The Science Unbound Foundation has announced its 2008 award winners for best scientific papers by young investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the New York Obesity Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The awards, plaque and $1,000 prize are for works published in 2007 in the areas of obesity, nutrition and statistical science.
Christopher Coffey, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics, was awarded best paper by a UAB-based investigator in the area of general statistics. His paper, “Practical Methods for Bounding Type I Error Rate with an Internal Pilot Design”, was published in the January 2007 issue of the Communications in Statistics: Theory and Methods, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03610920601143634.
Yun Joo Yoo Ph.D. & Kui Zhang, Ph.D., respectively postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital & associate professor in the UAB Department of Biostatistics, were awarded best paper by UAB-based investigators in the area of statistical genetics. Their paper, “Haplotype inference for present-absent genotype data using previously identified haplotypes and haplotype patterns” was published online in the July 2007 issue of Bioinformatics, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btm371.
Dongfeng Cao Ph.D. & Ling Li, Ph.D., respectively research associate & associate professor in the Department of Medicine Gerontology, were jointly awarded best paper by UAB-based investigators in the area of obesity or nutrition. Their paper, "Intake of sucrose-sweetened water induces insulin resistance and exacerbates memory deficits and amyloidosis in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer disease" was published in the December 2007 issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry, http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M703561200.
Blandine Laferrère, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was awarded best paper on obesity-related research by an investigator affiliated with the New York Obesity Research Center. Her paper, "Incretin levels and effect are markedly enhanced one month after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in obese patients with type 2 diabetes" was published online in the July 2007 issue of Diabetes Care, http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc06-1549.
The institutions named in the awards were selected on the basis of their demonstrated strength at promoting careers of young investigators in the areas of obesity, nutrition and statistical science.