the overall diversity efforts of the institution, participants responded less favorably in how the diversity efforts have been managed and about their feelings regarding compensation for accomplishing goals at the same level as other colleagues.

Changes to address these sentiments have been made since the 2020 survey, with the most notable being the restructuring of the Diversity and Inclusion Office, the addition of the diversity and inclusion pillar in the IMPACT 2025 strategic plan and vigorous efforts to implement priorities that will shift these mindsets over time.

Katie Couric is the 2023 Commencement speaker

Katie Couric, award-winning journalist and trailblazing advocate and fundraiser for cancer research and care, will deliver the Commencement address on June 4, as UMass Chan celebrates its 50th Commencement.

Couric, who anchored NBC’s “Today” show, was also the first woman to solo anchor the CBS Evening News and more recently founded Katie Couric Media. Her 2021 memoir, Going There, was a New York Times No. 1 best-seller. In 2008, Couric co-founded Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), which has since raised more than $746 million to advance innovative, promising and collaborative cancer research.

SU2C-supported research has contributed to nine new FDA-approved treatments. Her influential public advocacy for cancer screening, care and research began in the late 1990s after her husband Jay Monahan died of colon cancer at the age of 42, followed three years later by her sister’s death due to pancreatic cancer. In 2000, Couric famously underwent a colonoscopy on live TV, which inspired so many Americans to schedule screenings that doctors dubbed it “the Couric effect.” In September, she revealed that she was in treatment after being diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

Construction of the new education and research building at the center of the UMass Chan campus in Worcester is progressing quickly, with opening anticipated in spring 2024.

Parth Chakrabarti is plotting a course for sustainable success

BRIDGE Innovation and Business Development at UMass Chan

By Jim Fessenden

Executive Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Business Development Parth Chakrabarti, MPH, MBA, credits serendipity for his arrival at UMass Chan Medical School.

“The best parts of my career have been fortuitous,” said Chakrabarti. “There’s value in planning ahead for your career, but you need to constantly keep your ears and mind open to opportunities because that’s where the real leaps in personal growth can happen.”

The son of a scientist and a public school teacher, Chakrabarti said he has come full circle as he now works with educators and researchers. With a graduate degree in medicinal chemistry, he began his career working in a lab at Amgen in California, bringing two drug candidates to clinical trial and serving as inventor on more than a dozen patents on drug discovery. While pursuing a PhD in the biomedical field, he quickly discovered he didn’t want to remain at the lab bench.

“I love science, but I was far more interested in the electric arc where creative science meets innovative business problem-solving to make sparks fly,” he explained.

After earning his MBA from the Indian School of Business, Chakrabarti worked at VentureEast Capital, the first health care-focused venture fund headquartered in India with a presence in the U.S. “Venture capital wasn’t something

I was thinking about. Rather, strategy consulting or going back to big pharma is what I was contemplating, but it was hard not to be drawn to this opportunity to combine business strategy and science when it was presented to me,” explained Chakrabarti.

During the 2008 recession when investor interest in risky venture capital funding started to dry up, Chakrabarti pivoted once again and enrolled at Harvard University, where he earned a Master of Public Health with a focus on health policy and management. That was followed by high level positions in business development for Baxter International Inc., Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Sanofi Genzyme and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Now he is looking for creative ways to connect UMass Chan science with the business community.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a licensing deal or spinning out a start-up or working with an industry partner—our goal is to find new and innovative ways to leverage UMass Chan research to help solve the world’s health problems.”

In a climate where large, multinational pharmaceutical companies have reduced their research and development productivity over the years, Chakrabarti sees opportunity for UMass Chan.

“The creative ways our researchers are approaching and solving health problems are on par with any research institution or university,” he said. “The challenge is that from a pragmatic business point of view, there are patient access, financial and operational realities with which we must contend. The constraints of limited resources—across the commercial market and at UMass Chan—along with the need for commercial partners to realize returns on their investment must also be taken into account to calibrate the commercial

attractiveness of an asset or technology. That is how we prioritize our efforts.”

One of the ways Chakrabarti envisions UMass Chan standing out is by proactively identifying in-house technology with high commercial potential and pursuing industry, entrepreneurs and venture capital firms with whom to collaborate.

“The game is changing, and any change must start from within,” he said. “Business development within academia can no longer afford to be reactive. We have to reach out and differentiate ourselves. What we’re doing is a blend of industry and venture capital, business development and seed funding.”

To help cultivate therapeutic assets based on UMass Chan technology, BRIDGE Innovation and Business Development aims to invest $15 million over five years on internal research projects. Project funding is linked to milestone achievements with clear objectives and detailed criteria for advancement. Additional funding is tied to successive milestones.

