Later this month, the program will be transferred from YNHHS’s Winchester Center for Lung Disease to their Department of Internal Medicine. The clinic will be renamed the Yale New Haven Long Haul Covid Multispecialty Clinic and will relocate from the Fitkin Memorial Pavilion to a building on the corner of Orchard St. and Frontage Rd. Associate professor Lisa Sanders — the medical director of the Post-COVID-19 recovery program — is leading the transition. 

“Winchester’s extraordinary physicians and health care teams did a great job of managing these symptoms but it became clear to them, and to the other sub-specialists seeing patients with Long Haul Covid, that these patients might benefit from seeing someone who was experienced in managing this vast range of symptoms,” wrote Sanders. “It made more sense to have [patients] assessed at a single venue and to try to address their symptoms holistically. The hospital heard them out and the clinic was born.”

The clinic has received over 1000 referrals, Denyse Lutchmansingh — associate director of the Winchester Center for Lung Disease — told the News. Lutchmansingh explained that back in 2020, it was expected that patients admitted to the ICU for COVID-19 were at risk of developing long-lasting symptoms, but that the actual extent of what they were dealing with was unknown.

Assistant professor Clemente Britto-Leon — pulmonary critical care specialist for the program — explained that due to the continual flow of patients into the program and consistent need for follow-ups, the COVID-19 recovery program will be in place for the foreseeable future. 

“Our program was established at the beginning of the pandemic and has now seen over 1000 new referrals, this allowed us to rapidly become familiar with the symptoms and clinical course of long-term complications of COVID-19,” Britto wrote. “We can now identify symptoms and potential complications early, generate treatment and referral pathways for other specialties, and provide well-informed counseling to our patients.”

Patients that suffer from underlying respiratory or cardiovascular disease are at greater risk of developing long COVID. However, a list of definitively associated factors with the development of long COVID has yet to be established, explained Britto. 

The exact percentage of COVID patients that develop long-lasting comorbidities of the disease is unknown. Britto suggested that based on a recent study in “The Lancet,” this number is around 20 percent, with most patients going on to develop the symptoms 3 to 5 months after infection.

“The most common symptoms that our long COVID patients in the Winchester Center for Lung Disease experience are shortness of breath, fatigue, and cough,” wrote Lauren Ferrante, also a pulmonary critical care specialist for the program and assistant professor of medicine. 

In addition, Ferrante explained that many patients with long COVID experience cognitive difficulty such as “brain fog,” characterized by difficulty with word-finding. Other patients, according to her, experienced “unexpected fluctuations in their heart rate.” 

These patients, Ferrante noted, would then be referred to the program’s post-COVID neurology and cardiology clinic partners, respectively, based on symptoms.

The worsening of pre-existing respiratory diseases — such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — are some of the most frequently encountered complications associated with long COVID, described Britto. Airflow obstruction, sleep disturbances and a few cases of interstitial lung disease also occur. 

Britto emphasized that a common feature seen in most of the recovery program’s patients is some degree of physical deconditioning, which makes maintaining physical fitness challenging. 

The regulation of heart rate and blood pressure can also be disrupted, further exacerbating the challenge of exercise post-disease. Heart rate and blood pressure are functions of the autonomic nervous system, and these symptoms are categorized as COVID-19-associated dysautonomia, a disorder of the ANS. 

“Our multidisciplinary program includes physical therapy and social work involvement, ensuring that we address not only pulmonary complications but also the often underappreciated, broader impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods, relationships, and daily functions of our patients,” Britto wrote. 

Lutchmansingh explained that while there are no data-proven treatments for long COVID, YNHHS uses a modified version of the Levine protocol, which is a reconditioning program especially helpful for patients experiencing dysautonomia. 

Sanders believes that with the transition to internal medicine, the Clinic will be able to serve more patients. The Clinic will solely focus on patients experiencing long COVID, in contrast to the subspecialists at the Winchester Center for Lung Disease who saw patients that also sought care for other illnesses.

“General medicine internists are experienced in treating patients with many different kinds of symptoms,” Sanders wrote. “If subspecialty care is needed — which is not always the case — they could be seen by these subspecialists who have spent the past 2 years treating these patients.”

Britto emphasized that more clinics should be established to reduce disparities when it comes to access to this specialized care. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, recently visited Yale and discussed the importance of programs such as the Clinic. 

“Many individuals experiencing these complications may choose not to seek care due to being unable to afford this kind of evaluation, not having the time to travel to a specialty center or a general lack of access to care,” Britto wrote. “Increasing the number of programs would help reduce these disparities.”

For the next few months, the Clinic will be located at St. Raphael’s Hospital until its permanent relocation, according to Sanders.

YNHH Saint Raphael Campus is located at 1450 Chapel St.

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BioLaunch’s goal is to shape the biotech industry to better benefit the broader New Haven community, as well as to provide an avenue for historically underrepresented communities in biotech to build rewarding careers. The program is designed for non-college-bound 18 to 26-year-olds and includes both a classroom curriculum and internship opportunities. 

Founded by Craig Crews, John C. Malone professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and executive director of the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery, BioLaunch was developed with the support of the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology, or ConnCAT, and includes partnerships with multiple local biotech companies. 

“The idea [for BioLaunch] came from just the fact that I have been a New Haven resident for 28 years, and am a strong believer in the many different talents we have here and the amazing people in the city,” said Crews. “I wanted to make sure that I built the infrastructure and systems that allow people to have opportunities in these companies.”

BioLaunch is designed as a three-year pilot program, with two cohorts of New Haven residents participating each year. Each cohort will include 15 people, and upon completion of the program, participants will earn a certificate. 

