Associate Dean for Student Affairs John Francis celebrated the class as a “clinically astute and prepared group of students who have matched into exemplary training programs across the country.”

Match Day — a national milestone for graduating medical students — marks the culmination of months of applications, interviews and decision-making.

On Friday, all 87 doctoral and dual/joint degree students opened envelopes revealing where they will be training for the next stage of their medical careers.

“We are so very proud of them; they are among the best of the best,” said Francis. 

Amber Acquaye MED ’25 matched into psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She began her application process in late September, submitting through the Electronic Residency Application Service, a centralized system used by most programs. She likened the system to the Common Application used for college, noting it required uploading personal statements, meaningful experiences and recommendation letters.

She emphasized how costly the application process could be. While psychiatry applicants typically apply to about 30 programs, she said some peers applied to as many as 150 programs, each with a fee.

After submitting applications, students began the long wait for interview invitations. Acquaye said she felt the real stress of the process during this period, when she constantly checked her phone hoping for an interview email. The uncertainty and competitiveness of the invitation stage, she said, made it the most emotionally draining part of the process. 

Students then submitted a ranked list of programs, which the match algorithm uses to determine placements. Programs also submitted rankings of applicants. Acquaye found ranking programs more difficult than waiting for the final match result. She described the ranking decision as a process of intense self-reflection, weighing priorities like location, institutional culture and professional development.

“I felt that making my rank list was more stressful than waiting to see where I was going to end up, because it’s just so much, there’s just so many details,” Acquaye said. “At the end of the day, programs start to [look] kind of similar, and then you start to think, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is my life? What if I like this program more, but I like this city better?’” 

Acquaye was drawn to Brigham and Women’s for its strong academic psychiatry offerings and emphasis on nurturing scholarly interests. She saw a clear alignment between her goals and the mission of the program, which made her confident in her decision, even though she had initially hoped to be in New York.

For Brian Fleischer MED ’25, the preparation for Match Day began well before fourth year. In the summer before his final year, he completed research and away rotations that helped him shape his specialty decision. By the time interviews rolled around, he had already finished the required Step One and Step Two licensing exams and finalized his letters of recommendation.

Fleischer applied to primary care programs and completed many of his interviews remotely while conducting research in Ghana. He noted that virtual interviews allowed him to avoid travel costs and maintain his research schedule, a flexibility that had not always been possible in previous years.

He explained that the match algorithm uses the rank lists submitted by both students and programs to optimize mutual preferences. If a student ranks a program highly and is also ranked highly by that program, the likelihood of a match is strong. This process, he said, helps ensure that both sides end up with a good fit.

Like many applicants, Fleischer experienced a mix of anticipation and anxiety leading up to Match Day. He had ranked Yale’s Primary Care program highly, in part due to his longstanding connections at the institution and the strength of its global health resources.

Originally from Ghana, Fleischer has pursued research focused on primary care access in both the United States and abroad. During his time at Yale, he completed global health rotations and worked on public health interventions, building strong relationships with mentors in the Primary Care program.

He said that Yale’s institutional support and global reach ultimately made it a natural choice. The alignment between his professional goals and the program’s offerings confirmed for him that it was the right place to continue his training.

Match Day, he noted, brought a mix of emotions. 

“I was surrounded by lots of close friends. They all knew where I really wanted so much,” Fleischer said. “When I saw the match, I knew it was a match made in heaven.”

YSM students matched into 21 specialties. Internal Medicine, including primary care and combined programs, was the most popular, drawing 23 students. Nine students matched into Anesthesiology, seven into Psychiatry and six into Emergency Medicine. A total of 24 students matched into surgical specialties, including Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Plastic Surgery and others.

According to Abigail Roth, associate director of communications at the School of Medicine, 21 students matched at Yale New Haven Health programs and 19 matched at Harvard-affiliated institutions. Other matches included Johns Hopkins Hospital, Stanford Health Care, New York Presbyterian, Duke University Medical Center and the University of Washington. 

Dean Nancy Brown called Match Day a reminder of the school’s mission. 

“I remain proud of our students and grateful to our faculty and community for helping them reach their goals,” Brown said.

Acquaye reflected on how far she and her peers had come. 

“We started as med students, you know, being on Harkness Lawn, [seeing upperclassmen] opening those envelopes and seeing their peers and where they’re going to all be going and imagining, ‘Oh, that’s gonna be me,’” she said. “And just like the full circle nature of it, all of us finally being in that position … seeing the completion of our journey.”

The 2025 National Match Day was March 21.

