Kenneth Kaushansky


Kenneth Kaushansky, M.D., Master of the American College of Physicians is an American medical doctor, hematologist, former editor of the medical journal Blood, and has served as the Dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine since July 2010. Prior to moving to Stony Brook, he was the Helen M. Ranney Professor, and Chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Early life and education

Kaushansky was born on October 20, 1953 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His father who "always wanted to be an American" migrated with the family to the United States, when Kaushansky was 2 years old. Kaushansky graduated from UCLA in 1975, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in biochemistry. He stayed at UCLA to obtain his medical degree in 1979. It was here that he met his future wife Lauren who was also at the time enrolled as a student at UCLA. As he left to join the University of Washington in Seattle to complete his internship and residency, Lauren enrolled for a Master's in Education at Antioch University in Seattle. Kaushansky was appointed Chief Resident at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington in 1982.
Describing himself as a "biochemist at heart", Kaushansky fell in love with hematology during his second year of residency. Curious about blood diseases and disorders, he chose to focus on the field during his fellowship between 1982 and 1986 at the University of Washington. His decision to pursue hematology was also influenced by the persuasive arguments of Dr. Clement Finch, the then Chief of Hematology at the University of Washington, who said "there is no other discipline in medicine where we know more about the biochemistry of disease than in hematology". In a Q&A session with the American Society of Hematology, Dr. Kaushansky recalled:
During his time in Seattle, he was honored with the NIH Physician Scientist Award in 1984, given to promising physician-scientists early in their careers. He was also awarded the junior faculty award by the American Cancer Society and was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
In 2002, Kaushansky was appointed as Chair and Helen M. Ranney Professor of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. The Helen Ranney Chair in Medicine was the first research chair at the medical school named after a professor, the first endowed chair funded by the faculty, and the first endowed chair at UCSD named in honor of a woman professor. Helen Margaret Ranney was the first female president of Association of American Physicians, and her landmark research established one of the earliest links between genetic factors and sickle cell disease. On her demise in April 2010, Kaushansky wrote in a moving tribute, "Helen's career was marked by her intelligent approach to both clinical and research issues, her ability to achieve and inspire greatness, and her incredible wit".
Between 2003 and 2009, Kaushansky was named on the list of America's Top Doctors and San Diego's Top Doctors in Internal Medicine. In 2004, he was also elected a member to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Kaushansky is a past-president of the American Society of Hematology, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Western Society for Clinical Investigation. He also served a 5-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Blood and as a major reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and many major scientific periodicals. Dr. Kaushansky has been recognized for his scientific and clinical contributions by election as a Master of the American College of Physicians, and to several honor societies and organizations, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Work and research

In July 2010, Kaushansky was named the Senior Vice President for Health Sciences and the Dean of Stony Brook Medicine. He succeeded Dr. who announced his intent to return to practicing pediatric nephrology in 2009. As Dean and Senior VP, Kaushansky oversees the education, clinical and research components of the School of Medicine and the Health Sciences, which include the School of Dental Medicine, School of Health Technology and Management, School of Nursing and the School of Social Welfare. He also has some oversight responsibility for Stony Brook University Medical Center, and oversight for the Long Island State Veterans Home. With 25 academic departments, 21 residency training programs and 27 fellowship training programs at Stony Brook Medicine, and as part of the only Academic Medical Center on Long Island, Dr. Kaushansky increased enrollment to help meet a growing need for physicians nationwide and welcomed 124 men and women to the class of 2012 – the largest incoming class ever. Stony Brook Medicine is also home to a $4 million, 6,000 square-feet Clinical Skills Center, a state-of-the art training center where medical students evaluate and diagnose patients through teaching modules that incorporate the use of actor patients and computerized mannequins that simulate characteristic disease conditions.
Kaushansky's appointment at Stony Brook was lauded by several academicians such as Eric W. Kaler the then Provost and Vice-President of Brookhaven Affairs at Stony Brook University and Dr. Edward J. Benz, the President of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and past president of the American Society of Hematology and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Eugene Braunwald, M.D., Distinguished Hersey Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School described the decision to appoint Kaushansky at Stony Brook University School of Medicine as "brilliant".
Kaushansky's lab at Stony Brook focuses on hematopoietic growth factors and the regulation of their gene expression. The lab also runs several projects to understand the physiology of megakaryotic developments and the tools necessary to perform gene therapy for bleeding disorders. Dr. Kaushansky has conducted seminal research on the molecular biology of blood cell production. As reported in journals such as Nature and The New England Journal of Medicine, his team has cloned several of the genes important in the growth and differentiation of blood cells, including thrombopoietin, a key regulator of stem cell and platelet production.
Thrombopoietin is the powerful hormone that the body uses to direct the bone marrow to produce platelets, the disk-like cells that are necessary for blood to clot.
In June 1994, the New York Times reported that Dr. Kaushansky along with a team from ZymoGenetics had found the mouse thrombopoietin gene, cloned it, produced recombinant hormone, demonstrated that it worked as expected in mice and then found the human hormone by looking for a human gene that resembled the mouse gene.
In recent years his group has established that thrombopoietin exerts a profound influence on hematopoietic stem cells, affects the expression of a number of transcription factors that influence stem cell fate decisions and has unraveled the pathobiology of several congenital disorders of thrombopoiesis.
Kaushansky served as the Editor-in-chief of the medical journal Blood for 5 years between 1997 and 2002. Just before assuming this position, he was awarded the William Damashek Prize. William Damashek was the founder of Blood and a renowned hematologist. The Damashek Prize is awarded annually to someone less than 50 years of age, who is deemed to have made "outstanding contributions" to hematology. In 2006 and 2007, Kaushansky was elected as a member the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and honored as a Master of the American College of Physicians. He is also the former president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Society of Hematology.

Personal life

Kaushansky is married to and together they have two children, Alexis and Joshua Kaushansky. Alexis is a PhD molecular biologist and Joshua is an economist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities based in Boston. Kaushansky and his wife reside in Eatons Neck, New York

Professional societies and organizations