Dr. Lisa Korn Receives 2024 Dostanic Award

Lisa Korn, MD, PhD, instructor of medicine (rheumatology, allergy and immunology) has been selected to receive the 2024 Iva Dostanic, MD, PhD, Physician-Scientist Trainee Award.

The award is named in honor of the late Iva Dostanic, MD, PhD, a trainee who passed away in 2011 from ovarian cancer, who is described as having been an extraordinarily outstanding physician-scientist.

Presented annually to a physician-scientist trainee in the Department of Internal Medicine, the award has been given to more than a dozen trainees, including Dostanic herself, since its inception in 2011.

“I feel enormously honored to receive this award in memory of Iva Dostanic, who was known as a brilliant scientist and an amazing person,” Korn said.

Korn was recruited to the department in 2015 for the ABIM Physician-Scientist Research Pathway. She completed a clinical fellowship in rheumatology in 2019 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology. Most recently, she joined the section of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology as an instructor in 2022.

Medzhitov and Section Chief Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and professor of pathology, Yale School of Medicine, and of epidemiology (microbial diseases), Yale School of Public Health, nominated Korn for the award, citing her research and clinical acumen.

“She displays an impressive ability to reach outside her prior expertise to pursue the most interesting questions, and we believe that her discoveries will ultimately have a large impact on introducing a more rational, scientific evidence-based way to approach diet in the treatment of multiple disorders,” they wrote.

Peter Aronson, MD, C.N.H Long Professor of Medicine (nephrology), has chaired the committee that selects the awardee since it was formed. During the selection process, he and the committee members noted Korn’s many achievements.

“The committee was impressed with the high quality of her research and publications on regulation of immune cells in the intestine during both her MD-PhD training and her postdoctoral training at Yale,” Aronson said. “In addition, she has demonstrated outstanding success in competing for multiple career development grants.”

Korn’s research focuses on the influence of dietary constituents on mucosal immunity, a subject she was introduced to while working in Medzhitov’s laboratory. Interested in the interaction between the immune system and the environment, she is intrigued by the connection between the gut and rheumatic diseases, from inflammatory arthritis to lupus, she said.

“The immune cells in the gut are on the front line with the environment,” Korn explained. “There is just a single layer of cells and some mucus that separates them from all the food and bacteria within the gut.”

Fred Gorelick, MD, Henry J. and Joan W. Binder Professor of Medicine (digestive diseases) and Cell Biology, who specializes in acute inflammation of the pancreas, recalls reviewing Korn’s K08 grant.

“At first, I was surprised a rheumatologist was submitting a research grant on the intestine, but the intestine is a very important immune sensing organ,” Gorelick said. “Those immune cells control local responses in the intestine, and they can, by mechanisms that aren't entirely understood, affect other tissues.”

With a plethora of mentors at Yale, Korn considers herself fortunate to have a supportive group behind her, including Medzhitov, a renowned creative thinker, who continues to impact Korn’s work. In addition, Korn is grateful for her mentorship committee–Joe Craft, Fred Gorelick, Martin Kriegel, Noah Palm, and Andrew Wang–and for the clinic-related work she has done with Cristina Brunet. The members of the Section of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology are wonderful sources of scientific and clinical wisdom, Korn said.

Korn credits her late mother, Eda T. Bloom, PhD, for her love of science. Bloom passed away suddenly in 2008, while Korn was studying for her MD-PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

“My first scientific role model was my mom, one of the first women in her department to receive a PhD in immunology,” Korn said. “I followed in her footsteps, and I’d like to think she’d be proud.”

Korn will present her research and receive the Dostanic Award at Medical Grand Rounds on June 20, 2024, which will be attended by Dostanic’s parents.

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