The post Yale School of Medicine achieves 100 percent match rate appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The post A conversation with Jeffrey Fletcher: the story behind the Ruby and Calvin Fletcher African American Museum appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In an email sent to the School of Medicine community, Dean Nancy Brown announced the school would provide bridge funding, which is temporary financial support provided to researchers facing gaps in funding. These initiatives come in response to widespread concerns among researchers and students about the uncertainty of federal research funding, particularly in light of continuous policy shifts at the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. 

The School of Medicine’s newly established bridge funding mechanism seeks to provide stability for faculty members who receive premature termination notices for their active grants. In a statement to the YSM community, Brown explained that faculty who have been recruited within the past three years or lack alternative funding sources will be eligible for support. The funding is designed to allow affected faculty time to reorient their research programs. Recent federal policy changes have also threatened graduate students who rely on federal fellowships and training grants to research in a lab. The GSAS funding aims to compensate for the federal decline in funding. 

“We have developed guidelines and a mechanism for bridge funding for any faculty member who receives a premature termination notice for an active grant due to a policy change,” wrote Brown in the internal email to School of Medicine staffers. “Thriving during times of uncertainty requires flexibility and creativity.” 

The changes come as the NIH’s Feb. 7 supplemental guidance on indirect cost rates is going through ongoing litigation and multiple temporary restraining orders, and some say the NIH guidance threatens existing federal research programs. While the restraining orders have halted the enforcement of some of the guidance’s provisions, the uncertainty surrounding NIH funding has prompted department chairs and deputy deans to prepare contingency plans to address potential challenges in the future. 

However, University spokesperson Karen Peart clarified that this new mechanism is not directly related to any cuts in NIH indirect cost rates. 

“Yale School of Medicine already provides bridge funding for investigators who have an anticipated lapse in funding. This new mechanism addresses an unanticipated lapse,” she wrote to the News. “Mechanisms are in place to ensure funding for all graduate students in good standing.” 

Graduate students have also faced increased challenges due to shrinking federal funding, particularly, as Trump targets federal DEI — or diversity, equity and inclusion — training programs and fellowships. 

In response, in an email to GSAS faculty in FAS and SEAS, Dean Lynn Cooley announced additional funding support, including stipend supplements for federal fellowships, an increase in the tuition matching program for faculty research grants and new University Fellowships for science and engineering programs. These initiatives represent a $4 million investment aimed at easing the financial strain on faculty research budgets and ensuring continued support for graduate students.

“Yale has really stepped up to support grad students in those times when training grants have reduced,” said Valarie Horsley, a professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. “The funding for training grants has been decreasing since I’ve been here just from policy changes from the NIH.” Horsley first joined the University as an assistant professor in 2009. 

Training grants and fellowships for graduate students have become increasingly competitive as applications continue to increase significantly as the number of available grants only increase incrementally. 

According to Cooley, the decision to provide more support for graduate students came in tandem with Yale College’s decision to increase the undergraduate class by 100 students each year. 

“I am delighted that the College will be able to educate more students with this increase, and grateful for the corresponding support the university will provide to the faculty and graduate students in the FAS and SEAS,” wrote Cooley in an internal message to GSAS faculty in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering & Applied Science. 

Although these measures have been widely welcomed, some faculty members wish for more transparency and consistency across schools in the University regarding bridge funding, Horsley mentioned. While the School of Medicine has been transparent about its contingency plans, faculty in the FAS have noted a lack of similar communication regarding bridge funding.

“There’s been less communication with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,” Horsley noted. “I did reach out to the dean this weekend to say it would be helpful if we knew that it was the same [as the medical school].”

According to Horsley, uncertainty surrounding the NIH’s allocation of future grants has continued heightened concerns. 

Faculty members who received favorable study section scores for grant proposals last fall remain in limbo, waiting on NIH’s final funding decisions. 

Despite these concerns, Yale’s recent funding initiatives offer a safety net for researchers and students facing unexpected gaps in support. As federal policies continue to shift, faculty and students alike will look to the university for continued investment in research and education.

The general bridge funding policy at the Yale School of Medicine was last updated in August 2023.

The post Yale to provide funding for researchers and graduate students after federal research funding cuts appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The two-day event, hosted by Yale Students for Reproductive Rights brought together student leaders, medical and policy experts and grassroots organizers to address growing challenges to reproductive healthcare access and to build the foundation for a long-term student-led advocacy network. According to YSRR President Jessica Yu ’26, the event was the first-ever intercollegiate conference focused on reproductive rights advocacy.

“It’s on us to defend and take back our reproductive rights,” Yu said, “because if we don’t, no one else will.”

