A $50 million gift from Alexandra and Steven Cohen will significantly expand and enhance emergency pediatric care at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian, located at 165th Street and Broadway in Washington Heights. To be built in a brand-new facility, the Alexandra and Steven Cohen Pediatric Emergency Department will offer world-class emergency care to all children, including those from some of the poorest and most underserved areas of New York City. The gift is being made through the Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation, Inc.

In recognition of their humanitarian work to enhance medicine through the training of physicians in emerging countries, Dr. Antonio M. Gotto Jr., the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, and Dr. Herbert Pardes, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, were awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class.

As many as half of patients with superficial bladder cancer do not respond to the standard first-line chemotherapy placed into the bladder, according to current multi-center outcomes data. When this happens, typically, their only option is surgical removal of the bladder. Now, researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center are investigating an FDA-approved metastatic breast-cancer drug called Abraxane® that may prove a safe and effective alternative to surgery for these patients.

As the second leading cause of death in college students after car accidents, suicide is a serious problem that can affect teenagers and young adults at an age when serious mental illness first manifests itself and often goes undiagnosed. A psychiatrist and an authority on suicide at Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital offers parents and students advice on how to spot and address potentially suicidal behavior.

A leader in recent research on the interaction of genes and environment in the development of psychiatric illness, Avshalom Caspi, Ph.D. of King's College London, has been awarded the Mortimer D. Sackler, M.D., Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Developmental Psychobiology. Presented jointly by the Sackler Institute for Development Psychobiology at Columbia University Medical Center and the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, the $60,000 award honors the 90th birthday of Dr. Sackler, and was established through gifts by his seven children.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced today that Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., has made a $50 million gift to the Medical Center to be equally divided between NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College, in support of health care in New York City and around the world. The gift will establish the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute, and support new research and clinical care initiatives at the internationally renowned Center for Reproductive Medicine — which will now be known as the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine.

Physician-scientists from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center will present their latest research findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, May 30 to June 3.

Teenagers' obesity-related medical complications improve just six months after laparoscopic gastric banding surgery, according to outcomes data presented this week. The preliminary results by physician-scientists from Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center were presented on June 17 at The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.