Press Release
January 24, 2007
Contact: Larry Parker
(973) 972-3000
parkerwl@umdnj.edu
Evans, Rameshwar Honored As New Jersey
Medical School
Faculty of the Year
Tenafly, Maplewood Natives Chosen for Service and Dedication to NJMS
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NEWARK — Two longtime faculty members at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) were honored recently by the school’s Faculty Organization with its 2006 Faculty of the Year award.
Pranela Rameshwar, Ph.D., of Maplewood is one of NJMS’ leading experts in the exploding field of stem cell research, research funded by a variety of agencies including the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Among her projects is to determine why breast cancer stem cells have a tendency to migrate to bone marrow - a factor that often leads to metastasis of breast cancer, but that could instead lead to an ultimate cure for breast cancer if the process can be reversed.
Dr. Rameshwar has been passionate about bringing the facts about stem cells to her students at NJMS and at the UMDNJ-Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She organized UMDNJ’s 2005 Symposium on Stem Cells, the same year she was named to UMDNJ’s Master Educators’ Guild. She has also shared her research with teachers and students at elementary, middle and high schools throughout New Jersey - and with the world on her acclaimed Web site, http://www.umdnj.edu/gsbsnweb/stemcell/. She is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Hemotology and Oncology at NJMS.
Hugh Evans, M.D., of Tenafly is entering his 50th year as a physician, having received his medical degree from SUNY-Brooklyn in 1958. Dr. Evans joined NJMS in 1985. He is a professor and former chairman in the Department of Pediatrics; and he holds a joint appointment as professor in the Department of Preventative Medicine and Community Health. He is also the current campus chapter president of the American Association of University Professors.
Dr. Evans is the author of one of the first medical school textbooks dedicated specifically to neonatology. He has published more than 130 articles and made presentations around the world on pediatric subjects, and his research specialties range from repairing lung and heart damage in newborns to the use of antibiotics for infants. In recent years, Dr. Evans has begun personally endowing seed funding for research grant applications at NJMS through the Hugh Evans, M.D. Legacy Award.
Dr. Evans is also an accomplished scholar on presidential health. His book, The Hidden Campaign: FDR’s Health and the 1944 Campaign, shows how President Franklin Roosevelt campaigned successfully for a fourth term in the White House despite suffering from dangerously high blood pressure, only to die within months. He has made dozens of media and personal appearances relating the story of FDR’s decline and death.
For pictures of Dr. Evans and Dr. Rameshwar at the January 12 ceremony, please contact Larry Parker of the University News Service at (973) 972-7265 or at parkerwl@umdnj.edu.
UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
