The Fund for the Future award supports selected junior faculty during a crucial period in their career development - the completion of their research training into the early years of their first faculty position at Weill Cornell Medicine. Backed by the generosity of donors to the Weill Department of Medicine (WDOM) and Iris Cantor Center for Women’s Health, funding is based upon academic progress and a competitive training award (such as an NIH K) application timeline within 18 months of initiation of the Fund for the Future support.
Congratulations to our recipients, Drs. Kristen Berger and Daniel Choi! Our third awardee, Dr. Ching-Lan Lu, recently received a K award effective Aug. 1, which supersedes her original Fund for the Future award.
Dr. Kristin Berger is an Instructor in Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care. Dr. Berger received her MD from Pennsylvania State University, where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. She went on to complete her residency in internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and her fellowship training at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, during which time she also obtained a master’s degree in clinical and translational research. Dr. Berger’s research interests are centered on interstitial lung disease; she is currently investigating the role of airway-centered processes in the development and progression of pulmonary fibrosis. Her Fund for the Future Award will support her research of associations of airway structure with respiratory-related clinical outcomes in older adults, and of exploring the interplay of genetic risk factors and environmental exposures on disease trajectories.
Dr. Daniel Choi is an Instructor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology. He has a longstanding interest in improving therapy for myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). His research currently focuses on immunotherapies targeted to mutated calreticulin found in MPNs. With support from the Fund for the Future Program, Dr. Choi will investigate the effect of these immunotherapies on the malignant stem cells that generate and sustain MPNs. His long-term goal is to contribute to curing MPNs by developing treatments that eliminate MPN stem cells.
Dr. Ching-Lan Lu is currently a postdoctoral fellow in immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) and a clinical fellow in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases at Columbia University Medical Center. She completed her medical school at Chang Gung University Medical School followed by Internal Medicine Residency/Infectious Disease Fellowship at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taiwan. To pursue her career as a physician scientist, she moved to the United States and was enrolled in the PhD Program in Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis at Weill Cornell Medicine in 2012. Under the mentorship of Dr. Michel Nussenzweig, she studied the distinct mechanisms by which HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies differ from small molecule drugs, such as antiretroviral therapies. Dr. Lu joined the clinical scholar program at the Rockefeller University following PhD graduation and actively participated in patient-oriented research. By analyzing samples from a Phase 1 study involving on the potent HIV-1 bNAb 3BNC117, she uncovered that the rebounding HIV-1 virus, originating from the latent reservoir, had evolved to evade immune pressure. Dr. Lu returned to clinical training at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in 2019 and became interested in the pathophysiology of gastrointestinal diseases. She joined Dr. Gregory Sonnenberg’s laboratory in 2023 to explore mucosal immunology and investigate the neuro-immune pathways regulating gut physiology. Dr. Lu’s long-term research interest centers on elucidating the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, with a focus on chronic inflammatory and functional disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), celiac disease, and gastrointestinal cancers.