“These funds are one way we can bridge the gap between a UMass Chan lab and an interested partner who can help us take our inventions to the patients waiting for them. Additionally, we have a responsibility to recirculate the funds that we generate at BRIDGE to support the next generation of research,” he said.

Chakrabarti’s long-term vision for business development at UMass Chan is to ensure the Medical School’s sustained success.

“Organizationally, we want an infrastructure and venture mindset that is ingrained in the culture of the Innovation and Business Development team at UMass Chan Medical School for many exciting years ahead.” ■

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a licensing deal or spinning out a start-up or working with an industry partner— our goal is to find new and innovative ways to leverage UMass Chan research to help solve the world’s health problems.”

PARTH CHAKRABARTI, MPH, MBA

Harnessing the power and promise of digital medicine

By Susan E.W. Spencer

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FAITH NINIVAGGI

As a young cardiologist, David D. McManus, MD’02, MSc’12, saw life as a practicing physician being spent more and more in the digital world. Medical charts were converted to electronic health records, fundamentally changing how health professionals communicated. Technology companies were developing devices and applications to make diagnoses.

But doctors were spending long hours keeping up with patient data entry in a platform largely set up for administrative use. Burnout from overflowing inboxes was growing. And for the most part, lengths of stay weren’t getting shorter, patient satisfaction hadn’t improved, patients weren’t taking fewer medications and health equity hadn’t budged.

“Digital medicine is medicine, but as any practicing health care provider would tell you, the tools designed to support patient care were in control of the provider, not the other way around,” said Dr. McManus, the Richard M. Haidack Professor in Medicine and chair and professor of medicine.

Digital medicine includes a spectrum of technological tools—from wearable devices that track activity to artificial intelligence (AI) to aid diagnosis, to providing remote patient care, to amassing enormous databases of electronic records and imaging data. Seeing its untapped promise, McManus consulted with like-minded colleagues and pitched a plan in late 2019 to UMass Chan leadership.

“We needed to figure out how to pull data from people into care; we needed to think about how we deliver that care; we needed to use technology to improve outcomes, drive better quality and improve efficiency,” he said.

Then the COVID-19 global pandemic hit.

The pandemic served as a catalyst for health care providers, patients and, importantly, insurers, to embrace telehealth visits. Patients who thronged to overflowing emergency departments with respiratory symptoms needed to be triaged fast. Remote testing and public health surveillance for the rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus needed to be developed, tested and deployed.

UMass Chan was awarded $123 million from the National Institutes of Health the largest grant in the Medical School’s history—to coordinate clinical studies for the nationwide push for fast, accessible COVID-19 testing under the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program. McManus served as co-principal investigator for RADx Tech, the specific initiative of UMass Chan’s focus, with Bryan Buchholz, PhD, chair and professor of biomedical engineering at UMass Lowell.

Above: Nancy Anoruo

Left:

Clockwise from top right, Neil Marya; Ed Boudreaux; and Apurv Soni, Carly Herbert and Honghuang Lin.

The RADx grant and concurrent successful development by UMass Chan researchers of a digital tool to assess COVID-19 patients, called Decompensation Electronic COVID Observational Monitoring Platform Triage, or DECOMP-Triage, confirmed to McManus and a growing cadre of scientists that UMass Chan could be a national leader in multidisciplinary digital medicine.

“Over the past 50 years, UMass Chan has been a place willing to innovate and willing to try new stuff,” McManus said. “It has also always been very connected to training tomorrow’s physicians and nurses, and to engaging patients in the design of their health care.”

A program is born

In January 2021, McManus was appointed chair of the Department of Medicine, and the Program in Digital Medicine was launched.

“What we have is aspirational,” said Neil B. Marya, MD’12, assistant professor of medicine and a co-director of the Program in Digital Medicine.

Apurv Soni, MD, PhD’21, assistant professor of medicine, and Honghuang Lin, PhD, professor of medicine, share program co-directing duties.

Nancy Anoruo, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine, serves as director of innovation.

Dr. Marya, a gastroenterologist, said his role is largely as a mentor to junior faculty working to get their digital medicine projects off the ground and as program director for the fellowship in digital medicine.

Marya’s research focuses on AI and machine learning, especially in pancreatic cancer. His lab has been developing an AIbased tool that can analyze images generated from endoscopic procedures to help improve the diagnosis of cancer. The device is currently being used in a feasibility study at UMass Chan and has already proved capable of accurate cancer diagnostics and providing real time feedback to endoscopists. A full clinical trial is expected to start in the fall.

