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In 1985, the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of its founder, pioneering physician Daniel Drake. As part of that celebration, the college created a new award—the Daniel Drake Medal—to honor its distinguished living faculty and alumni.
Nominees for the Daniel Drake Medal are evaluated on outstanding scholarly achievements in biomedical science as evidenced by major significant contributions to medical research and/or a distinguished career as a clinician-teacher.
Considered the highest honor awarded by the College of Medicine, this year’s Daniel Drake Medals were awarded on April 22, 2023.
Linda Book, MD, a 1971 graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, is currently professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is the emerita chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at the University of Utah and emerita director and co-founder of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program and Liver Center at Primary Children’s Medical Center.
After receiving her medical degree, Dr. Book completed a pediatrics internship at Cincinnati Children’s and a pediatrics residency at the University of Utah. She then received fellowship training in pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition and cystic fibrosis at the University of Utah. Dr. Book has been a member of the University of Utah faculty in the Department of Pediatrics since 1976, rising to professor in 2001.
A pioneer in pediatric gastroenterology and hepatology, Dr. Book has an extensive clinical practice at Primary Children’s Medical Center, where she cares for infants, children and adolescents with liver disease as well as those needing care before and after liver transplant.
Her research accomplishments include describing the endemic nature of necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants, the utility of pH probe testing in pediatric gastroesophageal reflux, genetic and clinical associations in celiac disease and multicenter studies on cholestatic liver disorders. Her research in celiac disease resulted in her reporting on the high incidence of the disease in children with Down Syndrome. She also has researched breast milk nutritional composition, the epidemiology of biliary atresia and Clostridium difficile diarrhea in children.
Dr. Book received the American Academy of Pediatrics Utah Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 and the chapter’s Marty Palmer Service to Children Award in 2008. She was named to the Cincinnati Children’s Hall of Honor in 2012 and, in 2009, was honored with the Murray Davidson Award, which recognizes clinical, teaching and research excellence in pediatric gastroenterology, by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Book has held numerous national leadership positions in pediatric gastroenterology with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN). Among these were chair of NASPGHAN Women’s and Professional Development committees, council member for the Society for Liver Transplantation, president of the Utah Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Pediatric Committee representative co-lead to improve care and allocation in liver transplantation, UNOS regional representative, and AAP Gastroenterology Section membership chair. She is currently active in global outreach efforts to Mongolia and Mexico to provide education and care to children with liver disease.
Henry A. Nasrallah, MD, is an emeritus professor of psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience and vice chair for faculty development in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the UC College of Medicine. An internationally recognized psychiatrist, educator and researcher, Dr. Nasrallah’s expertise is in schizophrenia and his research focuses on the neurobiology and psychopharmacology of schizophrenia and psychotic mood disorders.
Dr. Nasrallah received his undergraduate and medical degrees from
the American University of Beirut. Following his psychiatric residency at the University of Rochester and neuroscience fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, he served as an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. He then became an associate professor and chief of psychiatry at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at the University of Iowa. At age 38, he became chair of the Department of Psychiatry at The Ohio State University.
After serving as chair at Ohio State for 12 years, Dr. Nasrallah joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi. Four years later, he was recruited to the UC College of Medicine as associate dean for faculty mentorship. In 2013, Dr. Nasrallah became chair of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at the St. Louis University School of Medicine and held the Sydney Souers Endowed Chair. Dr. Nasrallah returned to the UC College of Medicine in 2019.
During his lengthy career, Dr. Nasrallah has published 460 scientific articles, 630 abstracts, 185 editorials and 13 books and currently is editor-in-chief of three peer-review journals. He is the founder of the Schizophrenia International Research Society, which holds an annual conference alternating between Europe and North America attended by more than 1,800 international researchers. He also established the CURESZ Foundation, which provides educational and advocacy services to families with a child suffering from schizophrenia.
Dr. Nasrallah and his wife, Amelia, an emerita faculty member at the UC College of Medicine, have established a dozen endowed lectureships and research and teaching awards for faculty, residents and medical students since 1998. Three of these support research and education at the UC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience.