Through keynote talks, panel discussions and interactive workshops, the conference examined the evolving reproductive rights landscape from multiple perspectives — medicine, anthropology, policy and advocacy.

Dr. Aaron Lazorwitz, an OB-GYN and professor at the School of Medicine, discussed advances in complex family planning research. Anthropologist Dr. Claudia Valeggia challenged widespread misconceptions about female reproductive health. Advocates, including New Haven’s Dr. Nathalie Bonafé, addressed overlooked issues such as menopause, while Yale doctoral candidate Natalie Hernandez examined the widening gap between public opinion and restrictive abortion laws.

“When students become advocates in reproductive health, they push themselves and others to understand how important the issues are. They prompt fundamental changes in the field in the near future, and they are forging a network of thinkers and influencers who will develop the fundamental changes in the more distant future,” Bonafé said.

Organizers said that the conference will become an annual event and the cornerstone of a new coalition that will provide a national network linking student organizations, campus leaders and advocacy groups.

According to Sooah Park ’27, the vice president of YSRR, the coalition is looking to offer training opportunities, awareness campaigns, policy summits and workshops on reproductive healthcare access. 

Additionally, the coalition will provide connections to legal experts, healthcare professionals and policymakers, aiming to strengthen student advocacy efforts. The coalition is also planning to make a digital resource hub with legal, medical and policy guidance for students who are looking to learn more about ways to protect their reproductive freedom.

“The challenges we face, legal, institutional, financial, are not isolated to one campus or one state,” said Michelle Joo, a lead organizer of the conference. 

As the conference wrapped up, students emphasized that the conversation is just beginning. Many left with new partnerships, action plans to bring back to their campuses and a renewed sense of urgency to continue their work on campus and beyond.

Aliza Kopans, a student from Brown, shared that she is excited to stay in touch with those who attended the conference.

“In a moment when so much feels uncertain and scary, the conference was grounding,” said Kopans. “The opportunity to learn from brilliant professors and researchers reinforced my belief that change can, and will, come from all angles.”

Attendees also emphasized the benefit of speaking to participants outside their own institutions.

For Ayushi Pandya, a student from Stony Brook University, the conference highlighted the diversity of experiences and motivations behind student advocacy.

“When you stay with the same people from the same school for so long, you forget not everyone thinks like you or has the same story as you,” said Pandya. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity to go outside my comfort zone and travel to Yale for this conference.”

With plans to expand the coalition, organizers are aiming to ensure that young voices remain central in shaping the future of reproductive rights.

YSRR was founded in January 2024.

The post ‘Choice for Tomorrow’: Inaugural conference lays groundwork for student-led reproductive rights network appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Journavx, developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, provides an alternative to addictive opioid painkillers prescribed to millions of Americans every year. The biological target of the drug was first discovered in the late 1990s in the lab of Professor Stephen Waxman at the School of Medicine. 

“The approval is so important because Journavx is the first and only nonopioid oral pain signal inhibitor, which means that it is a medicine that combines effective pain relief with a favorable safety profile, and it is non-addictive,” Vertex spokesperson wrote to the News. “Every time a physician can prescribe a nonopioid medicine instead of an opioid, it’s an opportunity to avoid their potential liabilities and bend the curve in the right direction.”

According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, approximately 125 million people were prescribed opioids in 2023, which while effective, have significant safety and tolerability concerns and addictive potential. In fact, around 85,000 people annually develop opioid use disorder within the first year of being prescribed an opioid for acute pain.

Although Journavx is a step forward, some scientists the News spoke to argued that the drug has considerable limitations.

“We shouldn’t also be expecting magic bullets. Some people might be disappointed that the drug won’t cure all pain,” said Sulayman Dib-Hajj, professor of neurology at the School of Medicine, who participated in the original research at Yale.

Yale roots of Journavx

Action potentials, brief electrical signals that muscles and nerves use to communicate, cause pain sensations. These wave-like transmissions move along neurons like an electrical signal through a wire. 

“All neurons communicate with each other by producing nerve impulses,” Waxman told the News. “They’re called action potentials, and they’re due to the opening of sodium channels, and that causes a tiny rush of sodium that becomes explosive, and you get this all or none, little explosion of depolarization.”

During the molecular revolution of the 1980s, scientists discovered an entire family of sodium channels. 

Some of these channels specifically allow for pain signaling. Professor Dib-Hajj explains that local anesthetics, like Novocaine, which dentists use, block all sodium channels in the injection site, preventing pain signals from reaching the brain.

