Stanford Report, September 13, 2006

Medical center people

Mark Davis, PhD, the Burt and Marion Avery Professor in Immunology, is the recipient of the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Aging. The award is designed to support new investigators of outstanding promise in the basic biological and clinical sciences relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. Davis, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, helped invent a technique that quickly identifies, counts and isolates T cells that recognize a particular antigen.

James Ford, MD, has been promoted to associate professor of medicine (oncology) as of Sept. 1. His research examines the molecular mechanisms that regulate DNA repair by tumor suppressor genes, and how their deficiency affects human cancer development.

Hayley Gans, MD, has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics (infectious diseases) at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, as of July 1. Her research involves delineating the ontogeny of human neonatal immune responses to viral antigens using measles vaccine as a model antigen.

Antonio Hardan, MD, has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Aug. 1. He also serves as director of the autism and neuro-developmental program at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

Swaminatha Mahadevan, MD, assistant professor of surgery in the emergency medicine department, and Gus Garmel, MD, co-director of the Stanford/Kaiser emergency medicine residency program, were recognized as the 2006 American Medical Writers Association book award winners in the physicians category. They are the co-authors of the textbook An Introduction to Clinical Emergency Medicine: Guide for Practitioners in the Emergency Department.

Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was awarded the Sleep Research Society's Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award by the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. His work studies the mechanisms underlying disorders of excessive sleepiness, neurochemical mechanisms of arousal state control and the genetics of sleep disorders. He also directs the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy.

Sam Most, MD, has been appointed associate professor of otolaryngology, as of Aug. 1. His expertise is in plastic surgery of the head and neck, and he was recently honored with the Ben Shuster Memorial Award by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery for his research on facial nerve injury. Most is also chief of the Division of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Anthony Oro, MD, has been promoted to associate professor of dermatology, as of Sept. 1. His lab is investigating the role of the Sonic hedgehog signaling system in the pathogenesis of the most common human tumor, basal cell carcinoma of the skin.

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