In partnership with the Mayo Clinic, Marya’s team is developing a device that can provide instant feedback from AI in real time, rather than just from recorded images.

“I think the sky is the limit once we start deploying these AIs in real time,” he said.

Dr. Soni said his interest was sparked a few years ago in a project investigating smartphone technologies for atrial fibrillation (AFib). Stroke, which can be caused by AFib, is the third largest killer of adults in India, Soni explained. He approached McManus, who was also studying smartphones to screen for AFib, about trying out the technology in India.

Soni and a few other medical students spent a summer in India training community health workers who went from house to house, screening for AFib.

Above: Neil Marya serves as a mentor to junior faculty, helping them get their digital projects off the ground.

“Lo and behold, we found and published in the International Journal of Cardiology that not only is prevalence of AFib higher than previously reported in India; it’s actually higher than what’s observed in the U.S. and Europe,” said Soni.

Soni said he envisions the Program in Digital Medicine as “an incubation space to discuss ideas with faculty, students and top leaders in digital medicine and implement digital medicine projects that can demonstrate the art of possibilities within health care.”

Illustrating the program’s multidisciplinary approach, Dr. Lin joined UMass Chan from Boston University in 2022 as a biostatistician with extensive experience in machine learning, genetics and digital medicine.

Lin is also an investigator of the renowned Framingham Heart Study, which has been collecting longitudinal health data across three generations. A recent project analyzing physical activity data from participants’ Apple Watches found that a higher number of daily steps is associated with a lower cardiovascular disease risk.

Another project of Lin’s explores voice recognition technology to predict the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease in the next five to 10 years among people with a genetic predisposition for the disease.

Dr. Anoruo became interested in digital health applications while finishing her residency in internal medicine at UMass Chan. She worked with the Department of Population & Quantitative Health Sciences on mobile health interventions to help people quit smoking and saw outcomes that, “far surpassed what we were able to do clinically with medications and other modalities,” she said.

Anoruo was inspired to complete a fellowship in health technology innovation and biodesign at Harvard University. Seeing the possibilities for solving medical care problems that previously seemed too large or inaccessible, Anoruo came back to UMass Chan as a leader in the Program in Digital Medicine.

Her research focuses on digital therapeutics, software as a medical device and digital transformation of care delivery models.

“We find there’s a lot of power in being able to harness technology and figure out where the gaps are, and how we can close them,” she said.

David McManus, MD’02, MSc’12

The Richard M. Haidack Professor in Medicine

chair

and professor of medicine

Over the past 50 years, UMass Chan has been a place willing to innovate and willing to try new stuff. It has also always been very connected to training tomorrow’s physicians and nurses, and to engaging patients in the design of their health care.”

Across:

Collaboration with UMass Memorial Health

While UMass Chan Medical School scientists are reimagining the future of health care, faculty work closely with UMass Memorial Health’s Center for Digital Health Solutions to put new concepts and tools into practice.

“In some ways, the Program in Digital Medicine is the breakthrough arm of our academic medical center, while the Center for Digital Health Solutions is the follow-through lever,” Soni said.

Anoruo is putting her digital medicine acumen into clinical practice in UMass Memorial Health’s Hospital at Home program. Physicians visit their hospital-level patients in the patients’ own homes through telehealth and use biosensor equipment to gather vital data. Research shows there is a lower risk of hospital readmission, higher patient satisfaction and lower risk of hospital-acquired complications, among other benefits.

“We’re finding that the outcomes are amazing,” said Anoruo. “We’ve pushed the boundaries of what people thought would be possible as far as delivering medicine, and now we have an entire acute care hospital wing that is completely virtual.”

Digital medicine is also transforming how UMass Chan’s clinical partner delivers behavioral health care. Edwin D. Boudreaux, PhD, professor of emergency medicine and a psychologist by training, is the principal investigator on a four-year, $4.4 million National Institute of Mental Health effectiveness-implementation trial called Telehealth to Improve Prevention of Suicide (TIPS) in emergency departments. Using telehealth for behavioral health evaluations for patients who have suicide risk addresses some of the problems of long waits, transfers between hospitals to emergency mental health services and lack of mental health resources in rural communities.

Dr. Boudreaux said that electronic health records and digital tools allow for the standardization of mental health and suiciderisk screening and encourage a “system-based thinking” to prevent suicide.

“We have a better ability to detect risk when it’s there, we have a better ability to triage the risk and figure out whether this person really needs immediate care, or whether they can receive care in a less intensive setting,” said Boudreaux. “We can make sure that patients get the care that they need, and they’re not being ignored.”

