Learning from Everyone

The event, held at TouroCOM Harlem and sponsored by Colgate and Designed for Vision, was devoted to diabetes research, though faculty members and students delivered a wide-array of almost 140 poster presentations on topics from using stem cells to treat Epidermolysis Bullos to fall prevention in elderly adults to a study of children’s toys in WW2. Participating Touro schools included Lander College of Arts and Sciences (LAS), Lander College for Women—the Ann Ruth and Mark Hasten School, Lander College for Men, School of Health Sciences, New York School of Career and Applied Studies, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, Touro College of Pharmacy, Graduate School of Business, Touro College of Dental Medicine, Graduate School of Education, Graduate School of Nursing, Graduate School of Jewish Studies and Graduate School of Social Work.

Dr. Joseph Indelicato, chair of the Touro College Research Collaborative, welcomed the audience and introduced Dr. Alan Kadish, president of the Touro College and University System.

“The theme of today’s talks is translational research,” stated Dr. Kadish. “Today’s speakers are investigators who have been able to take a better understanding of basic science and convert it to clinically important interventions.”

Dr. Kadish shared a story of how a physician at a Touro-academic affiliate diagnosed a hither-unknown variation of a terminal disease and then found a treatment for it, all in a year.

“In a twelve-month-period doctors were able to make a diagnosis of a novel mechanism of a disease that had never been described before, figure out how to treat it, expedite approval of the drug and have therapy delivered to the patient 54 weeks after contact,” Dr. Kadish said. “Science is moving quickly.”

Saloman Amar, D.D.S, Ph.D., Chief Biomedical Research Officer for Touro College, introduced the recipients of this year’s Presidential Research Grants, which included funding for seven staff-led projects. Dr. Amar recognized the work of Touro’s students in pushing research forward.

“I’d like to thank all the students,” said Dr. Amar. “The work you’ve produced moves us and challenges us and we are extremely grateful.”

Keynote speaker Steven Shoelson, M.D., Ph.D., a faculty member at Harvard Medical school and associate director of research at the Joslin Diabetes Center, led participants on an illuminating journey through the ages as he described his research into salicylate, one of the world’s oldest anti-inflammatory drugs. (How old? His presentation included hieroglyphics.) The lecture, entitled, “How to Teach Old Drugs New Tricks,” focused on how his team began using the drug in a new way to lower blood glucose level in patients with T2D.

“Old things can be repurposed…” Dr. Shoelson explained. “If you have any drugs that have interesting properties, that is what we’re looking for.”

Jean-Marc Schwarz, Ph.D., was the distinguished research speaker and delivered a lecture entitled, “Fructose: A Sweet Way to Make ‘Foie Gras’ and Increase Your Risk for Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease,” focused on the danger of fructose, a common sugar. Dr. Schwarz is a professor of biochemistry at Touro University California and the Director of the Metabolic Research Center at the school, as well as an adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California.

The Poster Presentations

Throughout the event, the mood was collaborative and festive as faculty members and students wandered the fourth and fifth floor hallways of TouroCOM Harlem where poster presentations with research by faculty members and students filled nearly all the empty wall-space. Posters describing whether dinosaurs lived in the metropolitan area were juxtaposed next to analysis of youth behavior on the internet.

Touro College School of Health Sciences (SHS) Doctor of Physical Therapy Program (DPT) candidate Alyssa Dormey was one of several dozen students who journeyed in from the Bayshore campus for the research day. She delivered a poster presentation on her group’s study of prosthetics curriculum in physical therapy programs across the country.

“We found that there are a lot of differences on how much times schools focus on prosthetics and what they’re focusing on and whether professors believe their students are ready when they enter into the clinics,” she said. “We’re hoping our study will spur the creation of a universal curriculum for teaching about prosthetics.”

Dorney said she hoped to learn from the other presenters.

“Research is a big part of the PT profession,” she explained. “So it’s really important that we keep up with what other health practitioners are doing.”

LCW student Aliza Friedman stood with her professor Dr. Randy Sherman in front of a poster describing their research into the Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW), an auditory processing test.

“I wanted to present my research for the first time and I wanted to see how everyone else put in their work and find out what they discovered,” said Friedman. 

TouroCOM OMS I Nora Martini stopped in for the event before her lab classes began. “I want to write a research article—I’m studying the effects of telemedicine on strokes—so I’m trying to see what I can learn from everyone else.”  (TouroCOM had the greatest number of research presentations, almost 40.)

OMS II Megan Winters presented her research on obesity bias in medical students and said that she received feedback on how to improve her study.

“I'm glad Touro provided us the opportunity to not only present our own work to our classmates and professors, but also to other professionals from greater Touro organizations including the pharmacy school,” she said. “Being able to speak with my professors about some of the things they were passionate about researching felt more like collaborating with colleagues than the usual professors lecturing me as a student from behind the podium. Meeting other students, educators, administrators from greater Touro was wonderful. I loved seeing some of the ideas that students from the business school and pharmacy school were pursuing, especially those that extended to research worldwide.”

LCW professor Dr. Deborah Blau brought in several LCW students to support their classmate as well as to give them a sense of the possibilities for their own future careers. “Events like this pave the way forward for our students in their own pursuits,” she said.

Lander College of Arts and Sciences (LAS) student Leah Frimerman presented her research on directing gene expression in stem cell to treat Epidermolysis Bullosa (otherwise known as the butterfly disease). She performed her research under Dr. Brian Chiswell of New York School of Career and Applied Studies (NYSCAS) at the TouroCOM Harlem lab.

“Research Day is an opportunity for us to see the other research being conducted,” she said.