School Notes: School of Medicine
March/April 2020

Yale alumna begins term as new dean

Nancy J. Brown ’81, an internationally renowned investigator and clinician, began her deanship at the Yale School of Medicine on February 1. Brown was previously the Hugh Jackson Morgan Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University, a position she held since 2010, and during which she maintained a clinical practice. Among her research contributions, she defined the molecular mechanisms through which commonly prescribed blood pressure and diabetes drugs affect the risk of cardiovascular and kidney disease. Throughout her career, Brown has worked to help faculty, students, and trainees thrive by establishing new education programs and mentoring resources. She majored in biophysics and biochemistry at Yale College and graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School. 

Neuroscientist recognized for groundbreaking research

Nenad Sestan ’99PhD, Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience and professor of comparative medicine, of genetics, and of psychiatry, has been named one of Nature’s “Ten people who mattered in science in 2019.” Sestan and colleagues reported in April 2019 in Nature that they had restored neural function hours after death in the brains of pigs obtained from a local meatpacking plant. However, they also stressed that the brains lacked any recognizable global electrical signals associated with perception, awareness, or consciousness.