We’ve had to adapt really quickly to the arrival of COVID, and then the rapid adoption of telehealth, of mass vaccination campaigns, of distributing rapid antigen tests globally. I think it’s spurred all these methodologies that can be used in so many other ways.”

Carly Herbert MD/PhD student

MD/PhD student Carly Herbert was part of a study that tested the efficacy of at-home COVID tests, the results of which influenced FDA safety communications.

From COVID-19 to the future of health care

“COVID has changed entire health systems,” said MD/PhD student Carly Herbert, a digital medicine trainee mentored by Soni. “We’ve had to adapt really quickly to the arrival of COVID, and then the rapid adoption of telehealth, of mass vaccination campaigns, of distributing rapid antigen tests globally. I think it’s spurred all these methodologies that can be used in so many other ways.”

Herbert finds digital medicine appealing because it also offers a way to expand access to care and reduce health disparities, something she cares deeply about.

Herbert and Soni pioneered a “siteless” study to assess the efficacy of rapid antigen testing at home. The digital recruitment and enrollment strategies allowed them to enroll participants from 47 states in the RADx Test Us At Home study and generate representative, regulatory-quality data on an accelerated timeline to inform policy decisions at a national level. The study’s findings influenced the Food and Drug Administration’s safety communication regarding serial testing for at-home antigen tests.

As with any major advance in health systems, the digital revolution comes with challenges too. UMass Chan faculty cited potential hurdles, from normal growing pains of going from startup to sustainable operation; supporting researchers, health care teams and patients with a new mindset; ethical questions around AI versus visual diagnosis; whether payment models will support remote care after the pandemic wanes; and the importance of upholding the humanistic aspect of medicine.

With these caveats, UMass Chan’s leaders along the digital medicine path say the vision is worth striving for.

“It’s really about problem-solving,” said McManus. “It’s about listening to patients, engaging populations, addressing inequities and driving improvement. We want to turn the tables on technology and make it so that our patients, our sons and daughters and parents, have the health care systems and tools that they need. We might be wildly ambitious, but I think that if we leave health care a little bit healthier through our work in the digital world, that would be a wonderful deliverable for us at UMass Chan.” ■

Students as advocates

Preparing for careers in health care provides these UMass Chan students with opportunities to speak up, set an example and drive change

By Colleen Locke

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FAITH NINIVAGGI

Public service has been a cornerstone of UMass Chan Medical School’s mission since its founding and students play a leading role in serving our diverse communities.

T.H. Chan School of Medicine students have helped physicians staff the Worcester Free Care Collaborative since the mid-1990s.

Meredith Walsh, MSN’13, MPH, RN, co-founded the Worcester Refugee Assistance Project in 2010 while a nursing student at UMass Chan. And when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, a UMass Chan team created ScienceLIVE with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows teaching middle school students hands-on activities remotely.

Four student advocates involved in these and other projects are highlighted on the following pages.

Jordan Dudley

Third-year medical student, T.H. Chan School of Medicine

Jordan Dudley and fellow third-year medical student Kassandra Jean-Marie created Advocacy Allies in their first year of medical school. Dudley and Jean-Marie accompanied patients of color to medical appointments, helped them keep track of their medications and made sure they felt heard by their medical providers. Dudley met some of the patient participants when she and her fellow med student Anna Nesgos volunteered with Mentors for Young Mothers. Advocacy Allies held its first seminar this spring, connecting medical students with community resources so that they can be advocates while also being medical care providers for Black or Indigenous people of color.

“When people think of medical advocacy, they often think of policymaking and campaigning for things, and it doesn't have to be that,” Dudley said. “It's a little bit more approachable to think of yourself as an advocate if you’re working one-on-one with the patient. You can ask yourself, ‘What does that person need and how can I help them achieve it?’”

Dudley, who has a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology, worked as a medical assistant and scribe at South County Dermatology in Narragansett, Rhode Island, where she advocated for patients during calls to insurance companies and by tracking down product samples. These experiences have sparked her desire to continue to be an advocate as a physician.

“I’m 25 and I’ve never had a Black doctor,” Dudley said. “And as a Black woman, I would like to be that for somebody one day, especially with the state of maternal mortality for Black women in the United States. It’s three times that of white women and all the research shows that you do better when your doctor looks like you and can relate to you. So I’m hoping that just by me existing in the space, I can help reduce that disparity for people.”

“I’m 25 and I’ve never had a Black doctor. And as a Black woman, I would like to be that for somebody one day, especially with the state of maternal mortality for Black women in the United States.”