Earlier this year Dr. Nasrallah received the 2023 Stanley Dean Research Award from the American College of Psychiatrists for major contributions to the treatment of schizophrenia. He also has received the Golden Apple Teaching Award at four different medical schools, twice received the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) National Exemplary Psychiatrist Award and was recognized as the U.S. Teacher of the Year by The Psychiatric Times.
Daniel Woo, MD, is a leader in stroke research with significant contributions to the understanding of the epidemiology of stroke, particularly intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH).A professor and vice chair of clinical research in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, he has been during the last decade one of the highest funded researchers by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases. Among his important contributions was to establish that the impact of hypertension on ICH, which occurs in the cerebral lobes, was much less than previously thought and that risk factors for cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) accounted for a much greater risk in lobar regions of the brain. CAA was once considered a rare cause of ICH, but Dr. Woo’s research showed that up to a third of all lobar ICHs may be caused by CAA, establishing it as a major mechanism of ICH.Through his research, Dr. Woo led the first large-scale genomewide association study for ICH. His research also has had a specific focus for the disproportionate risk among African Americans and Hispanics, including identifying variation in the strength of traditional risk factors by race/ethnicity as well as by sex. This identification then replicated in multiple cerebral small vessel disease phenotypes and Dr. Woo’s research then performed deep sequencing, RNA sequencing and direct protein measurements to identify a potential novel risk factor for ICH as well as cerebral small vessel disease.In addition, Dr. Woo has been evaluating stroke recovery with a particular focus on ICH. His research has demonstrated that a chronic inflammatory state may exist after ICH which can last for years after the stroke. If so, he hopes to identify a treatment that may reduce the inflammation and the long-term cognitive deficits associated with it. In addition to these additions to the ICH literature, Dr. Woo is leading a study on how advanced neuroimaging techniques may be able to predict recovery after ICH. By better defining the prediction of outcomes, patient selection for treatment studies, as well as identifying novel molecular targets for intervention, may be discovered.Dr. Woo received his medical degree in 1994 and a master’s degree in molecular genetics in 2004 from the UC College of Medicine. He completed his residency in neurology at the Cleveland Clinic and then returned to the UC College of Medicine for a fellowship in cerebrovascular disorders. Dr. Woo joined the College of Medicine faculty in 1999. Since 2014, he has served as associate director of clinical research for the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and, from 2009 until 2019, he was the associate director of the UC Center for Environmental Genetics.Dr. Woo has received numerous UC honors, including the Faculty Excellence Award (2020), Excellence Award for Faculty-to-Faculty Research Mentoring (2018) and the College of Medicine Research Service Award (2016). In 2004 he received the Robert G. Siekert American Heart Association New Investigator in Stroke Award.
Melanie T. Cushion, PhD
Melanie T. Cushion, PhD, is senior associate dean for research and professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, at the College of Medicine, and one of 50 Veterans Affairs (VA) senior research career scientists in the country. She is an internationally recognized expert in the field of fungi, having researched fungal pathogens for more than 30 years. Early in her career, Dr. Cushion began working with organisms referred to as Pneumocystis, the leading killer of patients with advanced HIV infection in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. At that time, these microbes were thought to be protozoans, but her work with others in the college led to the discovery that they were actually fungal pathogens. She later initiated the Pneumocystis Genome Project, which helped to understand the metabolism and genetics of the fungus, and her laboratory was the first to report Pneumocystis carinii possesses a linear mitochondrial genome. Further work in her lab also showed that Pneumocystis were highly efficient in transmission of infection. Recent research by Dr. Cushion led to the identification of Pneumocystis sexual reproduction as a new drug target. Inhibition of this mode of reproduction by the anti-fungal echinocandins resulted in prevention and eradication of Pneumocystis pneumonia, an entirely new paradigm. Dr. Cushion's research program has been funded since 1987 through more than $30 million in grants from the VA, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Joint Program Committee-2 (JPC-2), the advisory body to the JPC-2 Chair for the Defense Health Program Military Infectious Diseases Research Program, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) Program. As senior associate dean since 2013, Dr. Cushion has established several internal grant programs, grant pre-review workshops and training sessions, symposia and recognition awards for College of Medicine research faculty and staff. She has mentored and trained numerous graduate students, junior faculty, postdoctoral and infectious diseases fellows. In 2017, she was honored with the Antimicrobial Research Award from the American Society for Microbiology.
