The Heart of the Enterprise

Research and Scholarship

Scientists from the Mailman School of Public Health are studying the causes and prevention of asthma, which affects nearly 5 million children and targets those in urban areas.

As much as any other division of the University, the Mailman School exemplifies the degree to which our location provides us with a laboratory for studying urgent problems and developing effective solutions. Research and scholarship are the essential complements to Columbia's activities in education and community service.

Most recently, researchers at the School have been working in partnership with the community to study a dramatic increase in asthma. New York has the highest asthma mortality rate of any city, and northern Manhattan's African-American and Dominican neighborhoods are especially hard hit. Nearly 20 percent of Harlem's population is affected by the disease. The rate in central Harlem is four times that of the city as a whole.

Working with students and community leaders, Associate Professor of Public Health Patrick Kinney has established a link between diesel pollution in Harlem and the amount of airborne soot and fine particles that penetrate deeply into the lungs. Jean Ford, assistant professor of medicine and public health and director of the Harlem Lung Center, is working with colleagues on a project to involve community workers in asthma prevention, with the aim of reducing the frequency of emergency room visits. Investigations by teams led by Professors Kinney, Ford, and Frederica Perera, director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health, are among the Mailman School research projects listed below.

In a collaborative effort involving the Mailman School and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, work led by Professor David Evans and Dr. Robert B. Mellins has focused on battling asthma in low-income communities through educational programs for children and their families, the reduction of indoor allergens that trigger attacks, and the training of inner-city physicians.

Future decisions on mitigating the urban causes of asthma may well rely on the same strategies that underlie Professor of Statistics Andrew Gelman's research on radon, an odorless, naturally occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer if breathed in large concentrations over time. Working with Phillip Price of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Professor Gelman last year unveiled a new Columbia University Web site that helps families estimate the relative risk of radon exposure in their homes, and that offers a model for evaluating the cost effectiveness of addressing various public health concerns.

The enduring impact of research that tackles society's toughest problems is clear from a pathbreaking study published a decade ago by Harlem Hospital Center researchers Dr. Colin McCord and Dr. Harold Freeman, who found that a black man in Harlem has a lower life expectancy than a man in Bangladesh. To meet the challenge raised by that study, and to improve the application of new research to health services for Harlem residents, the Mailman School joined with the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish the Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention—also known as the Harlem Health Promotion Center (HHPC)—run by Dr. Alwyn Cohall, associate professor of clinical pediatrics and public health. The Center began its work by compiling community profiles to document risk factors that contribute to early deaths and analyzing epidemiological data to uncover patterns of youth injury and violence. Among the subjects placed under the microscope were risk factors for adolescent smoking, the detection of sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents, and an assessment of housing rehabilitation in a section of Harlem.

The Center's focus on community health also inspired the creation of the "Heart of Harlem" program, led by Joyce Moon Howard, assistant professor of public health. The state-funded program seeks to reduce cardiovascular disease through proper diet and other means in addition to sponsoring joint efforts with local organizations to provide blood pressure screening and other preventive measures. The Center has also initiated a Prostate Cancer Early Detection Project targeted at black American men, who have the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the world.

The toll taken on the community by violence was the subject of a comprehensive study conducted by Professor Jeffrey Fagan, director of the Mailman School's Center for Violence Research and Prevention, which included the finding that gun violence among New York City youths follows a pattern similar to the spreading of an infectious disease.

Even as these researchers zero in on threats to the day-to-day health and well-being of the community, the Health Sciences campus is also home to studies with global significance. The Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park, which continues to expand on its five-acre site at 165th Street and Broadway, is New York City's first biomedical research and development park. Following the opening of the Marie Woodard Lasker Biomedical Research Building for commercial ventures in 1995 and the Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion in 1998, construction is set to begin on the next major Audubon facility, which will house the Herbert and Florence Irving Cancer Research Center.

Across our uptown campus to the west is the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where Columbia works closely with the state and researchers from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center on studies to broaden our understanding of human behavior. This collaborative enterprise has fostered hundreds of landmark projects over the years, from early genetic studies of schizophrenia and the development of Rorschach scoring to more recent explorations of anxiety, depression, and the biochemistry of learning, along with major research currently under way at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. The Institute's Children in the Community Study has now followed 800 children for a quarter-century, providing a constantly expanding pool of information on risk factors for mental health problems. Its subjects now average 30 years of age, and their own children—numbering more than 400—are being studied as well.

At the Center for the Study of Suicidal Behavior, the largest federally funded center for suicide research in the country, Professor of Psychiatry John Mann is studying factors behind suicidal behavior and depression in the Hispanic population of northern Manhattan. Professor Mann, the Center's director, is also implementing a program designed to reduce the suicide rate among New York City police officers.

A variety of programs at Teachers College and other Columbia schools link local children with faculty, staff, and students.

Throughout the health sciences, the past year brought a host of additional developments. The University opened a new center devoted to Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine, which serves as a test bed for local and national use of Internet technology to broaden access to health care. P&S researchers found a method to restrict the growth and spread of neoplasms in mice, giving hope that similar approaches may be helpful in treating human cancers. And at Columbia's Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, Dr. Sergio Piomelli, the James A. Wolff Professor of Pediatrics, led research on the possibility of using gene transfer to achieve a cure for the disease.

The accomplishments of our scientists and medical researchers won special recognition from City Hall last year with the presentation of five out of seven awards for Excellence in Science and Technology to Columbians: University Professor Ronald Breslow; Joseph Traub, the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor of Computer Science; George Wolberg, adjunct professor of computer science; alumnus Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the American Museum of Natural History; and Dr. Yuan Chang, associate professor of pathology, who discovered a new human herpes virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common cancer among AIDS patients.