JORDAN DUDLEY

Joseph Magrino, MS

Working alongside Brian Kelch, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry & molecular biotechnology, Joseph Magrino, MS, studies proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), a central factor in DNA replication and repair. More specifically, Magrino studies it in the context of a rare neurodegenerative disorder, PCNA-associated DNA repair disorder, which causes premature aging, difficulty walking and cognitive impairment.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Magrino connected with Mary Pickering, PhD’06, director of public engagement with science for the RNA Therapeutics Institute, who at the time was working in a lab on the same floor as Magrino. Dr. Pickering asked Magrino to volunteer for ScienceLIVE, the program she co-founded to bring hands-on experiments to Worcesterarea students who were attending

school virtually. Magrino, who taught undergraduates at the University of New Haven while earning his master’s degree in cell and molecular biology, started out as a chat moderator.

”Kids are naturally curious, right? They want to know, ‘Is Jurassic Park coming back? Are we cloning humans?’” Magrino said.

Magrino was the first ScienceLIVE graduate student to do a virtual presentation in Worcester Public Schools in 2021 and the first to do inperson experiments with Pickering, including extracting DNA from bananas. Magrino has dyslexia, and because he struggled until a high school English teacher encouraged his writing, it was important for him to be an example and support for all types of learners.

“I think what most people need is one time when someone says, ‘Hey, you can do this.’”

PhD candidate, Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Saisha Cintron, RN

PhD student, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing

Saisha Cintron’s dissertation is focused on the positive experiences that help emerging adults overcome adverse childhood experiences such as physical, psychological and sexual abuse; addiction; abandonment; and economic hardship. The PhD student knows firsthand the importance of a support system. With the help of her family, she overcame neighborhood poverty, violence and abuse.

“That’s why I wanted to focus on this research,” Cintron said. “It’s all qualitative research, and I think it’s going to be really empowering for the participants.”

A former youth pastor, Cintron mentors students in the community of Worcester, congregates at Jubilee Worcester, works as a float nurse at UMass Memorial HealthAllianceClinton Hospital in Leominster and UMass Memorial Medical Center, and is on the clinical faculty at Worcester State University.

“I’m a big believer that you need to give voice to the voiceless. But it’s not your voice being implemented on them. It’s their voice, and you’re just guiding them so their voice can be louder. And I think that’s where my research is headed right now,” Cintron said.

“I’m a big believer that you need to give voice to the voiceless. But it’s not your voice being implemented on them. It’s their voice, and you’re just guiding them so their voice can be louder.”

SAISHA CINTRON, RN

Heidi (Boland) Holiver, MS’22, RN

DNP student in the Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Track, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing

The colleges in the Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts have an agreement that if a student has a need for an emergency psychiatric evaluation, the evaluation is performed by UMass Memorial Medical Center’s Emergency Mental Health Services (EMHS). For their scholarly project, Heidi (Boland) Holiver, MS’22, RN, and Paige Laperle, MS’22, RN, interviewed clinicians at EMHS and the consortium colleges and completed chart reviews of students who presented to EMHS for an emergency health evaluation between August 2019 and June 2020. Holiver and Laperle paid particular attention to discharge instructions and follow-up communication.

“This time period in people’s lives, it’s such a vulnerable time. I think they need advocates. Absolutely,” Holiver said. “You see it on the news, students are struggling, but when you don’t have the specific data on hand, it’s hard to address the needs.”

A registered nurse at McLean Hospital, Holiver has a bachelor’s from the College of the Holy Cross. Laperle has a bachelor’s in athletic training from Springfield College. They hope to publish their research findings.

A momentous half century

By Ellie Castano and Mark L. Shelton

On Sunday, June 4, UMass Chan Medical School will celebrate its 50th Commencement. Since the first 16 medical students graduated in 1974, the school has grown in ways that no one could have imagined. Marked by many moments of significance, the institution has become a top ranked medical school and a research powerhouse. In this issue of the magazine, we have captured a handful of those moments—some that quietly foretold the future and others that clearly were defining developments in the moment— that illuminate the impact UMass Chan has had on research, education, public service and health care delivery.

Nobel discovery transforms science

Craig C. Mello, PhD, who joined the Medical School in the Program in Molecular Medicine in 1994, studies gene expression in the nematode C. elegans. A puzzling result in a batch of experiments led to hours of late-night phone conversations with research colleague Andrew Fire, PhD, of the Carnegie Institution, where they figured out an explanation for a method of regulating genetic expression that was as simple as it was elegant. “RNA interference,” as they described it in their seminal 1998 paper in Nature, using double-stranded RNA, meant that any gene could be silenced with a technique that was fast, versatile and reliable. RNAi gave scientists, in essence, a search engine for discovering the roles of specific genes. This discovery led to Drs. Mello and Fire receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006. Since that discovery, the field of RNA biology has been one of the most dynamic and impactful areas of research in the world.