“The problem with using non-selective sodium channel blockers like local anesthetics or drugs is that they have a lot of side effects,” Dib-Hajj explained. “Just think about getting out of the dentist chair. Your cheek feels a lot bigger. You’re slurring your speech.”

Waxman added that if these medications were put into a pill, sodium channels in other areas like the heart and the brain would also be affected, leading to numerous health complications.

The goal is to find a sodium channel uniquely involved in pain transmission, so that blocking it would not affect other important functions, such as heart or cognitive functions, Dib-Hajj said.

“Once it was clear that there were more than one sodium channel, the question came up, might there be one or more types of sodium channels that are present only in peripheral nerves and are important for pain signaling,” Dr. Waxman said.

So, in the late 1990s, Waxman’s lab at Yale began investigating the peripheral sodium channels that propel pain signals.

They eventually deduced that three of these channels — Nav 1.7, 1.8, and 1.9 — work together to produce the nerve impulses in pain signaling.

Nav 1.8, the target for the Journavx drug, is a channel primarily involved in pain transmission that was discovered in 1995 at University College in London, said Dib-Hajj. Waxman and Dib-Hajj immediately started working on studying and targeting the Nav1.8 sodium channel as a potential non-opioid treatment for pain.

At Yale, scientists investigated how this channel behaves at the cellular level through observing it in environments such as human embryonic cell lines, neurons and in its native environment.

However, studying Nav 1.8 in lab settings presented a challenge because the channel does not express well in models. Waxman, Dib-Hajj and their team worked on developing experimental methods to properly express and analyze Nav1.8.

Journavx’s limitations and future research

Three decades later, the FDA has approved Journavx to treat acute pain. However, Dib-Hajj said, more work needs to be done, and Journavx has limitations, especially in its efficacy in treating chronic pain.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s very exciting that we have something new, especially it’s not addictive, but the effect is not very big, and we still don’t know how effective it’s going to be for chronic pain,” said Dib-Hajj. “That is still a work in progress.”

Dib-Hajj explained that different approaches still need to be researched in order to find drugs that can treat severe pain, such as that caused by chemotherapy. He is also interested in Journavx’s effects on chronic pain.

He explained that he is still looking for “a bigger clinical effect than what this currently improved drug is producing.”

Waxman and Dib-Hajj’s lab plans to move in a different direction from Vertex. Instead of focusing on developing drugs that block Nav1.8 channels, they aim to decrease the total number of these channels on neurons. Fewer Nav1.8 channels mean less pain signal transmission, potentially offering a more long-term solution for chronic pain.

This approach is closer to gene therapy, where a biological agent, such as a virus or RNA-based therapy, reduces the expression of Nav1.8 in neurons. 

Biologic reagents, a type of drug that affects gene expression rather than just blocking the channel at the cell surface, is another possibility. Designing antibodies is another approach Dib-Hajj is investigating to regulate Nav 1.8, as antibody-based therapies are already used in some diseases and could be a non-opioid, long-term pain treatment.

Dib-Hajj explains that drugs like Vertex’s work quickly and are better suited for acute pain, whereas gene therapy or biologics might take longer to show effects, making them more suitable for chronic pain. The goal is to create a “menu” of pain treatments — allowing doctors to choose the best treatment for each patient.

Waxman and Dib-Hajj both emphasized that Vertex’s development underscores the importance of basic science research in academia.

“This channel was discovered in 1996. It’s almost now, 30 years later, and it’s only now that we potentially have something to go to the patients with,” Dib-Hajj said. “Drug development takes time. There are many unsung heroes who are still working at the lab bench.”

Vertex Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1989.

The post First FDA-approved non-addictive painkiller has Yale roots appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Later that day, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered a pause in the funding freeze until this coming Monday afternoon. However, currently approved research grants remain paused, according to Yale researchers the News spoke with. Additionally, since last Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health has not reviewed new grant applications.

“To my knowledge, this kind of pause — outside of a federal shutdown — is unprecedented,” Megan Ranney, dean of the School of Public Health, wrote to the News. “By slowing or stopping the process for funding, this pause has the potential to wreak havoc with the conduct of life-saving health science.”

During the 2024 fiscal year, Yale received $899 million from the federal government in the 2024 fiscal year to support the university’s research and training programs, according to University spokesperson Karen Peart. Over $643 million came from the NIH. 

The next major NIH grant deadline is Feb. 5, but researchers cannot submit applications now. Federal grants fund projects, as well as salaries of researchers and graduate students. The training of many students is also funded by DEI-based grants.

Last Tuesday, the Trump administration told agencies, including the NIH, to pause all public communications until Feb. 1, effectively resulting in a pause on grant reviews. The funding freeze order states that it will provide time to align federal funding with the current administration’s priorities and specifically targets funding for “DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”.