Each six-month cycle of the program will contain four months of classroom and laboratory training that will take place at BioLabs, an incubator space for nascent companies that is currently located on Yale’s West Campus. BioLabs will eventually move into a new development at 101 College St, Crews said.

This training stage of the program will be led by full-time trainers hired specifically by BioLaunch. The search for these employees is still underway, explained Crews. 

Crews said that there are three “legs” that will contribute to the success of BioLaunch: the location, the partnership with ConnCAT and the support of local biotech industry partners. 

The biotech industry is an engine for the economic growth of Connecticut, according to Crews. Given the scientific developments coming out of Yale, New Haven is a logical focal point for the development of this industry, he added. 

“One of the main reasons the [New Haven biotech] ecosystem is growing so fast is because the University continues to launch a lot of new innovation, a lot of new start-up companies, and those companies attract billions of dollars of investment and create thousands of jobs,” said Josh Geballe, managing director of Yale Ventures, Yale’s hub for entrepreneurship and innovation. “We are very interested in making sure that growth is inclusive, that the benefits are available not just to the founders of the companies and the senior employees, but the broader New Haven community.”

ConnCAT is a ten-year-old job training program with multiple adult, youth and community programs, aiming to teach New Haven residents important skills for success in the labor market. 

Orlando Yarborough III is the director of BioLaunch within ConnCAT and the pastor of the Black Church at Yale. Yarborough explained that the community at ConnCAT is one integral component involved in making BioLaunch a viable opportunity for residents.

“We are very excited about adding this new program to ConnCAT’s offerings and the opportunities it will offer New Haven residents,” wrote Christina Goubourn, the director of marketing and promotions for ConnCAT. “ConnCAT is all about creating pipelines to break into industries that can be challenging to enter; and BioLaunch does just that. It was created to answer the challenges of equity and diversity in the biopharma industry.” 

BioLaunch currently has ten local biotech industrial partners of various sizes. Crews explained that these companies are looking to engage the New Haven community more, particularly marginalized communities that are underrepresented in the biotech workforce.

Crews emphasized that BioLaunch is industry-led because this underrepresentation is an industry problem. Having launched three New Haven-based companies himself, Crews said that he has had first-hand experience with this issue, which inspired BioLaunch. 

“[BioLaunch has] amazing industrial partners,” said Crews. “There are people in companies who are recognizing the need for a program like this and have stepped up to help me pull it together.”

The industrial partners will be integral in developing the curriculum for the program, he said, helping to determine what is taught and the metrics for success. 

Crews emphasized that each cohort of students will be trained to meet the specific needs of the New Haven biotech and biopharma industry, so the input of the partners is critical. 

“As a member of Yale Helix, a Biotech start-up incubator, I really have felt the need and importance of mentorship in terms of entering the field of biotechnology, and I strongly believe this opportunity helps make this process more equitable,” said Sheel Trivedi ’26.

The four-month classroom and laboratory training will be followed by a two-month internship at a local biotech company, with the hope that participants will be offered a full-time position after the internship. 

According to Crews, some research positions could involve “maintaining tissue culture cells or compound chemical registration,” roles that require responsibility and attention to detail. 

“With the right training you don’t need a college degree, and we feel like this is something that would be a good entry-level type of position for someone from the community,” Crews said. 

Crews also emphasized the importance of state funding in making BioLaunch a possibility; BioLaunch received a 2.5 million dollar grant from CareerConnectCT.

While Crews came up with the idea for BioLaunch, he said that bringing it to fruition was a group effort. Garrett Sheehan from the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and Rebecca Velez Frey of Elm Street Ventures, chair of BioLaunch’s Industrial Partners Board, were both instrumental in the development of the program, he said. 

“I learned that this field has many wonderful mentors and that the work of developing innovations for patients is incredibly rewarding,” wrote Velez Frey in an email to the News. “I believe that people of color in the New Haven area deserve job opportunities in this exciting field and I know they will make our companies stronger.”

Now, the next step is to find BioLaunch’s first cohort of participants. Yarborough explained that a potential challenge facing BioLaunch could be the difficulty of helping people new to biotech envision themselves in the industry. 

Geballe explained that, for now, they are focused on making sure that these first few cohorts are successful. However, when he first heard the idea for the program, his initial response was to ask Crews how they could make BioLaunch as big as possible, as fast as possible. 

“I am hoping that with programs like this that the workforce of the successful biotechs better reflect the communities in which we live,” said Crews. “I would love for this to, if successful, serve as a template for other cities to help bring underserved communities into high-tech industries.”

On Feb. 6, BioLaunch held an open house at ConnCAT for New Haven residents interested in the program. The open house included an information session as well as a tour of one of Crews’ biotech companies. 

The Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology is located at 4 Science Park. 

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The symptoms of endometriosis — a disease wherein tissue similar to the uterus lining grows outside the uterus — reach beyond the realm of gynecology and affect the entire body and mind. Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry investigated potential mental comorbidities of endometriosis, finding that the disease has epidemiologic and genetic correlations with depression, anxiety and eating disorders. 

Despite the prominence of endometriosis and its often-recognizable symptoms such as chronic period pain and gastrointestinal issues, the disease is widely undiagnosed. Dora Koller, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry and first author of the study, explained that this is due to the dismissal of the concerns of women and the broader societal stigma surrounding menstruation.

“It’s [the underdiagnosis of endometriosis] because of medical misogyny,” Koller said. “Women are not taken seriously, you know that something is wrong with your body — you know it’s not normal how you feel, but no one takes it seriously. Not society, or medical professionals. In my opinion, it is not too difficult to think someone has endometriosis when they have all the symptoms.”

Koller said that the disease is most often diagnosed after women have decided they want to conceive, as infertility is another prominent symptom of endometriosis. This has historical roots, Koller explained, as the function of women in society was for so long viewed to be solely reproduction, and therefore people only begin to care when that function is disrupted. 

