The School of Medicine will celebrate 75 years of Yale pediatrics on Friday, Nov. 1, by dedicating a new Child Health Research Center and by hosting a symposium highlighting advances in pediatrics research. Both events are free and open to the public.
In addition to marking the pediatrics department's anniversary, the celebration will "recognize the way we have merged research and clinical excellence," says Dr. Joseph B. Warshaw, deputy dean for clinical affairs, who has served as chair and chief of pediatrics at Yale.
"In this new research facility, we will conduct basic research that will advance the understanding of normal and abnormal child development," explains Dr. Warshaw. "Modern cell biology and molecular biology techniques will be applied to clinical problems of adaptation in the child. We will continue to study the ability of the fetus and the child to adapt to environmental or genetic challenges that may limit the capacity of a child to achieve his or her greatest potential."
He adds: "The center will take an interdisciplinary approach to improving the understanding of normal development and the abnormalities that continue to result in injury, handicaps and death to children." Scientists in the department of pediatrics will work with colleagues in the departments of biology, cell biology, genetics, and cellular and molecular physiology, as well as in the section of immunobiology, participating in research designed along programmatic lines.
The new Yale Child Health Center is located on the second floor of 464 Congress Ave. The dedication ceremony for the new facility will begin at 10 a.m.; tours of the new research space will continue through 11:30 a.m. A luncheon will follow in the common room of the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine.
The scientific symposium -- which will be held 1-4:30 p.m. in Rm. 216 of the Jane Ellen Hope Building, 315 Cedar St. -- will include speakers from the academic and pharmaceutical communities. Leading off the event will be a lecture examining the forms, foundations and functions of the bridges between academia and industry, which will be presented by Dr. Leon E. Rosenberg, former dean of the School of Medicine and now president of Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.
Other symposium topics and speakers will include: "Iron Deficiency: Lessons for Anemic Mice" by Dr. Nancy C. Andrews, assistant professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; "Preventing Pre-Term Birth: Are We Making Any Progress?" by Dr. Michael S. Kramer, attending staff physician at Montreal Children's Hospital and professor of pediatrics and of epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University School of Medicine; and "Genetics of Hypertension: Lessons from Pediatrics" by Dr. Richard P. Lifton, associate professor of medicine (nephrology) and of genetics at Yale and assistant investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
That evening, during a dinner at the New Haven Lawn Club, Dr. Howard A. Pearson, former chair of the pediatrics department, will outline the department's history.