Top of U.S. News & World Report

UMass Chan Medical School first appeared in U.S. News and World Report’s rankings of best medical schools for primary care education in 1996, premiering in the No. 2 spot. Since that time, UMass Chan has consistently ranked in the top 10 percent of medical schools for primary care education. In a typical class, more than 50 percent of graduates opt to go into primary care or a primary care specialty, reflecting the institution’s ongoing commitment to fulfilling its core mission of educating primary care physicians. UMass Chan's rankings as a research institution have also risen steadily.

Meeting the COVID-19 challenge

Even before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, researchers and clinicians at UMass Chan had begun studying SARS-CoV-2, with basic science labs quickly pivoting their research to focus on understanding the rapidly spreading virus. Soon after, clinicians launched clinical trials to test treatments and analyze disease behavior, while students joined the response by graduating early to be on the frontlines of a beleaguered health care workforce and others launched innovative and meaningful volunteer endeavors. Led by ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School, a Vaccine Corps was organized, deploying volunteers across the commonwealth who delivered more than 83,000 doses of vaccine into arms in 2021.

Screening for a healthy future

The New England Newborn Screening program was launched in 1962 by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, screening for just one disease, phenylketonuria. Today in Massachusetts, newborn screening includes more than 30 treatable disorders and has been adopted worldwide as a critical standard of care. UMass Chan Medical School, on behalf of the Department of Public Health, has operated the program since 1997. The lab performs metabolic and genetic screening for nearly every one of the approximately 75,000 babies born in Massachusetts annually.

Class size grows to support mission

UMass Chan’s first School of Medicine class comprised only 16 students. As the school grew in scope, size and renown, class size was 100 students for many years and admission was restricted to Massachusetts residents. That began to change in 1988, when the MD/PhD program was established and accepted out of state students. In 2008 the School of Medicine class size grew in an effort to help alleviate the physician shortage, both in the commonwealth and the country. The class that entered the T.H. Chan School of Medicine in 2022 includes 175 students and the entering class in 2023 is anticipated to include 200 students.

Consulting for health

A modest interagency contract to provide psychiatric services at Worcester State Hospital in the 1980s grew, year by year, into a comprehensive service delivery and health care consulting program that built on the Medical School’s commitment to public service. Formally organized in 1999 as Commonwealth Medicine, a division of the Medical School, this distinguishing resource has helped Massachusetts lead the nation in cost-effective public health financing and redirect billions of dollars to health care delivery. This year, Commonwealth Medicine transitioned to a new brand identity, ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School, a name that aligns with its foundational commitment to improving the delivery of health care services.

Mindfulness comes to medicine

The establishment of the mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Relaxation Clinic in 1979 was an unconventional and forward-thinking decision to embed mindfulness in medicine, initially as a means of improving outcomes for cardiac rehab patients through behavioral health. The program, led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, a molecular biologist by training, evolved into the singularly successful and paradigm-changing Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society. Dr. Kabat-Zinn is now widely credited with founding the current mindfulness movement. Since those early days, mindfulness has become a regular topic of scholarly research and a universally accepted tool for improving health and well-being.

PhD program launches, thrives

The Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences traces its origin to the establishment of the Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences, a free-standing PhD-granting program approved by the UMass Board of Trustees in 1978. The original class of seven enrolled in 1979. Nine years later, with growing enrollment and applications and fueled by growth in research activity across the campus, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was founded. By 2010, there were 10 programs of study, with more than 400 students enrolled. As of 2022, the school had 1,244 alumni.

Profound impact for endowed chairs

The first philanthropically endowed chair— the Harry M. Haidak Professorship in Surgery was established in 1985 and was originally held by founding chair of surgery H. Brownell Wheeler, MD. Endowed chairs are among the most impactful assets an institution has to attract and retain high caliber faculty and provide an opportunity for donors to contribute to the enrichment and vitality of the academic and scientific environment. Today, 63 faculty members, including the deans of the three schools, hold endowed positions, 21 of whom are women.

Diversity

survey fuels change

The Diversity Engagement Survey was developed in 2011 by UMass Chan Medical School in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges to measure academic medical center diversity engagement and inclusion. The survey is designed to gauge the progress of academic medical centers toward the goal of achieving a diverse community of faculty, staff and students. The survey has driven significant change at UMass Chan. Current faculty members Sharina Person, PhD, and Jeroan Allison, MD, MSci, were instrumental in developing the survey, which has been administered by UMass Chan 86 times, including at 65 academic medical centers/ schools. To date, 150,000 individuals have responded to the survey.