The underdiagnosis of endometriosis is further exacerbated by limited discussion of periods, explained Koller and Gita Pathak, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry and second author on the study. This limited discussion makes defining “normal” when it comes to period pain challenging. Koller explained that a woman might think it is normal to be unable to stand for two days due to debilitating pain.

“It often just gets misclassified as period pain for most women, like it’s a common thing you have to endure during your periods,” Pathak said. “But then someone has to tell you that’s not normal, to go see a doctor and not just shrug it away as a woman thing, a woman thing you have to endure.”

This study is the first to consider both epidemiological and genetic data in analyzing mental health comorbidities of endometriosis, and the first to identify eating disorders as one such comorbidity. The study began by investigating phenotypic associations between endometriosis and depression, anxiety and eating disorders. 

In considering data from the UK biobank on 270,000 women, the study found that this correlation was quite high, going beyond the standard mental comorbidities that come with experiencing chronic pain from any disease. 

“Our findings highlight that the association of endometriosis with depression, anxiety and eating disorders is independent of chronic pain,” Renato Polimanti, associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and senior author of the study, wrote to the News. “This is a very important result, because it indicates that the mechanisms responsible for psychiatric comorbidities are more complex than previously expected.”

To verify this finding, the researchers conducted a genome-wide association study and found high genetic associations between depression, anxiety and eating disorders with endometriosis. Using pleiotropic analysis to find shared genes between depression and endometriosis, the researchers also identified a gene, DGKB, that is highly expressed in female reproductive tissue as well as many different brain regions.  

Furthermore, based on this genetic analysis, Koller and her colleagues found that depression and anxiety are actually causal to endometriosis, not the other way around, which is what was previously expected. The identification of genetic associations also suggests a shared pathogenesis, Polimanti explained.

This work was personal for Koller, as she has endometriosis and wanted to apply her training in psychiatry to the investigation of the disease. 

“For me, it was personal motivation,” Koller said. “I suffer from endometriosis and it was undiagnosed for fifteen years … we do research about psychiatric disorders in general, Gita and I, and I really wanted to see if there was anything between endometriosis and psychiatry.”

Koller hopes that general practitioners and gynecologists use this study to better understand endometriosis systemically. 

Polimanti emphasized that when treating patients affected by endometriosis, mental health should be considered. 

“Unfortunately, although endometriosis is a common disorder with a large impact on women’s health, it is still severely under-investigated,” Polimanti wrote to the News. “Accordingly, we need more attention from scientists and funding agencies to support research that can disentangle the complexity of endometriosis and lead to more effective treatments.”

Based on their findings of genetic correlations, Koller discussed the potential of precision medicine, which is medicine personalized to individual patients. Genetic analysis could be used as a tool to predict the likelihood of psychiatric comorbidity development in individuals suffering from endometriosis. 

The department of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine was founded in 1930.

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Dean of the Yale School of Medicine Nancy Brown, interim dean of the Yale School of Public Health Melinda Pettigrew and interim dean of the Yale School of Nursing Holly Powell Kennedy announced Omer’s departure in a joint statement on Thursday. 

Effective June 1, 2023, Omer will be heading to Texas to serve as dean of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Omer’s time at Yale has been marked by his leadership of the Yale Institute for Global Health, or YIGH, and contribution to advancements in COVID-19 monitoring, vaccine and policy initiatives. 

“We are at that turning point where the nature of public health is changing to be responsive,” Omer told the News on the topic of  his transition. “My goal would be to help redefine modern public health, through establishing a school that is decidedly consequentialist, [which means] that the value of your actions is determined by the outcomes.”

According to the Jan. 19  statement, the new interim dean of YIGH will be Michael Cappello, chair and professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health. The University plans to launch a search for a permanent director for YIGH, the statement added.

Joining Yale in 2019, Omer helped found and develop YIGH. He was instrumental in advancing COVID-19 policy, evaluations of vaccine efficacy and initiatives for vaccine distribution. Omer also established faculty networks and initiatives that focused on global health concerns such as malaria, non-communicable diseases and planetary health. In 2022, Omer was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. 

In addition to his directorship of the Yale Institute for Global Health, Omer also holds appointments as an associate dean for global health research, the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, a professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, or YSPH, and an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Nursing.

“What gives me reassurance as the inaugural director of the Institute for Global Health, is the fact that the Institute is stable, it’s growing […] it has had an impact,” Omer told the News. “I always think that it’s part of a leader’s job to create a deep bench, to make sure that the programs are sustainable, not just exciting.”

Key to his philosophy, Omer explained, was an emphasis on collaboration; having built a network of over 200 faculty affiliates, Omer has worked with students and faculty from YSPH to the economics and political science departments. 

Doing so has allowed him to address wide ranging issues within the realm of healthcare, including the development of protocols to survey wastewater for COVID-19 to monitor the transmission of COVID-19 in communities. By integrating partners across the University, Omer was instrumental in creating the Planetary Health Initiative, aided by the support of Scott Strobel, university provost; Nancy Brown and Pericles Lewis, dean of Yale College.

“[Yale] doesn’t make you choose being good at what you do and being collaborative while you’re doing it,” Omer said.

In his new position as a dean at UT Southwestern, Omer hopes to continue developing that collaboration, to see an “economist or an epidemiologist […] working together” and “readjust how we teach.” He also aspires to utilize his inaugural position as a platform to bridge social inequities.

“The fact that [UT Southwestern is] a strong public university system is a way to bridge inequities in access to education and quality public health education,” Omer told the News. “To be building this, and in a medical center, which prides itself in being very research-oriented, has six Nobel Prizes, a ton of National Academy of Medicine members and National Academy of Science members — that, I think, is a perfect combination.”

