News & Events

Stem cells from the human stomach can be converted into cells that secrete insulin in response to rising blood sugar levels, offering a promising approach to treating diabetes, according to a preclinical study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

In the study, which appeared April 27 in Nature Cell Biology, the researchers showed that they could take stem cells obtained from human stomach tissue and reprogram them...

Weill Cornell Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $11.6 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health to study the effects cannabis, including marijuana and compounds derived from it, may have on the brains of those living with HIV. 

“We know that the virus may cause changes within the brain, but it’s not clear yet how the use of cannabis might interact with the infection,” said principal...

Dr. Christopher Bourne’s journey to Weill Cornell Medicine’s 2023 Commencement was defined by two of his passions: science and social activism – both informed profoundly by the events of 2020.

Dr. Bourne graduated May 18 with a doctorate in immunology from...

Dr. Cheryl Dreyfus, a distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has been awarded the 2023 Weill Cornell Graduate School Alumni Award of Distinction.

The Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences has been recognizing alumni with this award since 1997 in honor of their outstanding contributions to biomedical research in education, focusing on science and scholarship, leadership, mentoring...

Students from the Weill Cornell Medical College Class of 2023 were recognized for their outstanding achievements May 17 during Convocation. Medical students received special awards, prizes and certificates, acknowledging their exceptional academic achievement, scholarship, research, teaching and service. Convocation also honors other students, alumni, faculty and staff.

Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Bia, M.D. ’72, professor emeritus of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, has been awarded the Weill Cornell Medical College Alumni Association Award of Distinction.

The award, which was established in 1949, is presented each year to a Weill Cornell Medical College alumnus who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in research, education or patient care, and has brought acclaim to the institution. Dr. Bia was honored on May 17 at the alumni award of...

Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences honored students in the Class of 2023 for their academic achievements during its convocation ceremony on May 17.

The ceremony recognized students who are graduating with their master’s degrees, as well as those who earned special awards and prizes for their accomplishments in research, scholarship and service.

In addition to celebrating students, the ceremony also honored graduate school faculty as well as Dr. Cheryl Dreyfus (Ph.D...

Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, which this year is celebrating its 20th anniversary, awarded Cornell University medical degrees to 42 new doctors on May 9 at the institution’s annual commencement ceremony.

The Class of 2023 comprises 23 women and 19 men from 13 countries, including 12 Qatari nationals, and brings the total of doctors educated at WCM-Q to 546 since its...

By Emily Gaines Buchler

As a child, Chimsom Orakwue watched her father, a computer engineer, suffer a debilitating back injury that left him unable to work. Her family, having immigrated years earlier from Nigeria to California, couldn’t pay for the health care he needed, so her mother enrolled in nursing school, while an 8-year-old Chimsom pitched in to care for her younger siblings.

Orakwue, who will graduate from Weill Cornell Medical College on May 18 and start a residency...

Maggie Rubin always knew she wanted a career where she was working directly with people. She just wasn’t exactly sure how she would do that, oscillating between health care and education. Then she discovered the physician assistant profession while completing her undergraduate degree in human biology and society at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“I instantly knew it was the career for me,” she said. “I loved that it would let me to lean into my curiosity about the human...

Dr. James C. Lo, an associate professor of medicine and Dr. Lisa G. Roth, an associate professor of pediatrics, both from Weill Cornell Medicine, were elected members of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) for 2023.

Election into the ASCI, which represents excellence across the breadth of academic medicine, is a milestone for...

Two highly similar molecules with essential, but often contrasting, signaling roles in most life forms exert their distinct effects through subtle differences in their bindings to their signaling partners, according to a new study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

In the study, published March 27 in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the researchers used exquisitely sensitive measurement...

While the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have passed, the effects of post-COVID conditions on public health remain. A new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators has found that the risk of long COVID and its symptoms present very differently across diverse populations and suggests that further investigation is needed to accurately define the disease and improve diagnosis and treatment. 

The...

Patients with HIV had similar treatment outcomes to patients without HIV when treated for mpox with an antiviral drug called tecovirimat, according to a study by a team of investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and NewYork-Presbyterian.   

The results of the study, published May 2 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, provide preliminary evidence of...

Nearly 90 percent of patients with an aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma had their cancer go into remission in a small phase 2 clinical trial testing a treatment aimed at making chemotherapy more effective, according to Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators.

The clinical trial, whose ...

After actively reinforcing or accepting policies that excluded Black physicians from its ranks until the civil rights era—the American Medical Association (AMA) is now working to embed health equity across the organization and in 2020 declared racism a public health threat, said Dr. Aletha Maybank, the AMA’s inaugural chief health equity officer and senior vice president.

In a celebration of Weill Cornell Medicine’s commitment to fostering inclusivity in academic medicine, the institution on April 25 honored nearly a dozen faculty, students and staff who exemplify excellence in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Members of the Weill Cornell Medicine community gathered in Griffis Faculty Club for the institution’s Celebration of Diversity, part of the fifth annual Diversity Week. This year’s event, the first hosted in person...

Women in leadership roles sometimes speak in ways that can make them appear less confident or even competent than they are, said Dr. Deborah Tannen, a distinguished university professor in the linguistics department at Georgetown University, in her keynote address on April 24 for Weill Cornell Medicine’s fifth annual ...

In July 2020, two months after George Floyd was murdered while in police custody, a group of students, faculty and staff at the Cornell Center for Health Equity gathered to search for racial allyship resources online. When they found skills-based and virtual learning opportunities were lacking, they decided to develop their own.

The center has now launched its racial allyship training course, providing...

Targeting part of an antiviral pathway triggered by the accumulation of a key pathogen shared in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia may one day offer a new therapeutic approach to deterring or delaying cognitive decline, according to preclinical research led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists.

The study, published April 24 in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrates that inhibiting an innate immune system enzyme...