PHILANTHROPY
New Professorships Advance Research in Cancer and Neuromuscular Disease Endowed professorships are the gold standard for recruiting, retaining, and recognizing distinguished faculty. Professorships play a key role in supporting scholarly pursuits, advancing discovery, and, ultimately, moving research from bench to bedside. Thanks to generous gifts from the Wilmot family and from E. Philip and Carole Saunders, two new professorships were recently installed in the Medical Center.
Cancer Genomics
CMT Disease
As the inaugural Wilmot Distinguished Professor in Cancer Genomics and Wilmot Cancer Institute’s director of translational research, Paula M. Vertino, PhD, leads and facilitates interactions among scientists and clinicians. Her Paula M. goal: to accelerate Vertino, PhD the development of laboratory discoveries into technologies and treatments for use with patients. Vertino joined URMC in 2018 with more than 20 years of experience conducting and directing research. Her vast knowledge of cancer centers coupled with her international reputation in epigenetics are helping to expand Wilmot’s research strengths. Located at Wilmot Cancer Institute, her lab is designed to encourage collaboration between scientists and clinicians. “Working on common themes and promoting a team science approach will help us bring concepts from bench to bedside and back again,” says Vertino, who also serves as an oncology and biomedical genomics professor at the School of Medicine and Dentistry.
David Herrmann, MBBCh, E. Philip and Carole Saunders Professor in Neuromuscular Research, is principal investigator of a five-year multicenter NIH grant to promote clinical trial readiness and develop targeted therapies for CharcotMarie-Tooth disease (CMT)—the most David Herrmann, common inherited MBBCh form of neuropathy. CMT affects the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms can include pain, tingling, burning sensations, or weakness in the feet, legs, hands, or arms. Many patients remain undiagnosed for years due to a lack of awareness of peripheral neuropathies in the medical community. Herrmann’s collaborative approach, along with that of his colleagues Eric Logigian, MD, and Michael Stanton, MD, will help train the next generation of physicians and researchers and develop new ways to diagnose and treat these neuropathies.
Generous Gift Creates Dermatology Professorship
From left: URMC CEO and Dean Mark Taubman, MD; University President Sarah Mangelsdorf; Carol Goldsmith; Alice Pentland, MD; and Dean Emeritus Lowell Goldsmith, MD.
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ROCHESTER MEDICINE | 2019 – V2
A lead gift from Lowell A. Goldsmith, MD (MPH ’02), and his wife, Carol, establishes the endowed Carol A. and Lowell A. Goldsmith Professorship in Dermatology at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). The gift will provide permanent support to faculty in the department. In honor of the Goldsmiths’ generosity, the department hosted, on August 3, the Lowell and Carol Goldsmith Symposium, which featured nationally recognized scholars, alumni, and URMC faculty. President Sarah Mangelsdorf, the G. Robert Witmer, Jr., University Professor, also presented the Goldsmiths with University medallions in commemoration of their professorship gift. “Dr. Goldsmith has made such a mark on this department, the Medical Center, and the field of dermatology overall,” said Alice Pentland, MD, the James H. Sterner Chair in Dermatology. “This gift is testimony to that unwavering commitment and the Goldsmiths’ willingness to ‘pay it forward’ to make the department even better in the future. We are incredibly grateful for their support.” Goldsmith joined URMC in 1981 as the first James H. Sterner Chair in Dermatology. He became the founding chair of the dermatology department, which was officially established in 1987. In 1996, Goldsmith was appointed dean of URMC’s School of Medicine and Dentistry and, in 2000, he became dean emeritus.