As he builds UT Southwestern’s public health program, Omer also aspires to instill a philosophy that prioritizes “primacy of evidence” in public health. Rather than developing public health policy based on feeling or opinion, Omer hopes to utilize the opportunity to establish the first major school of public health to mark “a new era in public health.” 

Omer still reflects fondly on his time at Yale. He aims to continue working with collaborators at Yale, building relationships that he describes as “the most fun part of science.” Omer also praised the quality of his colleagues and the support he received from Yale.

“My experience at Yale has been wonderful, to be very honest,” Omer said. “There wasn’t a single morning I didn’t look forward to coming to work. Even sometimes during the pandemic when it was 5:30 a.m. in the morning, either physically or virtually.”

Omer’s colleagues also lauded his leadership at YIGH. Kennedy praised how Omer “was equally committed to ensuring” the participation of nursing students and faculty in YIGH initiatives, including the Global Health Case Competition and YIGH faculty networks. 

According to Michael Skonieczny, deputy director of YIGH, Omer’s leadership was “incredibly inspiring.”

“Dr. Omer’s passion, commitment and decisiveness make him a very effective leader,” Skonieczny wrote to the News. “[He] has positioned Yale well to have a significant impact on some of the most difficult global health issues of our time.”

As Omer begins his final semester at Yale, he emphasized his satisfaction with his students,  noting the “emotional maturity” of the undergraduate and graduate students he has encountered.

“[They] were enthusiastic about global health, were serious about it, were mature about the kinds of barriers you face […] they were gritty,” Omer remarked. “That was actually the most fun part.”

YIGH was founded in 2019.

The post YIGH director Saad Omer to depart from Yale appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The board brought together leading doctors and researchers from prestigious institutions and corporations around the nation. Nancy Brown, the Jean and David W. Wallace dean of the YSM and C.N.H. Long professor of internal medicine, commended the board members’ engagement and noted the valuable advice they provided on how to maximize the impact of the scientific work being done at the medical school. She emphasized that their advice will be taken into account in future decision-making and execution processes in YSM’s scientific efforts.

“We have been planning for the creation of a scientific advisory board for two years,” Brown wrote. “Seeking advice from experts as we make strategic investments in the research enterprise is best practice. It allows us to learn from the experience of others. It also helps to get the word out about all that we are doing.”

Some members of the board in attendance include Juanita L. Merchant, chief of the division of gastroenterology and research member of the cancer biology program at the University of Arizona, and Charles Sawyers, Marie-José and Henry R. Kravis chair in human oncology and pathogenesis at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Also present among the board’s lineup was YSM assistant professor and Cartesian Therapeutics co-founder and chief security officer Michael Singer, along with editor-in-chief of Science Holden Thorpe.  

By bringing together professionals from such a wide range of fields, the scientific advisory board was designed to synthesize a host of knowledge from a multitude of areas in science and medicine, according to Brown. 

“We selected members of the advisory board based on their excellence in science and their leadership experience,” Brown wrote. “We also sought to achieve scientific diversity and a diversity of experiences in academia, industry, and foundations.” 

The board will convene yearly, explained Brown, with different topics being highlighted for discussion during each meeting.

Furthermore, all board meetings will include discussions of new YSM initiatives, reviewing and improving upon pre-established programs and investigating interdisciplinary themes. 

“I’m assuming the committee will meet yearly to review the strategic plan that Dean Brown’s committee has developed,” Merchant wrote to the News.

Tenzin Dhondup ’26, a history of science, medicine and public health major on the pre-med track, said that the scientific advisory board had the potential to be incredibly beneficial not just for the STEM undergraduate experience at Yale, but for the humanities as well.

He said that having a similar board of students and professors within Yale College could provide comparable benefits to those looking to see changes in Yale’s undergraduate STEM experience, from courses offered to resources available for students interested in science or medicine.

“I think it would provide a really cool opportunity for students in STEM disciplines to come together to share what their hopes are for the future of science and medicine,” Dhondup said. “To expand upon the work of YSM’s scientific advisory board, we could involve both STEM and humanities undergraduates as there is a growing need for representation of humanities in medicine in areas of critical studies, sociology and even politics, to name a few.”

The Yale School of Medicine is located at 333 Cedar Street.

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Kevan Herold, C.N.H. Long Professor of Immunobiology and of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, led the clinical trials for the drug’s development over the past thirty years. Teplizumab’s approval provides a new frontier regarding the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and paves the way for future work in disease prevention.

The drug was found to delay the development of type 1 diabetes for a median of 2 years. 

“If you’re 8 years old and you are not going to get diabetes for two years [because of teplizumab treatment], that’s a big deal, because now you are going to be 10 years old when you develop diabetes, and hopefully a ten-year-old is a little more mature than an 8-year-old,” Herold said. “Same thing if you are about to go into middle school, you are not going to get diabetes until you are in high school, or even after high school … [diabetes’] absence, even for a day, is a gift.”

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where your body destroys the cells of the pancreas that secrete insulin. Insulin is a hormone that signals cells to uptake sugar that can be used for energy. When the insulin-secreting cells are destroyed, the sugar in the bloodstream cannot be absorbed. Approximately 1.9 million Americans have type 1 diabetes according to the American Diabetes Association. The treatment is insulin injections, which can be extremely costly.

Teplizumab, sold under the brand name Tzield, is a monoclonal antibody, a type of antibody manufactured by cloning a white blood cell that was exposed to a target protein. Teplizumab targets the epsilon chain, which is part of the CD3 receptor protein complex. The CD3 complex is a component of the T-cell membrane responsible for recognizing the respective targets of that T-cell, which is a type of immune cell. 

