Pitt Health Sciences Faculty Inducted into Prestigious Physician-Scientist Associations

Three University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences faculty members have been inducted into the Association of American Physicians (AAP), a nonprofit, professional organization founded in 1885 for the “advancement of scientific and practical medicine,” and three have been inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), which was founded in 1908 and is “dedicated to the advancement of research that extends our understanding and improves the treatment of human diseases.”
Election to AAP is an honor extended to individuals with outstanding credentials in biomedical science and/or translational biomedical research and is limited to 60 inductees per year. An association of the country’s most accomplished physician-scientists, AAP serves as a forum to create and disseminate knowledge and as a source of inspiring role models for upcoming generations of physicians and medical scientists.

Election to ASCI reflects early career accomplishment as new members must be 50 or younger. ASCI represents physician-scientists who are “at the bedside, at the research bench and at the blackboard.” Up to 80 new members are elected annually from hundreds of nominations.

“Endorsements from these respected societies further demonstrate the commitment to research and the impact of the work performed by the physicians, researchers, and staff at the University of Pittsburgh,” said Arthur S. Levine, MD, Pitt’s senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of Medicine. “We are honored to work with such outstanding scientists who make such significant contributions to the future of science and medicine.”

AAP Inductees:

David A. Brent, MD, is the academic chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC, and professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and holds an endowed chair in suicide studies. Dr. Brent co-founded and now directs Services for Teens at Risk (STAR), a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania-funded program for suicide prevention, education of professionals, and the treatment of at-risk youths and their families. He has led work that has helped to established evidence based practices for assessing suicidal risk and for treating adolescent depression and suicidal behavior. Dr. Brent is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been recognized for his work by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Brain and Behavior Foundation.

Anne B. Newman, MD, MPH, is the Katherine M. Detre Professor of Population Health Sciences, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and director of Pitt’s Center for Aging and Population Health. Dr. Newman’s research centers on the relationships between aging, longevity and disability. She currently is the principal investigator of several long-term cohort studies and clinical trials in older adults funded by the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Newman is an elected member of the American Epidemiology Society and the Delta Omega Honor Society in Public Health.

Brian Zuckerbraun, MD, is the Henry T. Bahnson Professor of Surgery and chief of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at UPMC. Dr. Zuckerbraun’s research centers on how the body’s immune system responds to cell damage. His work investigates the inflammatory response in the liver and vasculature following injury from trauma/hemorrhagic shock, sepsis or direct vascular injury. Much of the work has focused on the development of therapeutic treatments with gaseous signaling molecules, including nitric oxide and carbon monoxide.

ASCI Inductees:

Caterina Rosano, MD, MPH, is a professor in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology. Her research focuses on how the brain adapts to the “normal” processes of aging and disease and, specifically, in understanding the causes, biomarkers and consequences of brain aging.

Bernhard Kühn, MD, is a board-certified pediatric cardiologist at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, a scholar at the Richard King Mellon Institute for Pediatric Research, and director of research, Division of Pediatric Cardiology. Dr. Kühn’s work is focused on the cells of the heart muscle and discovering ways to make them replicate to enable the heart to heal itself in cases of heart failure or congenital defects.

Stephen Chan, MD, PhD, is an associate professor of medicine and director of the Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine at Pitt’s Vascular Medicine Institute. Dr. Chan studies the molecular mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease and pulmonary hypertension (PH), with an intent to identify persons at risk for PH and to develop new therapies for this devastating disease.