Graduate nursing school serves region

Originally launched as a master’s program in 1983, the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing was established in 1986 as a means for increasing the number of advanced practice nurses to support patient care in the region as the nursing profession evolved to require advanced technological and acute care skills. Since its establishment, the school has evolved along with the profession to include programs that prepare nurses for leadership in health care, nursing education and scholarship. To date, there are 1,417 alumni and the school consistently ranks in the top 50 percent of nursing schools with DNP programs.

Strong leadership begins with Lamar Soutter

When the UMass Board of Trustees chose Lamar Soutter, MD, as the founding dean of the Medical School, they did so because he had a reputation for facing challenges with dogged determination. Before coming to Worcester, Dr. Soutter had established the first blood bank in Massachusetts; led a gliderborne medical corps during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII; and during his tenure as dean at Boston University School of Medicine, recognized that the relentless trend toward specialization needed a counterpoint in the training and support of generalist physicians, making him an early champion of primary care education. Soutter, who was appointed chancellor in 1974, embodied the characteristics needed to build a medical school from the ground up. His leadership set the standard for the chancellors who followed in his footsteps, including current Chancellor Michael F. Collins, who has led the institution since 2007.

A model of collaboration

The establishment of the Program in Molecular Medicine in 1990 represented a shift in how the institution approached research—bringing together scientists whose work intersected at the molecular level, rather than by discipline—and created an enduring commitment to multidisciplinary collaboration that is now a hallmark of UMass Chan. The success of this approach, which has been extended across the enterprise, has led to scientific breakthroughs that have fundamentally changed how biomedical research is conducted.

Worcester Pipeline illuminates science pathway

The Worcester Pipeline Collaborative, the premier UMass Chan educational partnership with Worcester Public Schools and area colleges and universities, was established in 1996 to encourage underrepresented, economically and/or educationally disadvantaged students to pursue careers in biomedical research, biotechnology and health care professions. Founded initially with a grant to principal investigators Deborah Harmon Hines, PhD, and James E. Hamos, PhD, the program built educational partnerships with Worcester Public Schools. More than 150,000 students in the Worcester Public School’s North Quadrant have been exposed to or participated in numerous outreach program opportunities through structured activities that include mentoring, job-shadowing, tutoring, clinical observation, research internships, after-school science programs, visiting scientist programs, a speaker's bureau and family engagement workshops.

History of innovation, service at MassBiologics

MassBiologics of UMass Chan Medical School traces its roots to 1895, when the Massachusetts Antitoxin and Vaccine Laboratory was established by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. It is the only nonprofit, FDA-licensed, vaccine manufacturing facility in the United States. Since 1917, it has manufactured more than 100 million of doses of life-saving treatments and vaccines for numerous diseases and infections and is the single largest manufacturer of the diphtheria/ pertussis/tetanus vaccine in the country. Since the enterprise was transferred by the state to UMass Chan in 1997, MassBiologics has expanded its research and manufacturing mission to combat diseases globally, including rabies, Clostridium difficile infection, and Parkinson’s and Lyme disease.

50 years of growth, by the numbers

Research funding Teaching and research space

$3.95b 40k 4.6m

Employees

Alumni

110 6,600+ 11,875

Since the first NIH grants were received in the 1970s square feet in 1974 square feet in 2023 in 1971 in 2023

As of 2022, including residents

Campus Mod inspires greener design

When the Campus Modernization project was launched in 2002, one of the primary goals was to fix a construction flaw in the granite façade of the Medical School building. The project grew to encompass the whole campus—replacement of the façade and windows, renovation of clinical areas, and construction of a 1,600-space parking garage—and led to a greener redesign that also created open and light-filled interior spaces. This project also informed and accelerated a transformation of the campus footprint that began with the Lazare Research Building and continues today. The buildings that have risen since the modernization project—the Ambulatory Care Center, the Albert Sherman Center, the VA clinic and the new education and research building slated for completion in the spring of 2024—drew inspiration from the same bright, open design concept that fosters collaboration while taking advantage of new sustainable and technology-enhanced architectural and construction practices.

