LA BioMed researchers recognized for training next generation of physicians

Drs. Carol Berkowitz and Mallory D. Witt receive Dadone Award

Carol Berkowitz, MD, and Mallory D. Witt, MD, lead researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed), received the Serge & Yvette Dadone Clinical Teaching Award in Honor of Saleh Salehmoghaddam, M.D., a peer-reviewed recognition of their "outstanding dedication, innovation, and sustained excellence in clinical and classroom teaching," according to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, which presented the awards.

"Congratulations to Dr. Berkowitz and Dr. Witt for this well-deserved recognition of their dedication to training the next generation of physicians," said David I. Meyer, PhD, president and CEO of LA BioMed. "Both are leaders in their respective fields, representing the best in research and a devotion to education that their peers honored with this award. We are proud to have them among our faculty members."

In addition to her role as a lead researcher at LA BioMed, Dr. Berkowitz is the executive vice chair in the Department of Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Her research focuses on women in medicine, medical education, pediatric emergency medicine and child maltreatment.

Dr. Berkowitz has received many accolades, including the Joseph W. St. Geme Jr. Leadership Award and the Abraham Jacobi Memorial Award, an acknowledgement by both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association of her numerous contributions to the health and well-being of children and to the pediatric community. She is the author of several hundred articles and book chapters and is the editor of Berkowitz's Pediatrics: A Primary Care Approach, a textbook now in its fourth edition.

Dr. Witt is a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, the associate chief of the Division of HIV Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and associate program director of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center's Internal Medicine training program.

In addition to devoting much of her time to educational activities involving medical students and physicians at all levels of training, Dr. Witt has focused her research career on the care of patients with HIV infection, building on the unique relationship between state-of-the-art clinical care and research. For more than a decade, she has served as a site principal investigator for the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), the longest running natural history study of HIV disease in the United States.

Dr. Witt has also served as co-investigator for two important clinical trials groups-the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) and the California Clinical Trials Group (CCTG)-in which Dr. Witt plays a role in national and international multicenter trials of, among others: antiretroviral therapies in HIV-infected patients and pregnant women, management of complications of HIV therapy and the safety and efficacy of vaccines in HIV-infected patients.