SUNY Downstate Medical Center - Research

Research

SUNY Downstate is an important research facility where scientists and clinicians explore many urgent health problems. Historically, areas of research strength include cardiovascular biology, neuroscience, and instrumentation. Current strengths include learning and memory mechanisms; pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiomyopathy; robotic prosthetic devices; HIV/AIDS; pain and addiction; optical tomography imaging technology; and fundamental cell biology (mechanisms of transcription and translation).

Downstate’s role as the only academic medical center in Brooklyn is central to its powerful role in clinical, translational, and public health research. Downstate’s research spans the entire “bench to bedside” spectrum as an integrated entity, bringing together basic scientists, clinical researchers, and practitioners with common interests.

Downstate is the fourth highest grant recipient of SUNY’s 64 campuses. In FY 2011, sponsored research programs, including those funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), DARPA, and private foundations, totaled over $60 million. Downstate is the only healthcare facility in Brooklyn that holds the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

Notable Faculty and Achievements

• Austin Flint, MD - championed the use of the stethoscope in the United States (1860s).
• Frank Hamilton, MD - first advocate of skin grafting and a leading authority on fractures (1860s).
• John Call Dalton, MD - first in this country to teach physiology by conducting experiments on animals (1860s).
• George Sternberg, MD - pioneering immunologist, first to demonstrate the bacillus of typhoid fever (1880s).
• Alexander Skene, MD - authority on women’s diseases; discovered the paraurethral glands known as Skene’s ducts (1880).
• Robert L. Dickinson, MD - published first “modern” pamphlet on voluntary birth control (1931).
• Alfred Adler, MD - coins the phrase, “inferiority complex” (1930s).
• Jean Redman Oliver, MD - morphology, pathology, and metabolism of kidneys (1930s).
• Clarence Dennis, MD, PhD – performed first successful open-heart surgery in New York State (1955).
• Chandler McCuskey Brooks, PhD - the Graduate School’s founder, laid much of the groundwork in spinal cord and hypothalamic physiology, and cardiac pacemaker function (1950s).
• Eli Friedman, MD - established nation's first federally funded dialysis program (1964) and invented portable dialysis machine (1973).
• Samuel Kountz, MD – first African American transplant surgeon (1970s).
• Hugh Carroll, MD – described mechanisms of hyperglycemic nonketotic coma (1972).
• Raymond Damadian, MD - produced first human images using magnetic resonance imaging using a machine he constructed at Downstate (1977).
• Jeffrey Borer, MD - developed stress radionuclide cineangiography to diagnose heart abnormalities while patients exercise (1977-)
• Henri Begleiter, PhD - published landmark study showing that children of alcoholics may have a genetic risk for alcoholism (1984).
• Sheldon Landesman, MD - conducted early study of HIV infection in women; Downstate conducted first federally funded study of HIV transmission from mother to fetus (1986).
• Brendan Lee, MD, PhD - discovered gene responsible for Marfan’s syndrome (1991)
• Robert Furchgott, PhD - awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for research on nitric oxide (1998)
• Frank Gress, MD - pioneered special instruments and techniques used in endoscopic ultrasonography to diagnose and treat pancreatic cancer (2000-)
• Todd Sacktor, MD, and Andre Fenton, PhD - identified the memory-preserving protein, PKMzeta, and found that ZIP, a chemical compound that inhibits PKMzeta, can erase memories. Named one of top 10 science breakthroughs of 2006 by Science magazine.
• John C. LaRosa, MD - principal investigator for Treating to New Targets Study, showed that using statins to intensively lower LDL cholesterol in patients with stable coronary disease reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke (2005).
• Olcay Batuman, MD - found that MAL3-101, a recently developed inhibitor of the heat shock protein 70, has potent anti-tumor effects on multiple myeloma (2000s).
• Joseph Francis, PhD - developing a computer-enabled, brain-machine interface to allow individuals to mentally control prosthetic limbs (2000s).
• John Chapin, PhD, and Joe Francis, PhD - created "robo rats" that can be controlled remotely by signals sent to their brain for potential use to locate explosives or find survivors at disaster sites (2000s).
• Randall Barbour, PhD - developed methods and instrumentation for imaging human tissue by optical tomography, a nonionizing diagnostic tool (2000s).
• Helen Durkin, PhD - discovered drug that blocks the production of Immunoglobulin E, an antibody that causes reactions in people with asthma and food allergies (2000s).
• Douglas Lazzaro, MD - has attracted $6.2 million in funding for eye research in the past five years; now principal investigator of a new study supported by Research to Prevent Blindness. Team members William Brunken, PhD, and Brahim Chaqour, PhD, are studying retinal disease; John Danias, MD, PhD, is researching glaucoma; and Jacob Aranda, MD, PhD, has received major funding from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development to establish a pediatric pharmacology center focused on preventing retinopathy in premature infants (2000s).
• Matthew Pincus, MD, PhD, and Josef Michl, MD - developed a peptide, PNC-28, that effectively destroys pancreatic tumor cells in laboratory studies (2000s).
• Bernice Porsjcz - $35 million grant from NIAAA for genetics of alcoholism research.
• Edward Quadros, PhD - created a clinical test to diagnose the risk of folate-related problems in women that can lead to subfertility, neural tube birth defects, cerebral folate deficiency in infants, and autism spectrum disorders (2000s).
• Sheryl Smith, PhD - showed that the neurotransmitter receptor GABAa causes adolescents to become more anxious in the face of stress compared to young children or adults (2000s).
• Henri Tiedge, PhD - researching how drugs of abuse, such as opiates, impact neuronal RNA translation (2000s).

Research centers and major laboratories

• Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program
• Brooklyn Center for Health Disparities
• Center for Biomedical Imaging
• Center for Cardiovascular Muscle Research
• Center for Neurorobotics and Neuroengineering
• Center for Treatment and Study of Endometriosis
• Cancer Research Focus Group
• Henri Begleiter Neurodynamics Laboratory (Genetics of Alcoholism)
• HIV Center for Women and Children
• Northeast Terrorism Preparedness, Training, Education, and Research Center
• Transgenic Mouse Core Facility