The exact mechanism of the reaction between teplizumab and the epsilоn chain is not certain, but Herоld and his colleagues expect that teplizumab sends a signal to the T-cell by binding to the eрsilon chain. This signal is thought to partially or wholly deactivate the T-cells responsible for destroying the pancreatic cells that produce insulin in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Even after teplizumab treatment, the effectiveness of the immune system will not be impeded, Herold explained. The signal created when the CD3 complex encounters a viral antigen is much stronger than the signal from teplizumab reception. 

“If you look at the long-term safety profile of people [in trials] who have been treated with the drug, there is no evidence of an infectious disease risk,” Herold said.

Herold predicts that the strength of the signal given by teplizumab lies somewhere between that of the antigen signal and the autoimmune signal. This prevents the T-cells from destroying beneficial tissues while allowing them to retain their efficacy in combating viruses. 

While the development and approval of teplizumab have been a long process, Herold has been“very interested in using immunotherapies to change the course of autoimmune disease, specifically diabetes” since the beginning.

The median age of participants in the teplizumab trials is 13 to 14; however, many different ages were included in the trials. Participants were not yet diagnosed with diabetes before their participation in the trial and were identified by their familial relationship to someone with type 1 diabetes, Herold explained. They were then screened for typical immune markers of type 1 diabetes, and if it was determined they were at risk for the disease’s development, they were administered teplizumab over the course of two weeks and the progression of the disease was monitored in the years after.

The clinical trials found that, compared to a placebo group, the development of type 1 diabetes was delayed a median of 2 years in participants who received teplizumab. However, some patients had delays significantly longer than that. One patient even experienced an 11-year delay of type 1 diabetes development.

“We are very keen to understand what’s the difference between those [patients] that have long responses and those that have these short responses, and how we convert those short responses to long responses,” Herold said, explaining that this will be a primary focus of future research.

Herold explained that while two years may not seem like a significant delay, this extra time disease-free is valuable.

For example, there would be more time for research in the field of type 1 diabetes treatment to advance. Herold explained that the way we treat and diagnose diabetes now is different compared to how it was just three years ago. 

“Dr. Herold and his colleagues have spent years working to understand how a person’s own immune system can destroy the beta (or insulin-producing) cells in the pancreas, leading to type 1 diabetes. That work led to trials of teplizumab, ” Nancy Brown, Dean of the Yale School of Medicine, told the News. “To make discoveries that transform lives and health, that is what faculty at YSM aspire to do.”

On Nov. 17, the FDA approved teplizumab for use as a treatment to delay type 1 diabetes in those aged 8 and older. This approval means that it is appropriate to start screening patients for type 1 diabetes with the intent of administering the teplizumab treatment. 

Herold explained that the patients identified to undergo the treatment should eventually extend to the general public, not just those identified on the basis of having relatives with type 1 diabetes. This is especially important, given that most people who develop type 1 diabetes do not have a familial history of the disease, according to Herold.

“That’s a new frontier, screening even in the general population for a disease that you can prevent, not just coming in afterward,” Herold said. “I think that that is a new exciting area of medical investigation.”

Trialnet is an international network of scientists dedicated to type 1 diabetes research. Yale is one of twenty-two Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet International Clinical Centers at the forefront of type 1 diabetes research. Jennifer Sherr, principal investigator of the TrialNet site at Yale and professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, talked about the importance of teplizumab’s development.

“[The development of teplizumab] opens the door to prioritize development of new therapies for slowing and stopping T1D and moves us one step closer to TrialNet’s ultimate goal: a future without T1D,” Sherr wrote. “While TrialNet does not have any studies of teplizumab currently underway, we will build on the success of the Teplizumab Prevention Study by continuing to find new ways to slow and eventually stop T1D.”

Herold was the third person to hold the position of TrialNet Chair.

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Sangha’s novel research involved the development of an artificial intelligence technology that can diagnose heart disease, with equitable access at the forefront of his work. Simply snapping a photo of EKG results can be used in the diagnosis of a treatable disease that kills millions every year.

“As his mentor, I am thrilled that Veer’s focus and dedication to science have been recognized with this prestigious award,” wrote Rohan Khera, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and health informatics. “I believe Veer’s dedication towards identifying key challenges in healthcare and working with a team to develop technological solutions to solve these problems is an essential skill needed for transforming healthcare for the better. He’s one of a kind.”

This weekend, Sangha was also named as a Rhodes Scholar. His research involves the development of a widely accessible program that can read the results of an electrocardiogram, or EKG, which is the recording of the electrical activity of a patient’s heart, and diagnose patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction, or LVSD. 

“There is a paradigm where cardiovascular disease is often difficult to diagnose, limiting the effectiveness of available treatments, which only work if initiated in a timely manner,” Sangha said. “So our solution is to tackle disease prevention and epidemiology problems by creating affordable tools that can diagnose disease earlier.”

With age, human hearts become weaker and are able to contract less, and many develop LVSD. LVSD occurs when the left ventricle, the largest part of the heart that contracts the most blood, cannot fully contract and efficiently pump blood through a patient’s body. Patients who develop this disorder have an eightfold higher risk of heart failure and a threefold higher risk of mortality, explained Sangha. However, there are effective therapies available that can lower this risk and treat LVSD as long as patients are diagnosed early enough. 

Normally LVSD is only diagnosable using echocardiography, which involves an ultrasound of the heart that gives a clear image of the ventricles. Echoes are extremely expensive and are, therefore, inaccessible to lower income populations and more difficult to obtain in certain regions of the word. 

“In a place like India, where I was born, small rural clinics may have a medicine shelf, an EKG machine and an examination table, but physicians will not have access to an echo, which are large and costly” Sangha said. “This results in delayed or missed diagnoses. Even though effective and affordable treatments are available, there is often no way to identify the patients that need them.”

