Stanford Report, February 1, 2006

Medical Center People

William Kennedy, MD, has been promoted to associate professor of urology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, as of Dec. 1. His work focuses on the treatment of hypospadias, hydropnephresis, fetal urology and voiding problems with bladder reconstruction. He also is associate service chief of pediatric urology.

Robert Malenka, MD, PhD, the Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, was one of two recipients of the sixth annual Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, given by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The award grants $10,000 in recognition of influential achievements in neuroscience. Malenka studies how nerve cells in the brain communicate and how these communication systems are modified over time when exposed to positive or negative stimuli. His research aims to better understand depression, brain disorders and mental illness through studies of the cellular and molecular changes that take place in specific neural circuits.

Robert Shafer, MD, has been promoted to associate professor (research) of medicine, effective Feb. 1. His work focuses on infectious disease and antiretroviral drug resistance, with an emphasis on the mechanisms and consequences of HIV evolution. He also maintains the Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database, which catalogues evolutionary and drug-related genetic variation in the virus that causes AIDS.