Diane Krause, professor of laboratory medicine and pathology, said that one of her students received a fundable score for a predoctoral fellowship to promote diversity in health-related research. 

“Now we don’t know if this will ever be funded. It’s been a nearly two year process to secure funding and that may all be for nought,” Krause wrote to the News.

Sedona Murphy, an associate research scientist in cell biology at the School of Medicine, explained that historically, NIH funding has been affected by racial inequality. 

Concerns remain about how scientists from underrepresented backgrounds will be affected by the funding freeze and Trump’s anti-DEI priorities.

“It feels like a major goal of the new administration is to re-segregate science under the guise of ‘meritocracy’ which is really just code for only straight white men should be here,” Murphy wrote to the News. “It’s gross and incredibly disheartening to see so much progress towards equity stamped out in such a short period of time.”

Ailong Ke, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, shared that his former trainees benefited from DEI initiatives. He said that it is “saddening” to see these programs end. 

If the funding freeze goes into effect, it is predicted to affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in global research grants that have been awarded but not yet spent.

According to Ronald Breaker, molecular biophysics and biochemistry chair, the NIH grant processing pause jeopardizes scientific research at Yale.

“Even small breaks in the chain of discovery — from idea generation, to grant writing and reviewing, to timely funds distribution — put at risk the pace of the breakthroughs we’ve been seeing in our labs,” Breaker said.

In a University-wide email sent before the federal judge blocked Trump’s orders, President Maurie McInnis and Provost Scott Strobel addressed the concerns of the student and staff body regarding their research, studies and work at Yale.

“We want to assure you that we are actively working to understand the implications of any new policies, guidelines, and priorities, including the internal federal memorandum from yesterday that ordered federal agencies to temporarily pause grants and loans issued by the government,” they wrote.

McInnis and Strobel wrote that they do not yet have answers on how the University will proceed. They advised Yale faculty, staff and students to continue federally funded work except for specific cases with stop-work orders. 

In response to the funding freeze, Murphy wrote that “incredibly wealthy universities like Yale have a responsibility to stand up to fascism.”

In the statement, McInnis and Strobel also emphasized that they continue to discuss with legislators the importance of partnership between the federal government and higher education institutions.

Murphy agrees that correspondence with politicians is an important step.

“My current plans are to call my representatives and then organize with other scientists and protest,” Murphy wrote to the News. “This is still America, so I will exercise my rights to speak out against this blatant fascism and I encourage other scientists to do the same.”

On Monday, NIH released a memo explaining that additional guidance and clarification will be provided later.

Hari Viswanathan contributed to the reporting.

The post Yale scientists in disarray after Trump’s “unprecedented” grant freeze appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The directive has effectively suspended NIH research grant evaluations and disrupted various health-related communications. NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. 53 percent of grants received to fund research at the Yale School of Public Health came from the NIH, and the Yale School of Medicine is ranked fourth in the nation for total NIH funding. 

“I’m just worried that this trend continues, that we’ll lose a whole generation of scientists,” said Sandy Chang ’88, the former associate dean of STEM education and professor of laboratory medicine. 

The NIH has an annual budget of more than $47 billion to fund over 60,000 grants that directly support more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 institutions. 

Scientists form study sections that meet regularly to review and approve grants. According to Chang, this process is widely regarded to be a fair way to determine which grant proposals should receive funding.

Trump has placed an indefinite pause on these study sections, effectively stopping the grant distributional process. Ongoing study sections were suddenly suspended on Wednesday, which will lead to widespread disruption of research funding, Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at the School of Medicine, said.

It is unclear whether already approved grants will be impacted and if the University would provide temporary funding should labs run out of grant funding. The School of Medicine did not immediately respond to the request for comment. 

Study sections have never been suspended due to executive directives and the timeframe of suspensions have always been clearly communicated. The present lack of communication prevents scientists from planning next steps. 

Howard Forman, professor of health policy and management, said that he would be concerned if the communication pause is not lifted by Feb. 1. 

“It’s kind of a shock to the community right now, because this really has a huge impact if you have a grant that you know was supposed to be reviewed by the NIH this round and that meeting is canceled,” Iwasaki said. “Who knows when the grant will be discussed next time and when the funding decision will be made?”

These grants fund the salaries of scientists, graduate students, postdocs and other employees in the research process. 

Chang, for example, said that around 80 percent of his salary comes from NIH grants. Without those programs, his graduate students cannot get paid either. He believes that this would discourage students from pursuing academia and continue the push towards private industry.  