However, EKGs are widely accessible and low in cost. They are used in the diagnosis of many diseases, but rarely those that involve issues with the heart’s structure. Sangha’s research focused on finding a way to broadly use EKGs for LVSD diagnosis, eliminating the need for an echo. In turn, this would greatly increase the number of LVSD diagnoses, especially in populations that previously did not have the resources to receive an echo. 

Sangha mentioned that in recent years, colleagues at other institutions have found that it is possible to use artificial intelligence to analyze EKG data and accurately predict LVSD. However, this work involved feeding the artificial intelligence hard-to-obtain raw data directly from the EKG machine itself, which is infeasible in day to day normal care. Doctors typically analyze a standard printout of the results from the machine. Sangha’s research group focused on developing a model that could directly analyze the standard data displayed.

“We created a tool where you can take a picture, or a scan of an EKG through your phone, upload it to the model hosted on our website, and we can give you the same prediction […],” Sangha said. “The tool makes cutting-edge AI-enabled technology accessible to any patient or physician who has access to an EKG and a smartphone camera or scanner. All you have to do is take a picture. This tool is available for free.”

Sangha credits much of the possibility of him developing such technology to Khera and others he worked with alongside in the lab. The Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award is typically given to advanced clinical trainees or junior faculty, so Sangha winning it as an undergraduate “is a great testament to his skill and dedication,” Khera wrote. Sangha further explained that he feels “quite fortunate to have stumbled into a group that’s as supportive and as inspiring” as the group he is in right now.

“Veer is an outstanding researcher and collaborator,” wrote Evangelos Oikonomou, a clinical fellow at YSM and a fellow member of the CarDS lab. “The quality and novelty of his work have truly surpassed all expectations. It is unheard of for an undergraduate student to compete and win one of the most prestigious Early Career Investigator Awards of the American Heart Association. Sangha has not only done that, but has remained humble through this period and has found motivation to work even harder on the next steps of his work.”

In discussing his motivations for developing a widely accessible technology, Sangha mentioned that he was born in India and moved to Missouri when he was five. Many expensive medical technologies, such as echoes, are not widely available in those regions, explained Sangha. He wanted to make sure that whatever he developed, it would be available to the populations that need it most, not just large academic centers. 

Beyond the importance of accessibility, Sangha also had a persistent desire to focus his attention on medicine. He explained that there is a history of undiagnosed disease in his family, which inspired his interest in medical research. Beginning in high school, Sangha did wet lab research, but he found his real passion in dry lab work centered around computational analysis. 

Sangha entered Yale as a statistics and biology major. However, upon taking CS50 in his first year, he discovered that he loved computer science and felt that this field of study was where he could have the greatest impact. 

“One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about the computer science curriculum at Yale is that many classes are taught in a way that inspires students to take theoretical AI concepts they learn in class, and apply them to their own areas of interest,” Sangha explained.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sangha decided to take a gap year. While wondering where he could apply his interest in dry lab research during the pandemic, Sangha was also monitoring COVID-19 patient data as it was being released to the public. He noticed how there was a general level of confusion about how this data could best be used to improve patient outcomes. Furthermore, Sangha was receptive to the increase in the usage of digital health and technology based tools during the pandemic. This prompted him to search for work that combined patient outcomes and technology, which led him to the Yale Center for Outcomes and Evaluation. 

There he was introduced to Khera, and began working in the CarDS lab, where he has now been for the past three years. His first work with Khera’s research group was COVID-related, but it quickly shifted to LVSD diagnosis technology.

“Veer was among the first members of the Cardiovascular Data Science (CarDS) Lab at Yale, which has since grown to include 15 members across career stages,” Khera wrote. “It has been amazing to be a part of his career development and see him develop as a leader among other lab members.”

Beyond research, Sangha has spent his time at Yale involved in the Hypertension Awareness and Prevention Program at Yale. Through HAPPY, Sangha works to screen the New Haven community for their blood pressure. Sangha has also played on the club golf team throughout his time at Yale. He emphasized that while Yale has brought him wonderful research opportunities, the most important part of Yale is the people. 

“My goal for the future is to work in a research setting where I make technological innovation in healthcare as widely accessible as possible,” Sangha said. “Some of the projects that I am most excited about right now are our lab’s efforts to implement solutions in various global settings.”

Sangha was one of five students awarded the Rhodes Scholarship this weekend. 

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Wasser’s appointment to the post in early August represented the culmination of a year-long search for a new program director after Robert Rohrbaugh stepped down from the post in June 2021. Residents in the program, however, were unprepared for the announcement: in a survey circulated in the program, Wasser only mustered a 4 percent approval rating.

4 residents told the News that the appointment resulted from a process that appeared opaque and went against the wishes of residents, who had previously recommended two other candidates over Wasser for the job from a three-person pool.

“I was in utter dismay when I first heard the announcement,” Alex Marlow, a first-year psychiatry resident, wrote to the News. “As residents we were completely caught off guard.”

On June 15, 2021, Rohrbaugh, the previous director of the psychiatry residency program, stepped down, prompting a nationwide search for his replacement. 

The search committee was composed of “diverse representation from the Department,” including five psychiatry residents, according to John Krystal, professor of psychiatry and chair of the department. In the meantime, Richard Belitsky, an associate professor of psychiatry, was appointed to serve as interim director.

The nationwide search yielded three final candidates for the position: Heather Vestal MED’10, the current program director of the Duke University School of Medicine’s psychiatry residency, Lia Thomas, a psychiatrist from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and Tobias Wasser, an associate program director of the Yale psychiatric residency program and a 2014 graduate of the residency. 