Michael K. Farrell, MD
Michael K. Farrell, MD, professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics, received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He came to Cincinnati Children's as a resident in 1974 and then completed fellowships in ambulatory and emergency pediatrics and pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition. Dr. Farrell joined the College of Medicine faculty in 1979 and has held numerous leadership positions at Cincinnati Children's, including Pediatric Residency Program director (1979 to 2001), medical director of home health care (1988 to 2017), chief of staff (1993 to 2015) and associate chair of clinical affairs for the Department of Pediatrics (1993 to 2015). He has specialized in treating gastrointestinal and nutritional diseases of children with special needs. His research has focused on parenteral and enteral nutrition and he was among the first to study the relationship between infantile apnea and gastroesophageal reflux. He also helped define the hepatobiliary complications associated with parenteral nutrition and participated in important studies defining vitamin D, calcium and phosphorus requirements in infant parenteral nutrition solutions. Dr. Farrell, a highly admired and inspirational mentor and teacher, has impacted hundreds of young physicians in training. He developed many combined residency programs at Cincinnati Children's and the College of Medicine, including medicine and pediatrics, pediatrics and physical medicine and rehabilitation, pediatrics and genetics, and a triple-board-certified program in pediatrics, psychiatry and child psychiatry. Dr. Farrell has impacted medical education nationwide through his leadership roles in several national organizations. More than 30 years ago, Dr. Farrell and colleagues engaged Cincinnati pediatricians as teachers and developed office-based rotations in the community for additional learning opportunities for young physicians in training. Dr. Farrell's lengthy career and interest in medical history led him to serve as chair of the History Committee of Cincinnati Children's and also as a member of the UC Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions Advisory Board.
Bruce F. Giffin, PhD
Bruce F. Giffin, PhD, associate dean for medical education and professor and vice chair in the Department of Medical Education at the College of Medicine, has been a faculty member since 1994. After beginning his career as a college music instructor and high school chemistry and music teacher, Dr. Giffin became a student at the College of Medicine, receiving his doctorate in neuroanatomy and cell biology in 1985. He then served on the faculty of the University of Dayton for five years before returning to the College of Medicine as a perinatal biology fellow and postdoctoral assistant. Dr. Giffin has taught gross anatomy to medical students in addition to numerous other courses. A beloved and appreciated teacher, he continues to direct several courses in the medical school curriculum and has received, to date, nearly 40 teaching awards from medical students. In 2012, Dr. Giffin received the prestigious Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges, a national award honoring the best medical school teachers in North America. He also received the 2005 A.B. Dolly Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Cincinnati. Since 2014, Dr. Giffin has served as associate dean for medical education. He has taught more than 4,000 medical students during his career and has been an influential force in the evolution of the medical school curriculum, both as an educational leader and from the many innovations he has brought to his courses. Dr. Giffin also has taught numerous unique courses in the college, including The Neuroscience of Creativity, The Neuroscience of Music, and Art and Medicine, and has been a cooking instructor for the college's Clinical Nutrition elective. Dr. Giffin's musical skills also have supported his work since 2003 as director of the College of Medicine's Men's and Women's Choruses.
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William Barrett, MD
William Barrett, MD, holds the Charles M. Barrett, MD, Endowed Chair in Radiation Oncology and is professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology. He also is the co-director of the UC Cancer Center. Dr. Barrett has led the Department of Radiation Oncology since its founding in 2008 and was director of the UC Cancer Institute from 2014 until 2020. Barrett has been praised for his absolute commitment and loyalty to his colleagues, to the College of Medicine, and his compassionate approach to his patients. He is known as the consummate physician, and an inspiring educator and role model whose dedication, integrity and compassion makes him an example of excellence. Dr. Barrett’s work with the community in promoting cancer care and prevention has earned him enormous respect and trust, and his efforts have raised the organizational structure and quality of UC cancer programs. Dr. Barrett received his medical degree from the College of Medicine in 1987. He completed postgraduate training at UC and a brachytherapy fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center followed by his appointment to the UC faculty in 1992. Dr. Barrett and his father, Charles Barrett, MD, are the first father and son to both receive Drake Medals.
