Heart Strings
The Brown medical community came together in 2023-2024 to raise an incredible $1.43 million for the Brown Medical Annual Fund (BMAF). The impact of this accomplishment is felt by every student every day by way of the Doctoring course, and it makes attending medical school a reality for several students throughout their four years of training at The Warren Alpert Medical School. These are steadfast goals of the BMAF that can make every donor proud.
A strong BMAF is at the heart of student exploration through the Scholarly Concentrations Program and Student Research Assistantships, which are summer stipend opportunities for students to design unique projects that elevate their academic experience.
Diana Wang MD’27 is completing the Scholarly Concentration in Medical Humanities and Bioethics and was awarded a Summer Research Assistantship to support her work in the program. Her project, Playlist of the Grief Journey, was designed to serve HopeHealth, a hospice, palliative, and home care organization in Providence, and revolves around the curation of a music playlist for individuals experiencing grief after losing a loved one.
“The first identity I ever held for myself was a violinist, and the intersection of the arts and health care is what led me to go to medical school. I chose to come to Brown because of the Scholarly Concentrations Program,” Wang says. “I love the longitudinal nature of the program, which allows me to develop a meaningful project and form deep relationships with community organizations.”
The impact music can have on people has always fascinated Wang, she says, and she believes it can be a powerful tool for people to contextualize and process grief. She sees incredible value in engaging with community organizations, now and in the future, to create art and health programs that complement each other and benefit patients and families.
“I am passionate about holistic and palliative/hospice care, and the Scholarly Concentrations Program allowed me to marry my background in music with this specific population that is often overlooked by the medical community,” Wang says. “I am grateful to have the time and resources to explore what it means to be a physician-artist and carry the power of humanistic medicine into my future practice.”
Life Science Innovation
As construction preparations begin on the William A. and Ami Kuan Danoff Life Sciences Laboratories in the Providence Jewelry District, it’s easy to get excited about the possibilities a new building will bring. Equally exciting is the growth of Brown as a biomedical research enterprise, and the impact that progress can have on human health.
For Preetha Basaviah ’91 MD’95 and her husband, Venky Ganesan, their philanthropy has, in many ways, reflected Brown’s journey in biology and medicine. “It has always been important to us to support areas of great need,” says Basaviah, who has prioritized medical student financial aid, the Medical School building, and the Annual Fund. The couple also has demonstrated their enthusiasm about supporting the evolution of Brown as a research institution with recent commitments toward medical student research and an assistant professorship in biology. Now, as Basaviah approaches her 30th medical reunion, she and Ganesan want to celebrate yet another important chapter at the University: Brown’s embrace of innovative technology. They have done so by establishing the Brown Innovation Fund.
The Brown Innovation Fund recognizes the development of technologies with the potential for commercialization through Life Sciences Impact Awards. Each year, in addition to an award of up to $250,000, recipients will benefit from a robust advising and mentorship structure aimed at generating licensable technology with the potential for company creation. “Technologies best positioned for an award will have established proof of concept and be supported by appropriate intellectual property filings,” says Karen Bulock, PhD, managing director of the Brown Biomedical Innovations to Impact Fund, which will manage the award process. “Gifts like this are an amazing opportunity for our faculty looking to take the next step in bringing their discoveries to the market.”
The inaugural award was made this year to Eric Morrow, MD, PhD, Mencoff Family Professor of Biology, who investigates the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying disorders of cognitive development. Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and intellectual disability are common and cause profound morbidity in populations worldwide. With support from the Life Sciences Impact Award, the Morrow lab is developing gene therapies with the potential to treat patients with a rare disorder that is characterized by severe impairments in brain function such as epilepsy, autism, and motor abnormalities. No treatments are available, so discovery in this realm could have an enormous impact on patients and families.