In February 2022, psychiatry resident Bria Godley responded to a department-wide call for interested residents to meet with each candidate in group interviews. Residents, Godley noted, were particularly keen on encouraging diverse faculty recruitment and implementing internal infrastructure to support the department’s ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

In Wasser’s interview with residents, according to Godley, Wasser fielded questions about how he planned to support residents of color in the program, especially because, unlike the other two candidates — both Black women — Wasser was a white man with limited DEI experience. 

Based on the results of the search, the search committee recommended Vestal and Thomas to Krystal as finalists for the position in the spring of 2022. Krystal ultimately selected Vestal to be the next program director of the psychiatry residency program.

After the announcement that Wasser had not been shortlisted for the position, however, residents received an email from Wasser indicating his intention to resign from his post as the associate program director of the residency program. 

“This has been a very hard decision for me as the residency was my first professional home within the department when I came to Yale 12 years ago and I long aspired to be part of its leadership,” Wasser wrote to residents in an email obtained by the News. “After significant consideration, I have decided that I can no longer sustain this level of commitment to the residency while maintaining my clinical leadership roles.”

Residents were excited by the prospect of having a minority candidate as program director. According to Godley, having the first Black woman as program director in the history of Yale psychiatry would have “changed the DNA of the program.”

“It was an exciting time for Yale Psychiatry, not just because the top choice was a Black woman, but because she already had experience as a program director and made fundamental changes that vastly increased resident wellness,” Marlow wrote to the News. “I could trust that she was an advocate for residents and a leader with an expansive vision.”

By July 2022, however, residents learned that negotiations with Vestal fell through: according to Godley,  residents were told by Krystal that Vestal’s husband, a pediatric neurosurgeon, was unable to find a position at Yale.

Residents also discovered that, without consultation, Wasser was selected by Krystal to be Vestal’s replacement. According to psychiatry resident Andy Wen, neither the search committee members nor current residents were asked prior to Krystal’s decision, as had been done previously.

“Among a lot of us, I think there was some sentiment that we didn’t want Dr. Wasser to even apply,” Wen told the News. “And I remember distinctly asking more senior residents in the program, ‘do we have to worry that there’s a possibility? Is this something that we have to worry about?’ And the answer I was given was ‘no.’”

On Aug. 1, Krystal held a town hall meeting with the residency program to officially announce the decision to appoint Wasser. According to Godley and others present at the meeting, residents were told that the position was quickly filled to promote the stability of the program. Krystal also revealed in the meeting that he would not conduct another national search for a director. 

“Residents spent the next 45 minutes or so expressing their surprise, disgust, disapproval and frustration with this decision, because it was so out of line with what they had asked and what we had been told,” Godley said. “We were trying to come up with ways to sort of reverse the decision.”

Also present at this town hall was the incoming class of psychiatry residents that joined in June. A current first-year resident in the department who was granted anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation explained that it was explicitly communicated to members of their cohort that the two finalists for program director were Black women — and that this information had an influence on resident decisions to join the program.

Godley explained that it felt as if residents’ desires were not being factored into the decision to appoint Wasser. These sentiments were shared by the anonymous first-year resident, who expressed that the willingness to incorporate residents into the appointment process seemed to vanish. 

“[The decision] surprised and discouraged me, especially after learning of all the work my peers, role models and mentors had put in, and the message that that was sending to our department about how much residents should be investing into the program,” the first-year resident said. “If the message is sent that our values, our perspective, our voices will not be valued, it will naturally […] produce disaffection, alienation, disinvestment and exhaustion, in addition to a disrespect of all the labor that people put in, uncompensated.” 

In the same survey of 75 current residents that revealed only 4 percent approved “the selection of Tobias Wasser as Program Director,” 77 percent also responded “no” to the question of whether they felt “the decision making process for Program Director leadership was completed ethically and fairly.” Only 7 percent of residents were “confident in the leadership of John Krystal as chair of the Department of Psychiatry.”

“Resident input continues to be extremely important for the program,” Krystal told the News. “Dr. Wasser is an accomplished psychiatric educator and leader who is dedicated to the program and its residents.”

The results of the survey were included in a letter signed by 60 residents expressing disapproval over Wasser’s appointment and shared with the News. The letter was sent to Stephen Huot, chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee — the administrative body that approves proposed program director appointments — and expressed concerns over a lack of transparency in the program director selection process, concerns over Wasser’s “interpersonal leadership skills” and a “lack of empathy, relatability and responsiveness.”

Residents noted in the letter that Wasser’s appointment creates an environment that is “fracturing residents’ tenuous trust in the administration” while “jeopardizing program cohesion.” The letter calls for Wasser to step down as program director and for the GMEC to reconsider Wasser’s proposed appointment.

“Examples where requests by programs have not been approved by GMEC include expanding current programs or starting new ones where there is concern that this would negatively impact the experience and training of current trainees, ” Huot wrote to the News. “I do not recall GMEC not voting in support of a new program director appointment since I have been in my role.”

A few days after the letter was circulated, Krystal held another town hall meeting, indicating his intention to slow down the transition process. 

Godley was also in a meeting with Huot a few days after the town hall. According to Godley, Huot decided to take Wasser off the GMEC schedule for the GMEC due to resident disapproval, requesting that Krystal accrue greater resident support before his appointment. Residents that spoke to the News, moreover, believed that the delay was intended to wait for anger to subside among residents before the GMEC vote.

“Dr. Krystal has requested my assistance in guiding an in-depth review of the Psychiatry

residency program,” Huot wrote in an email to the News. “In addition to reviewing the leadership structure and defining metrics to assess leadership effectiveness, this will be a thorough review of the program to identify strengths, vulnerabilities, opportunities and resources needed for the program to develop strategies to guide short- and long-term program planning.”

As of the end of August, at Krystal’s request, the residency program was scheduled to go through an external review by the GMEC. Godley expressed how she was unsure how this would ultimately address resident concerns about Wasser’s appointment. 

