User:Alawqati

Qais Al-Awqati
Qais Al-Awqati is the Robert F. Loeb Professor of Medicine and Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. He was born in Baghdad where he went to Baghdad College, an American High School established by Jesuits mostly from Boston. He then obtained his degree from the University of Baghdad College of Medicine. Following a brief service in the Iraqi Army he became a resident in medicine at the university teaching hospital, the Republican Hospital of Baghdad. In 1966, Iraq had its first cholera epidemic in recent memory which resulted in wide panic among the population, including many health care workers. The Ministry of Health established a special hospital in a decommissioned tuberculosis sanitarium and asked Al-Awqati to lead this hospital. Along with several residents and students and under the supervision of Faculty of the University, Mahmood Thamer being the most senior they treated all diarrhea patients in Baghdad during the epidemic. The results were excellent with no deaths among more than 450 admissions with severe diarrhea. Following this, Al-Awqati sought to obtain further training in the USA and after much searching found a position in Baltimore in a chronic disease hospital which was part of Baltimore City Hospital, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins. During the 3 years he spent in Baltimore, he became a resident in Medicine and then a postdoctoral Fellow in Infectious Diseases where he was introduced to scientific research by W. B. Greenough III. AT that time Greenough and Michael Field at Harvard began a collaboration to examine the mechanism of action of cholera toxin and AL-Awqati began his studies which led to the conclusion that cholera toxin induced chloride secretion by increasing cellular cyclic AMP levels. Al-Awqati then became a postdoctoral Fellow of Alexander Leaf at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. His first professorial position was ta the University of Iowa College of Medicine where he staid until he moved to Columbia University where he has been on the Faculty until now. Al-Awqati is an Epithelial cell biologist and physiologist who was the first to identify a reversible proton translocating ATPase present in the cell membranes which is packaged in endocytotic vesicles that are induced to fuse with the cell membrane under the influence of physiological regulators. His present work focuses on epithelial terminal differentiation. He identified a new extracellular matrix protein hensin (also termed DMBT1) which mediates this differentiation. He also recently identified the presence of label retaining cells in the mammalian kidneys that are likely to be stem cells of that organ in adults.

A case of alleged sexual harassment naming Qais Al-Awqati as the defendant was dismissed with prejudice on 9/16/2013.

 Selected Bibliography