“Without NIH grants, we’re dead,” he said. 

Chang explained that curiosity-driven research that is unique to academia is an irreplaceable driver for innovation, and NIH is the biggest provider of funding for these investigation pursuits. 

Additionally, Chang said many graduate student training grants come from the NIH programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion missions, which have also come under attack from the new administration. 

“It seems like, with DEI under attack, this administration is going to politicize this whole review process,” said Chang. “I’m worried that the training grants won’t be funded because they have a DEI component, which the Trump administration wants to get rid of.” 

Should the Trump administration plan to change the grant review procedure, it would complicate an already difficult process for researchers. 

The University provides stopgap funding to researchers who were approved for grants and are waiting for the funding to be distributed. Usually, just a few researchers receive such funding to maintain their lab operations, but with the NIH grant approval process suspended, many researchers fear that they may have to rely on it, according to Chang. 

School of Medicine Dean Nancy Brown wrote a statement to the school community on Thursday outlining the school’s approach to the current grant review suspension. 

“Faced with incomplete information, human beings naturally create stories to fill in the blanks,” Brown wrote. “During COVID-19, we faced health fears and financial uncertainty. We learned that we are resilient, we can together tackle challenges through creativity and value-based decision-making, and we became stronger. We will apply the same principles moving forward.” 

The statement did not mention the possibility of stopgap funding. 

The National Institutes of Health began giving out grants in 1945.

Correction, Jan. 24: This article has been updated to clarify that the NIH has paused grant review processes. 

The post “We’ll lose a generation of scientists”: Yale braces for Trump’s NIH grant suspension appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Then she learned that she had many half-siblings, including her high-school boyfriend, whose mothers had been inseminated by the same donor — their doctor, then-School of Medicine professor Burton Caldwell. Now, Victoria Hill’s mother, Maralee Hill, is one of four women suing Caldwell. 

The Donor Sibling Registry — a non-profit U.S. organization serving donor offspring, sperm donors and egg donors — recorded that Caldwell fathered at least 23 children.

“I view this as a form of sexual assault,” Victoria Hill testified to the Connecticut General Assembly in March 2024, describing the fertility fraud that resulted in her birth.

Maralee Hill and Nancy Huber, another patient, also named the School of Medicine, Yale New Haven Health System and the Yale New Haven Hospital as co-defendants in their joint lawsuit. 

Although Yale’s attorney argued that the insemination happened at Caldwell’s private practice, the court recently granted plaintiffs access to the University files to clarify the relationship between Caldwell’s relationship with Yale at the time and any responsibility Yale may have for the doctor’s conduct. 

Caldwell is no longer affiliated with the School of Medicine or Yale New Haven Hospital. A University spokesperson declined to answer questions about when and why Caldwell left Yale and when the University learned of his misconduct. 

The attorney representing Caldwell also did not respond to requests for comment.

In a separate lawsuit, Doreen Pierson and her daughter Janine accused Caldwell of negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery, failure to obtain informed consent, fraud, fraudulent concealment and violating the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, which guards against deceptive or unjust company practices resulting in a “measurable loss of money or property.”

Doreen Pierson alleges that Caldwell artificially inseminated her in 1986, leading to Janine’s birth. In her complaint, she describes how she agreed to be inseminated with a “fresh, never frozen semen specimen” from a Yale medical intern on-site who was willing to be an anonymous sperm donor.

Through an at-home DNA test in July 2022, Janine discovered that Caldwell had used his own semen to inseminate her mother instead of the medical intern’s. When Janine confronted Caldwell, he admitted to using his own sperm to artificially inseminate “numerous patients,” including her mother, the complaint states. 

The Piersons’ suit also claims that Caldwell failed to provide information about his family history of genetic conditions, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

“At no time did Dr. Caldwell inform Doreen Pierson that the sperm being used to inseminate her came from a person with these serious health conditions,” the Piersons’ attorneys wrote.

In the complaint, the Piersons claimed compensatory damages of at least $15,000.

In a related suit, Maralee Hill and Nancy Huber also claim they consented to artificial insemination treatment after having difficulty conceiving a child with their respective husbands. Caldwell promised both women that they would be inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor but instead used his own sperm, the women claim.

“I was told that all sperm donations were anonymous and there would be no information available regarding the donors,” Maralee Hill testified in March 2024. 

In addition to Caldwell, Hill and Huber are suing Yale, Yale New Haven Hospital and the Yale New Haven Health System. In March 2024, plaintiffs filed a discovery petition requesting information regarding the “extent of the relationship between Dr. Caldwell and Yale” and any responsibility Yale may have for Caldwell’s conduct, according to a legal memo on the motion.