Hospital spinoff provides joint solution

By 1998, UMass Medical Center was a complex marriage of a medical school, residency program, hospital and medical group. Nationwide, for-profit hospital chains were buying up nonprofit hospital systems. Regionally, hospitals were closing or seeking merger partners. Locally, Memorial Health Care was in merger discussions with a large Boston health care system and the UMass board and University president were concerned about the financial health of University Hospital. A joint solution for both entities was envisioned by a group of university, hospital, board and community leaders in Worcester, who made the case for the most significant legislative changes since the Medical School’s enabling legislation in 1962. This piece of legislation effectively ”spun off” the hospital and medical group into a new nonprofit and merged it with Memorial Health Care, while at the same time, enshrining into law a special affiliation between the newly created clinical system, UMass Memorial Health, and the clinical faculty, academic departments and residency training programs of the Medical School. UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Health share a “linked destiny” and although the legislatively stipulated relationship is complex, both partners have grown far larger and been more successful than either would have been alone.

Historic gift secures continued innovation

What began with a letter of invitation in 2015 resulted in a transformative gift that will shape the institution for future generations. Chancellor Michael F. Collins wrote to Gerald Chan of the Morningside Foundation to introduce him to the Medical School, which, as Chancellor Collins noted, was at an important point on its upward trajectory. That letter launched a relationship that resulted in a $175 million gift in 2021 that will help secure the future of the institution and allow it to continue to carry out its mission to lead and innovate in education, research, health care delivery and public service.

Editor’s note: Beating the Odds: The University of Massachusetts Medical School, A History , 1962–2012, by Ellen More, PhD, emeritus professor of psychiatry and founding head of the Office of Medical History and Archives of the Lamar Soutter Library, was an invaluable resource in compiling this list of moments.

Looking out across our campus these days—despite the temporary construction fence, the cacophony of construction and the beehive of activity—it’s gratifying to see that the new education and research building has now risen nine stories high along the western edge of the campus green, signaling yet another exciting expansion of UMass Chan. Slated to open in spring 2024, around the same time we will be welcoming back our alumni for the T.H. Chan School of Medicine's 50th annual reunion, this new research and learning space presents a natural opportunity to reflect on the unlikely trajectory of UMass Chan in its first half-century and to dream, perhaps, about what lies ahead in its second.

At this milestone, it is hard to resist the urge to remark on the fact that the UMass Chan of today would have been difficult to imagine by any of its founding leaders, the legislators

whose votes made it possible or the first class of 16 medical school students who earned their degrees 50 years ago.

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future gains. In so many ways, UMass Chan has emerged as the Massachusetts medical school, true to our founding mission to serve the people of the commonwealth by training exceptional, patient-centric physicians. Over time our mission has come to include a responsibility to train the next generation of nursing leaders and biomedical scientists, too. Our faculty is world-class and attracts more than $300 million annually in grant funding. UMass Chan is among the best in the United States for primary care education, near the top in licensing revenue among the nation’s universities and this year was named a top employer and one of the best places to work in Massachusetts.

No matter how impressive, however, the accolades fail to adequately capture our unique spirit. At UMass Chan, our approach is deliberatively inclusive and innovative. We are collaborative and committed to driving change. On all counts, our purpose is progress. Progress for our students. Progress for our faculty and staff. And progress for the people near and far who will live healthier, happier and longer lives because of the discoveries, advancements and humanitarianism that emanate from our Worcester campus.

If we were to create a time capsule for our successors to open when UMass Chan celebrates its 100th Commencement, we certainly could collect some items to represent this era: a stethoscope, a pipette or a laptop, perhaps. But it would be the intangible qualities we collectively possess and prioritize—collaboration, inclusiveness, excellence, indefatigability—that I hope would be most mightily represented. The unique UMass Chan spirit is, I believe, what sets our academic community apart from all the rest.

With humility and optimism, those of us who have the privilege to be part of the UMass Chan of 2023 know this is an organization that is just getting started. Our potential to change the trajectory of lives while serving our communities is limitless. I have every confidence that over the course of the next 50 years, we shall do nothing less. Together. ■

Michael F. Collins, MD Chancellor and Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences

FAITH NINVAGGI

On all counts, our purpose is progress.

FAITH NINIVAGGI

Class of 1974

@umasschan

@umasschan is the magazine of UMass Chan Medical School, one of five campuses of the UMass system. The magazine is distributed periodically to members, benefactors and friends of the UMass Chan community. It is produced and published by the Office of Communications.

Readers are invited to comment on the contents of the magazine, via email to UMassChanCommunications@umassmed.edu; please include “@umasschan magazine” in the subject line.

Chancellor and Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences: Michael F. Collins, MD

Executive Deputy Chancellor and Provost, Dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine: Terence R. Flotte, MD

Vice Chancellor for Communications: Jennifer Berryman

Editor: Ellie Castano

Design: Dan Lambert

Photography: UMass Chan Office of Communications and UMass Chan Office of Medical History and Archives, except as noted.