W. Brian Gibler, MD
W. Brian Gibler, MD, has been a Department of Emergency Medicine faculty member since 1989, serving as chair from 1995 until 2010. His research in the early diagnosis and treatment of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) has been internationally recognized and changed emergency practice. Through groundbreaking funded research on the utilization of cardiac serum biomarkers, cardiac imaging studies, and graded exercise testing in short stay Emergency Department protocols, the evaluation, and treatment of emergency patients with chest pain and ACS have evolved and improved significantly. Dr. Gibler’s research has led to more rapid identification, early treatment, and improved outcomes for emergency patients across the world. While on faculty at Vanderbilt University, he founded in 1989 and serves as the chair of the Emergency Medicine Cardiac Research and Education Group (EMCREG) – International. In recognition of his research in emergency cardiac care, Dr. Gibler was elected a fellow of the American College of Cardiology in 2010, the first emergency physician so recognized. He received the Chest Pain Society Ray Bahr Leadership Award (2008) and the Outstanding Contribution to Research Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians (1995). Dr. Gibler received his medical degree in 1981 from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and completed his emergency medicine residency at UC in 1986, serving as chief resident. Dr. Gibler served as president and CEO of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center from 2010 through 2013.
Peter Stern, MD
Peter Stern, MD, is an internationally distinguished clinician-teacher who has dedicated himself to the field of hand surgery. He has earned a reputation as an authority on fractures of the wrist and hand, infections, tendon and nerve injuries, and complications of surgery of the upper extremity. Dr. Stern created the highly regarded Mary S. Stern Hand Fellowship and has trained more than 70 hand surgeons and 175 residents. Currently holding the Norman S. and Elizabeth C.A. Hill Professorship of Orthopaedic Surgery, he became chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in 1992 and led the department until 2013. Dr. Stern has served as president of each of the major hand surgery and orthopaedic associations, including the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, American Orthopaedic Association and the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. He has received numerous honours, including the Distinguished Contributions to Orthopaedic Surgery award (2019) from the American Orthopaedic Association, the most prestigious award in the field of orthopaedic surgery. Dr. Stern and his parents also have established four endowed chairs in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. A graduate of Williams College and the Washington University School of Medicine, he completed his orthopaedic residency at Harvard University.
Alan Jobe, MD, PhD
Alan Jobe, MD, PhD, has been a thought leader in neonatology survival and quality of life for preterm infants worldwide through his research on pulmonary maturation, the physiology and biochemistry of surfactant, and the hormones and infectious diseases that influence pulmonary maturation in preterm infants. He was among the first to define the biochemical, molecular and physiologic mechanisms of surfactant in the developing lung which led to the application of surfactant as a therapy for preterm infants. Dr. Jobe also developed the novel concepts underlying the pathogenesis of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a chronic lung disease of prematurity and his pulmonary research led to the safe use of antenatal glucocorticoids for the prevention of respiratory distress syndrome. Dr. Jobe received his medical and doctorate degrees in 1973 from the University of California, San Diego. He served on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine from 1977 until 1997. He has been a member of the UC College of Medicine faculty since in 1997. Dr. Jobe also consults for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for maternal-fetal mortality.
Laura Wexler, MD
Laura Wexler, MD, served from 2001 until 2011 as Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Admissions at the UC College of Medicine, making numerous significant changes to student services and the admissions process. She instituted a new and innovative program for student mental health services and academic assistance for students. In 2008, she led UC to become the first U.S. medical school to adopt the Multiple Mini Interview system, a more holistic approach for medical student selection emphasizing humanistic skills and qualities. Dr. Wexler also served for 11 years as Cardiology Section Chief at the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center, instituting many changes to improve access to specialty care and enhancing the cardiology fellowship and residency training programs. Dr. Wexler received her medical degree in 1971 from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She completed residency training with Harvard Medical School at Boston City Hospital and a cardiology fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. After serving on the faculty at Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Wexler joined the UC College of Medicine faculty in 1987.
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