Dr. Scott Hammer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center has led the development of two important new guidelines for treatment of HIV. He is lead author and chair of the panel of the International AIDS Society -- USA's (IAS-USA) recommendations for treatment of the disease in developed nations -- presented on Aug. 13 at the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto and published in the Aug. 16 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). And he is chairman of the writing committee of new guidelines published by the World Health Organization (WHO) for public health response to the disease in developing nations.

Today at the closing ceremony of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer New York, Avon Foundation President Kathleen Walas awarded six initial gifts to breast cancer organizations totaling $3,877,910. These gifts represent initial commitments from the $7.2 million already raised by the more than 2,700 participants in the event.

Previous attempts in mice to correct a rare inherited immune disorder, called Hyper IgM X-linked immunodeficiency, have failed because standard gene therapy raised risks for cancer.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has awarded a five-year $500,000 Freedom to Discover Unrestricted Infectious Diseases Research Grant to Weill Medical College of Cornell University for HIV/AIDS research focusing on the HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins and their functions during virus entry. John P. Moore, Ph.D., will supervise and serve as principal investigator of the grant. Dr. Moore is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked the overall #1 hospital in New York City, according to New York magazine's 2006 "Best Hospitals" issue.

Toddlers and young children who watch violent movies, including Halloween horror films, television shows or video games may be more likely to develop anxiety, sleep disorders, and aggressive and self-endangering behaviors. The Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center study, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), was presented on Oct. 28 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in San Diego.

Robotic surgery, largely pioneered for prostate cancer surgery, is rapidly being adapted for use in other areas, including for bladder cancer patients. Urologic surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center now have significant experience — and have demonstrated considerable success — with robotics for removal of the bladder, also known as cystectomy. Their findings are published in a recent edition of the peer-reviewed publication, the British Journal of Urology-International.

In a New York City metro-area first, a 93-year-old Bronx man underwent implantation of a new stent graft at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the only center on the Eastern Seaboard with access to this investigational device. The new stent graft was implanted under an FDA-approved clinical trial protocol. The stent graft is designed to treat a complex form of abdominal aortic aneurysms in which the weakened, enlarged vessel wall is too close to the arteries leading to the kidneys. These complex aneurysms cannot be safely treated with currently available aortic stent grafts and would otherwise require major surgery. Without treatment, patients with aortic aneurysms are at risk for sudden death.