The future of New York City itself is the subject of multidisciplinary research undertaken with support from our own Strategic Initiative Program, developed by Provost and Dean of Faculties Jonathan Cole '64C '69GSAS and Executive Vice Provost Michael Crow. Conceived as an internal investment fund, the program calls for using a portion of income earned on Columbia's patent royalties as seed money for a variety of initiatives, including:

• SIPA's Center for Urban Research and Policy, which supports research on urban policy with emphasis on the Empower-ment Zone and public discussion of other urban policy issues at the annual David N. Dinkins Leadership and Public Policy Forum (named for the former mayor, who is a senior fellow at the Center);
• The Empowerment Zone Monitoring and Assistance Program (EZMAP), which, with assistance from the Ford Foundation, provides research and strategic planning assistance to the Coalition of Harlem and other community clients in the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone;
• The Institute for Child and Family Policy, which explores issues of public social policies, child poverty, and early intervention; and
• The New York City Social Welfare Indicators Survey Center, which conducts and analyzes a semi-annual survey of city residents, measuring individual and family well-being.

Professor Shree Nayar, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, invented a camera that can see in all directions at once.

The license and research revenues used to support the Strategic Initiative Program come from ventures overseen by the Columbia Innovation Enterprise (CIE). Of the thirty-five start-ups fueled by Columbia research, recent examples include Memory Pharmaceuticals, a company engaged in the discovery and development of treatments for memory-related disorders, and Remote Reality, which uses "immersive imaging" technology to create 360-degree digital images. Another recent initiative is a start-up company that has targeted the 50,000 tons of glass thrown out by the city each year. In a novel recycling project, Christian Meyer, professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, reports that talks are under way with the city to demonstrate how to use the glass for new building products such as "glascrete." Uses are also being proposed for dredged material from New York Harbor. And the city's subways stand to benefit from an invention by Shane Hong, professor of mechanical engineering: the "scratcher-buster," a machine designed to erase scratches on subway car windows.

Meanwhile, research on New York's public schools is now under way at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching, based at Teachers College. Funded by the Rockefeller Foun-dation, the Mellon Foundation, DeWitt Wallace–Reader's Digest Fund, and others, the Center compiles data on school restructuring, governance, and other issues, in addition to maintaining information networks to share research findings.

At the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, researchers from the Historic Preservation Program have undertaken a series of studies in New York neighborhoods, including Hamilton Heights and Morningside Heights. The School's Urban Planning Program, working closely with local community boards, hosts research studios on selected neighborhoods, including Harlem, the West Village, and Chelsea in Manhattan; Bushwick in Brooklyn; and Highbridge in the Bronx. The Chelsea study was the source for new planning guidelines drafted for that rapidly transforming area.

At Columbia Law School, faculty involvement in the city's institutions opens up opportunities for students. Vice Dean and Chamberlain Professor of Legislation Richard Briffault, who is director of the New York City Bar Association's Special Commission on Campaign Finance Reform, supervises student research used by the Bar Association to shape its policy on legislative reform. Professor Debra Livingston, a member of the Police Department Civilian Complaint Review Board, established a research project that enables students to investigate allegations of police misconduct and work with mediators to resolve appropriate cases. Other research with a focus on the city includes studies of community policing (Professor Livingston), the drug courts (Professors Charles Sabel and Michael Dorf), and the emergence of business improvement districts (Professor Briffault).

In SIPA's Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration, students engage in applied research on such topics as the redevelopment of Governor's Island, the economic and environmental well-being of the Bronx, and drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.

According to Eduardo Macagno, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for almost eight years, the opportunity to conduct original research alongside our faculty has been a powerful incentive for 195 students enrolled in summer research program for historically underrepresented students. These talented African-American, Puerto Rican, Mexican American, and Native American students spent eight weeks at GSAS, where they learned first-hand the joys and the rigors of advanced academic work as part of a program that seeks to increase the presence of minorities on the faculties of Columbia and other colleges and universities.

At the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, founded seven years ago by Professor of History Manning Marable, research now under way includes a study of the influence of families and communities on low-income adolescents by Mignon Moore '92C, assistant professor of sociology and African-American Studies, and an exploration of race and poverty in cities by Sudhir Venkatesh, who is also an assistant professor of sociology and African-American Studies.

The strong foundations for our scholarly and research enterprise are provided by Columbia University Libraries and Academic Information Systems, under the direction of Elaine Sloan, vice president for information services and University librarian. Columbia's twenty-one libraries—which house 7.1 million volumes, 4.8 million microforms, and 26 million manuscripts—are members of the Metropolitan New York Library Council and participate in an exchange program that extends access to the staffs of the city's great cultural institutions. We recently signed a similar agreement with the City Parks and Recreation Department.

These outstanding intellectual resources are at the disposal of city agencies and individual scholars. For example, the world-renowned Avery Architecture and Fine Arts Library has proven to be a valuable reference for the City Landmarks Preservation Commission in its research on buildings to be nominated for preservation. Major architectural reclamation projects have likewise benefited from Avery's resources, including, most recently, the restoration of arches below the Queensboro Bridge and the rebuilding of the postfire Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.

The Rare Books and Manuscript Library provides a wealth of materials documenting the social, cultural, economic, and political growth of New York City. These include literary collections, family papers, photographs, sheet music, and other archives that reflect the texture and pace of life in the city, along with oral history transcripts and tapes that have recorded the voices of prominent New Yorkers for the past half-century. And more generally, reference services are available to businesses, law firms, and news agencies in the city, just as our government document collections are made available to the public.