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Contacts: Diane Greenberg, (631) 344-2347 or Mona S. Rowe, (631) 344-5056 Helene Benveniste Named Chair of Brookhaven Lab's Medical DepartmentMay 28, 2004 Helene Benveniste has been named chair of the Medical Department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, effective May 13. Benveniste had been interim chair of the Medical Department since October 2003, and, since May 2003, she has served as Interim Associate Laboratory Director for Life Sciences, a position she still holds. 
With an annual budget of about $16.5 million, Brookhaven's Medical Department has a staff of 61 employees and is host to about 200 collaborators and guest researchers annually. Using medical imaging techniques at the Laboratory's Center for Translational Neuroimaging, the department's researchers perform translational work - research from bench to bedside - that pertains to the development, maturation and environmental adaptation of the brain over a human's lifetime. Brookhaven's Medical Department researchers, along with Brookhaven chemists, are focused on conditions such as addiction, obesity, aging and Alzheimer's disease. Medical researchers also study the biological effects of radiation from heavy ions in outer space at the new NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven. Other research projects in the Medical Department are aimed at developing new nuclear medicine treatments and diagnostic agents, producing medical isotopes for clinical use, and understanding and treating cancer and heart disease. "I am pleased to be named chair of Brookhaven's Medical Department," Benveniste said. "We have several exciting research programs here that are multidisciplinary, so we often work with Brookhaven researchers in other fields, such as chemistry and physics. We are developing new instrumentation, sensors and probes that will expand our knowledge in many aspects of neurobiology. I am also gratified that several new scientists have joined the Medical Department over the last year and that our clinical research collaboration with Stony Brook University's General Clinical Research Center has been successfully implemented." Besides managing Brookhaven's Medical Department, Benveniste is committed to pursuing her groundbreaking medical research. Early in her career, she pioneered new methods for investigating the brain and made important discoveries in how stroke damages the brain. Her current research focuses on a new field known as magnetic resonance microscopy - an advanced form of magnetic resonance imaging, which allows the visualization of the brain in very fine detail. Benveniste earned her M.D. and Ph.D. in 1986 and 1991, respectively, from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1989, she joined Duke University, where she completed an internship in family medicine and a residency in anesthesiology. She joined Brookhaven's Medical Department in 2001 as a scientist, a position she held until she was named Interim Associate Director for Life Sciences. In addition to working at Brookhaven Lab, Beveniste is a practicing anesthesiologist at University Hospital at Stony Brook and a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at Stony Brook University. Related Links Number: 04-61 | BNL Media & Communications Office |
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