“I have been a member of the Yale community since 2010,” Wasser wrote to the News, when asked to address resident concerns. “During that time, I have been fortunate in a variety of capacities to work with a diverse group of bright and talented residents. In this role, I hope to have the chance to work with all our residents and demonstrate my deep commitment to our shared values, in particular diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Recently, another survey was circulated among residents asking them what they hope to see changed in the program. Half of the residency program responded, and among the suggestions were a desire to see minority faculty recruitment and a resident-run community health clinic. 82 percent of respondents were in favor of a co-director role for the residency program. 

“Right now residents are coming up with solutions both in terms of a possible co-program director […] or possibly term limits on the program director, just so there’s a kind of appreciation of how we want to make this a dynamic process where [the leadership] is actually listening to [the residents],” the first-year resident said. “These kinds of things seem really basic, and I just think it’s really important so people don’t feel like their voices don’t matter.”

At the most recent Nov. 7 town hall, Krystal announced a plan to proceed with presenting Wasser’s appointment to the GMEC on Nov. 17. This announcement also came with the news that Krystal will not be adding a co-director.

For some residents, Wasser’s appointment reflects a continuation of the department’s double standard on issues of diversity. While, according to Godley, the psychiatry residency program professes to hold progressive values on equity and race, it often lacks the infrastructure to support minority faculty and residents. 

“It’s a classic paradigm of wanting to be perceived as diverse and social justice oriented, but not addressing deeply discriminatory roots,” Marlow added. “Dr. Wasser’s appointment, including the search process and his qualifications, feels like it is imbued with nepotism and maintaining the status quo, since he trained at Yale and was mentored by the same people (in power) that appointed him.”

The Department of Psychiatry is located at 300 George St. 

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Every department within the School of Medicine has a chair for diversity, equity and inclusion. In a similar vein, the Yale School of Nursing’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging also offers DEI training for faculty and staff. 

Paris Lawrence, associate director of DEI training and development at the School of Medicine’s DEI office, gave the most recent training on inclusive searches for faculty and has been holding training throughout the School of Medicine. 

According to Sangini Sheth, Director of DEI for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Lawrence is scheduled to give a similar training to the department’s residency selection committee this coming week. 

Sheth explained that Darin Latimore, deputy dean for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the School of Medicine, held a similar training for the committee last year. This training was just one of many that occurred last fall in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, which included training focused on implicit bias, microaggressions and bystander training. Faculty within the department hired after this training are required to complete an interactive online course covering the same topics. 

“I believe the [trainings offered last fall] help establish shared language, definitions and awareness and help to normalize upstander behaviors that aim to identify potential bias and intervene on acts of microaggression,” Sheth wrote to the News. “They are the beginning steps of creating an equitable and inclusive environment and communicating to the department that such an environment is a priority.”

This most recent training in inclusive hiring practices was selected because it aligns with the School of Medicine’s goals to increase diversity. Sheth explained that this training is an important step towards “breaking apart the structural factors that have typically disadvantaged women and underrepresented in medicine applicants in healthcare and many other sectors.”

The Yale Child Study Center at the School of Medicine held a DEI training on Sept. 28, which had 50 people in attendance. Linda Mayes, director of the Yale Child Study Center, was one of the attendees. 

“Our work at the Center on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and restorative practices are a high priority for our community,” Mayes wrote to the News. “We want to create a culture that respects everyone’s talents and where all feel they have a voice in the directions of the Center. Growing and sustaining a diverse community is essential to our continued vibrancy in our research and clinical programs.”

Also in attendance was Carolina Rivera Parrott, director of the social work training program at the Yale Child Study Center. Parrott told the News she found the training to be effective and applicable to “advancing [the Yale Child Study Center’s] admission and recruitment efforts.” 

Going forward, Parrott hopes that the training will be offered more frequently, as it “helped in providing useful tools and insight to consider as we begin our recruitment efforts.” 

Angela Richard-Eaglin, associate dean for equity at the School of Nursing, explained that the school has held multiple trainings within the past year “in which participants gained critical frameworks and tools to understand how bias, power, privilege and oppression inform their allyship.” The School of Nursing also offers Cultural Intelligence workshops.

“[The Cultural Intelligence workshops] define and describe the importance of embracing differences, the impact of bias on outcomes, understanding how microaggressions impact individuals, work and class environments, and [learning] strategies for responding to and intervening with microaggressions,” Richard-Eaglin said in a statement to the News.

Paula Kavathas, vice chair for DEI in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and vice chair of Diversity for the Department of Immunology at the School of Medicine, said that within the Immunology Department, there is a working group on DEI formed by trainees in 2017. This group has a wellness subcommittee, a transition committee that aids new graduate students, holds a monthly journal club on the topic, and “has had a major impact on the department,” Kavathas said.

Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Child Study Center Tara Davila explained that the goals of these DEI trainings go beyond the Yale community and extend to those who receive services from the School of Medicine. Specifically, Davila said that the Department of DEI at the Yale Child Study Center has a goal of “centering the experience of those who are coming to receive our services.” 

“[The Yale School of Medicine] is seeking that anyone in the world can see themselves at Yale… [that] anyone feels like there is a place for them here, and that when they come [they know that] they are going to be supported and that their ideas are welcome,” Davila said. “We also see it in terms of the New Haven Community, that [the Yale School of Medicine] is seeing them and providing the most culturally humble care possible.”

In addition to trainings, the Yale Child Study Center also offers reflective monthly conversations on DEI or social justice topics that their faculty can participate in. Davila said that if the Yale Child Study Center is “really working towards transformational change, it has to be a practice, it has to be how we operate, not just a training a year.” 

Latimore was named the first deputy dean for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the School of Medicine in 2016.

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