Yale New Haven Health claimed in a statement that there was “no evidence of Yale New Haven Health’s involvement in the conduct alleged against Dr. Caldwell.” In April, an attorney for Yale New Haven Hospital, the School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation filed a motion to strike the petition. 

At the court hearing in September, Yale attorney Brock Dubin argued before a Connecticut Superior Court judge that the petition was legally insufficient because the inseminations occurred at a residence not owned by Yale — and because Caldwell left Yale in the 1980s. The News was not able to independently verify when Caldwell left Yale.

“It was his own private practice,” Dubin argued. “What he did at that private practice he did unbeknownst to Yale. There’s no reason Yale would have any notion what he was doing at his private practice.”

On Jan. 3, the judge, Robin L. Wilson, wrote that Hill and Huber alleged “sufficient facts to demonstrate probable cause” that Caldwell was an “agent” of Yale or that Yale had “direct involvement in or knowledge of” the doctor’s conduct — given that Caldwell applied for grants and published papers as a Yale affiliate — and granted plaintiffs access to requested files. Hill and Huber can examine records from Caldwell and Yale from the limited period of 1974 and 1984 — a time frame that ends the year Huber was treated by Caldwell and two years before Hill’s insemination treatment.

Caldwell has declined to comment on stories about the suits on multiple occasions. A CNN report from 2024 described Caldwell as “frail” and “quite elderly.”

Caldwell is now 86 years old.

The post Former School of Medicine professor embroiled in artificial insemination lawsuit appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The projection marked UAEM’s participation in Access to Medicines Week, a global series of events designed to address inequities in healthcare access. For UAEM’s leadership, the campaign represents a broader mission: holding universities accountable for using their research outputs for the public good.

“[The public] ends up paying twice: once through taxes and again through inflated drug prices,” Simona Hausleitner ’25, founder and president of UAEM’s Yale chapter, told the News. “We want to hold universities more accountable, ensure for more clinical trial transparency and ensure that patenting law is more fair and doesn’t only prioritize profits over people.”

The eye projection onto Beinecke Library was a symbolic critique of Yale’s patenting and licensing practices, which UAEM claims prioritize corporate profit over public access. Many drugs developed at the University rely heavily on government funding, for example from the National Institutes of Health, which UAEM argues should obligate the University to ensure affordability​.

Hausleitner described the projection as a visual call to action, “almost like a Batman logo projected into the night sky.”

Projections in Beinecke Plaza, like the one UAEM projected on Thursday, are prohibited according to University policy.

“I think in this case, just as with many protests, it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission,” Hausleitner told the News. “We did not request permission, but I think that’s for the best. Actually, I think it would be less of a powerful, impactful statement if we did. When have protests ever asked for permission?”

Sahil Mane ’24 is a part of the North America Coordinating Committee for UAEM and co-founded Yale’s UAEM chapter with Hausleitner. Mane designed the logo and set up the projection.

Mane says that he believes the projection was not meant to be a protest. According to him, the projection was up for 16 minutes and 45 seconds. A Yale Security officer asked the group to take the projection down, to which the group complied.

“This is not supposed to be adversarial to the Yale Ventures office, but more so just a reminder that we still care about how the University licenses its medications, and we’re hoping we kind of use this week to build a little bit of buzz,” Mane said. “We’re hoping to ask the tech transfer office [at Yale Ventures] to maybe make a statement, some sort of public report on how they’ve lived up to their promises to equitably license their medications for the document signed in 2009.” 

Mane referred to the Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable Dissemination of Medical Technologies developed and endorsed by several universities and the Association of University Technology Managers. Yale was one of six universities that signed the document in 2009.

The document outlines commitments to promote equitable access to health-related technologies, particularly in developing countries. These commitments include creating innovative licensing strategies that prioritize global health needs, avoiding patent barriers that could hinder access and providing financial incentives for licensees to ensure affordability. 

To measure progress, the institutions pledge to develop meaningful metrics for evaluating their efforts and to share best practices, ensuring that these principles remain a “living document” that evolves with emerging challenges and opportunities.

According to Mane, UAEM is calling for the Yale Ventures office to make a public statement on a progress update on strategies to commit to the promises the University made in 2009. 

In a Tuesday statement to the News, Yale Ventures wrote that the office continues to be “guided by” the Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable Dissemination of Medical Technologies. Yale Ventures added that the office has provided progress reports, like the Yale Ventures Annual Report, and implemented licensing strategies that meet UAEM’s demands for equitable access to medical technologies.

