User:Hortonan/GeraldFischbach

Wikipedia proposal: Gerald Fischbach Presented by: Andrew Horton, Kiera Kingston, Meredith Koch, and Justin Solomon.

Personal Life

Born November 15, 1938
Received his medical degree from the Cornell University School of Medicine in 1965.
Married to Ruth Fischbach, who is currently serving as a Professor of Bioethics in Psychiatry at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.
Gerald Fischbach and Ruth Fischbach have four children

Initial Research Career at NIH

Fischbach’s early research focused on identifying the physiology surrounding nerve muscle junctions in cell culture.
He later focused on proteins released from motor nerve terminals, which regulate receptors and membranes in target postsynaptic muscle cells.

Harvard University 1973-1981, 1990-1998

Named an associate professor of pharmacology in 1973.
Full-fledged professor 1978-1981.
From 1981 - 1990, became the Edison Professor of Neurobiology and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine.
In 1990, he returned to Harvard Medical School where he was the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology and Chairman of the Neurobiology Departments of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital until 1998.

(Cite Columbia News article from December 2000. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/00/12/fischbach.html)

National Institutes of Health 1998-2001

Named director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in 1998.

Oversaw a staff of more than 700 and an annual budget of about $800 million.

The institute supported research by public and private institutions across the country.

NINDS goal is to diminish the burden of neurological disease.

Columbia University 2001-2006

In April 2001 he was recruited to be the new vice president and dean of the Health and Biomedical Sciences at Columbia University

(Cite The Reporter: Columbia University Health Sciences issue from April 2001)
Dr. Fischbach was interviewed by the newspaper for Columbia University Health Sciences and sees the main mission of the medical school and university as lessening the impact and suffering of human disease. He stated that this requires interdisciplinary and collaborative work with the other departments and resources at Columbia
Also chosen to be the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences
Health Sciences division at Columbia includes the School or Nursing, the Joseph. L. Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park.

The research Dr. Fischbach conducts at Columbia University stemmed from his previous work at Harvard, Washington University and with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Health. The specialized focus of his research is on the influence trophic factors could have on the survival of nerve cells and the efficiency of synapses.

The Simons Foundation

The Simons Foundation is a philanthropy founded by Jim Simons and his wife Marilyn, and has awarded $130 million for autism research as of 2008.

Dr. Gerald Fischbach joined the Simons Foundation in 2006 to oversee the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

Focused on the advancement of autism research.

Works cooperatively with mathematicians, engineers, chemists, and neuroscientists to try and understand autism more deeply.

Awards, Associations & Publications

Academic & Research Awards

1960 Phi Beta Kappa at Colgate University
1965 Received the Polk Award for Undergraduate Research at Cornell
1975 Mathilde Solowey Award in Neuroscience awarded by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences: National Institute of Health
1981 Received the W. Alden Spencer Award from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University
1998 Awarded the Foundation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize
2000 Given the Dr. Nathan Davis Award
2003 Received the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation Honor for Contributions
2004 Colgate University awarded him the Maroon Citation

Association Memberships

1984 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
1988 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1990 Elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine
1991 Became a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Art
1997 Joined the Cambridge Scientific Club
2000 Became a member of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government in the department of Career Public Service
2000 Joined the American Medical Association
2003 Appointed to the Council for Foreign Relations
2003 Joined the American Philosophical Society

Dr. Gerald Fischbach has authored or co-authored over a hundred papers on his research work, which can be found on PubMed at this link.

References:

1. “Gerald Fischbach: Creating a Mecca of Modern Medicine”. (April 2011). the Reporter: Columbia University Health Sciences, Volume 12 Number 2, pp.1, 6, 8.

2. Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University, “Gerald Fischbach MD”, http://www.columbiamnc.org/bio.php?id=5. Retrieved 2011-09-27.

3. “Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach, Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at NIH, Named Columbia’s Vice-President for Health and Biomedical Sciences”. (December 5, 2000). PRNewsire. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-gerald-d-fischbach-director-of-the-national-institute-of-neurological-disorders-and-stroke-at-nih-named-columbias-vice-president-for-health-and-biomedical-sciences-76026862.html. Retrieved 2011-09-26.

4. Columbia University Medical Center, Department of Neuroscience, “Gerald Fischbach, M.D.”, http://neuroscience.columbia.edu/department/index.php?ID=27&bio=251. Retrieved 2011-09-27.

5. Columbia News, "NIH's Gerald D. Fischbach,Named Columbia's Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences", http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/00/12/fischbach.html. Retrieved 2011-09-27

6. "Fischbach To Direct NINDS." (June 30, 1998). NIH Record. nih.gov. http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/06_30_98/story04.htm. Retrieved 2011-09-27

7. "NIH's Gerald D. Fischbach Named Columbia's Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences." Columbia University. 5 Dec. 2000. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/00/12/fischbach.html>.

8. Fischbach, Gerald D. "Synaptic Potentials Recorded in Cell Cultures of Nerve and Muscle." Science 169.3952 (1970): 1331-333. JSTOR. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1729394>.

9. Cohen, Steven A., and Gerald D. Fischbach. "Regulation of Muscle Acetylcholine Sensitivity by Muscle Activity in Cell Culture." Science 181.4094 (1973): 76-78. JSTOR. Web. 26 Sept. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1735944>.

Division of Workload

We have decided to work on the project both as a group and individually. We will meet as a group to discuss the different sections and overall presentation of the page, but will complete the writing on our own.