Archives
People etc.
'Creative thinking' earns prize for UB physician
A UB physician has won one of five monetary awards in an international competition for the best ideas for discovering biomarkers for Lou Gehrig's disease.
Prize4Life, a nonprofit organization founded to accelerate research in Lou Gehrig's disease, known also as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), announced the $1 million prize competition last November.
ALS is a fatal condition that for decades has stymied those searching for a treatment or cure. The Biomarker Prize sponsored by Prize4Life is divided into two tracks—theoretical findings and real outcomes. The prize will be dived among scientists who solve the most critical scientific problems preventing the discovery of an effective ALS treatment.
Harvey Arbesman took part in the first track, in which 45 entrants submitted theoretical papers describing how they would develop an ALS biomarker. Arbesman is a clinical assistant professor of dermatology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and clinical associate professor of social and preventive medicine in the School of Public Health and Health Professions.
The five winners in the first track each received a $15,000 cash prize. The remaining $925,000 will be rewarded to the discoverer or discoverers of the first proven ALS biomarker. The competition will run until Nov. 30, 2008.
Arbesman maintains an active dermatology practice and is founder and vice president of ArbesIdeas, a health-care-related research-and-development company. One of the company's goals is to promote creative thinking in developing medical hypotheses.
"You need new hypotheses to account for different anomalies to existing theories," Arbesman notes. "Or sometimes you need a new theory to generate a new therapy or simply to understand disease in general. Such hypotheses are what really create leaps in our understanding of critical problems."
Ernst & Young matches alumni contributions
The worldwide public accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP and its staff members have contributed $34,400 to UB over the past year.
Included in the total amount is a gift of $17,200 from the Ernst & Young Matching Gifts Program to the School of Management for use by the school's Department of Accounting and Law.
Michael J. Murray, partner in the firm's Buffalo office who helped coordinate the fund-raising effort, presented the gift last month to the School of Management.
The Ernst & Young Matching Gifts Program is just one element of the firm's broad support for higher education. It also provides grants to doctoral candidates concentrating in accounting, sponsors professorships and faculty fellowships, and employs accounting student interns.
"We are most grateful to Ernst & Young contributors and the E&Y matching gifts program for their generosity to us," said Susan Hamlen, chair of the Department of Accounting and Law. "Contributions received directly fund our academic programs, facilities and the activities of our student organizations, and greatly enhance the value of the accounting major, allowing us to maintain our excellent reputation for producing graduates who go on to very successful careers in the accounting profession."
The accounting program in the School of Management has been accredited since 1985 by AACSB International—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The program is one of only 168 programs in the world to achieve this level of recognition.