The team also said that Yale has been committing a percentage of sales to low-income and lower-middle-income countries since the early 2000s. 

According to Yale Ventures, Yale has been offering products at substantially reduced prices “to ensure that innovations developed with its support are accessible to underserved populations worldwide and restricts licensees’ ability to file patents or require Yale to file patents in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.”

There are 51 UAEM chapters worldwide, according to Mane.

The post Call for University-driven drug pricing reform projected onto beinecke library, violating policy appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The event delved into the ongoing legal battles between pharmaceutical companies and the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. Passed in 2022, the IRA granted HHS new authority to negotiate the prices of the most expensive drugs covered by Medicare, a government program that provides health insurance to millions of Americans aged 65 and older. 

Proponents argue that this provision reduces costs for taxpayers and patients by lowering prices on high-cost medications. However, opponents, including pharmaceutical companies, claim that these changes infringe on constitutional rights, stifle competition and discourage innovation by reducing the financial incentives for drug development. 

“This is not negotiation in any sense of the word,” James Stansel LAW ’97, the executive vice president and general counsel of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, said at the panel. 

He criticized the IRA’s provisions that allow HHS to aim to negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, describing the process as unconstitutional government overreach. 

Stansel also argued that the law discourages innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly for small molecule drugs, which are critical to treating many diseases, including cancer.

Stansel explained that, under the IRA, drugs are subject to exclusivity periods, during which profits are not capped. This period allows manufacturers to recover their investments before being subjected to government-negotiated pricing. 

Different types of drugs are subjected to varying exclusivity periods. Small-molecule drugs, for example, are subject to price controls after a seven-year exclusivity period, while biologics, a different category of drugs, are given 11 years. Stansel believes that these limits discourage research and innovation in small-molecule drugs, as profits are collected for longer on biologics. 

The panel also addressed the ongoing lawsuits against the IRA, which Stansel and PhRMA have spearheaded. 

Plaintiffs argue that the law violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, due process protections and prohibition against excessive fines. They claim that Congress delegated too much power to HHS to implement the IRA’s drug price negotiation program, allowing HHS to create and enforce economic policies without much congressional oversight. 

Similarly, plaintiffs argue that the IRA denies manufacturers the opportunity to participate in or challenge the price-setting process.

Such arguments state that the excise tax imposed on manufacturers who refuse to negotiate prices violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits excessive fines. Stansel described this tax as punitive.

Another panelist, Joel McElvain, the acting deputy general counsel for HHS, defended the IRA’s framework. He argued that the tax is lawful under existing statutory authority and part of a system that manufacturers voluntarily engage with if they choose to sell drugs through Medicare.

“Manufacturers have the option to participate or not,” McElvain said.

However, participation in Medicare is mandatory for manufacturers who produce products falling into Parts B and D — physician-administered drugs, often for serious or chronic conditions, and self-administered prescription medications. 

Drugs selected for negotiation under the IRA are among the most expensive in these programs, and manufacturers face significant financial consequences if they choose not to comply, including losing access to Medicare reimbursement. This ensures that manufacturers of these targeted drugs remain involved in the process. 

Yet, McElvain said that IRA promotes competition in the pharmaceutical market. He highlighted that the law incentivizes the development of biosimilars — cheaper alternatives to brand-name biologic drugs — which already account for 91 percent of prescriptions in the United States.

McElvain also dismissed fears of reduced pharmaceutical innovation, suggesting that the law’s impact would be minimal, describing it as real but “very small.”

The third panelist, Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, criticized both the pharmaceutical industry and the government for inefficiencies in the healthcare market. 

Cannon argued that the current system often incentivizes excessive innovation at a high cost, resulting in the development of only marginally beneficial drugs, where the costs do not reflect the benefits. 

“There’s going to be an optimal level of innovation,” Cannon said. “Beyond a certain point, you might be getting too much innovation,” suggesting that the IRA’s provisions might bring the market closer to balance.

The debate underscored the high stakes of the IRA as the legislation continues to reshape drug pricing and innovation in the United States. While proponents see it as a necessary step to control Medicare’s spiraling costs, critics warn of its potential to destabilize the pharmaceutical industry. 

Those at the event found the broad range of speakers helpful, with all three panelists weighing in with contrasting views.

“I really enjoyed it because we don’t always get the opportunity to have both sides of an argument equally represented in our talks,” moderator Alyshia Laidlaw LAW ’26 said. “I think it was great to both hear from the government and the industry.” 

The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in August 2022.

The post Law School panel discusses the future of the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare pricing appeared first on Yale Daily News.