Collaborators

Michael Derchin is an expert in the airline and space industries. He is the founder and CEO of Derchin Airline Research, LLC, which features a weekly newsletter, “Heard in the Hangar,” that is distributed to leaders in the aviation and space industries throughout the world. He has been named a “Golden Eagle” by the Wings Club in recognition of his long-term membership in that organization. Because of his generous and consistent support of our foundation, one of our awardees was named the Michael Derchin Scholar in his honor. He continues to guide our expanding interest in space flight and recently contributed major funding to our research in that sphere. Prior to founding Derchin Airline Research LLC, he worked for a number of investment boutiques and was Chief Investment Officer of Derchin Management, Inc., a long/short hedge fund focused on bottom-up fundamental research. From 1995 to 2000, he was Managing Director and Head of Tiger Management’s transportation research team. Mr. Derchin began his Wall Street career at Oppenheimer and Co. in 1979 as an airline Analyst, followed by stints at The First Boston Corp (1982-1988) and Drexel Burnham Lambert (1988-1990). He was Director of Research at NatWest Securities, where he managed 90 investment professionals from 1990 to 1995 and headed its global transportation analytical research team. Mr. Derchin began his business career at American Airlines and worked at Pan American World Airways. As Director of Marketing Planning at American Airlines, he was heavily involved in many ground-breaking programs introduced during the early years prior to airline deregulation, such as the first loyalty program. Mr. Derchin has testified before the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, was a past member of the Aviation and Space Writers Association and is widely recognized as one of the leading experts in his field. He received a B.A. in economics from Brooklyn College and an MBA in finance and investments from the City College of New York. Mr. Derchin has also conducted doctoral work in business administration and economics at Syracuse University. He is also a patron of the arts and has been a member of the National Arts Club for over 40 years.

In addition to serving as President of the Foundation’s Board, Dean also functions as its General Counsel.  After graduating from Brandeis University (B.A., magna cum laude) and then the New York University School of Law (J.D.), Dean developed a business litigation practice as a trial and appellate attorney at the venerable firm Shea & Gould, after which Dean co-founded his own firm, Ingram Yuzek LLP, which enjoyed great success for more than 30 years. In April 2024, Dean transitioned his practice to Tarter, Krinsky & Drogin LLP, to afford his diverse client base a larger and more reticulated platform of practice areas. Throughout his career, Dean has litigated many high-profile matters, various of which have resulted in precedential court decisions that are considered as authority for deciding subsequent cases with similar facts. Dean also uniquely achieved for his client in a contentious arbitration between co-managing members of a hedge fund not only a multi-million-dollar Judgment for compensatory damages but also treble damages for violations of the civil RICO statute and punitive damages, unheard of in the annals of arbitration.  Dean is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Second and Third Circuit Federal Courts of Appeal, the Federal District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York, and all New York State Courts. Dean is consistently selected to Super Lawyers, a rating service that recognizes outstanding lawyers who have achieved a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Dean also annually receives Martindale-Hubbell’s “AV” rating, identifying  a lawyer as having the highest levels of legal abilities and ethical standards.

iJay Lieberman formed the Derfner Foundation 33 years ago with his senior partner, Harold Derfner and Mr. Derfner’s wife, Helen. Jay told us that the mission of his foundation is simply to ensure that it would do all the good possible. A review of some of the major interests of his foundation reflects Jay’s dedication to first-class heath care and to providing opportunities for the best education possible for needy and talented children. His funding has been essential in supporting the work of talented young investigators at Johns Hopkins. The Derfner support also underwrote the production of our prize-winning textbook Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine Gender in the Genomic Era 3rd Edition, which contains contributions from 50 of the world’s most accomplished scientists examining gender differences at the molecular level.  The Derfner Foundation helped to fund the Derfner-Lieberman Laboratory for Regenerative Rehabilitation Research of the Kessler Foundation. Jay’s donations have provided major support to other important health institutions in New York including Mount Sinai and the Hospital for Special Surgery. A leader in the real estate community of New York City, he received the Presidential Medal award from the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 2015.

Professor Sabra Klein is the second member of the talented and effective duo with whom we collaborate at Johns Hopkins. She was co-head with Wendy Bennett of the NIH SCORE grant that created the Center for Women’s Health, Sex and Gender Research at Johns Hopkins. A Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, her research considers how sex and gender impact the immune system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Klein investigated why men and women have different COVID-19 outcomes. Using an animal model, she showed how rodents maintain viral infections, and predicted how those viruses can be transmitted to humans. Dr. Klein is particularly interested in the differences between men and women’s immune systems, and the sex-specific responses to infection. She showed that that the X chromosome was encoded with several genes that control the immune response. She believes that estrogen alters the response of immune cells, encouraging it to start making proteins and start or stop an inflammatory response. Whilst this stronger immune response can clear viruses faster in women, it can also cause immunopathology.

Mr. and Mrs. Birch provided essential and effective financial support to our foundation since its inception. Mr. Birch was a managing partner at Oppenheimer, he led the firm’s investment round table.  Mrs. Birch, the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education at the University of Pennsylvania, is an internationally renowned city planner. The Birches’ were an invaluable resource: their major donation during the Covid epidemic sustained our program through particularly difficult times. The Birches’ have a lifetime of protean interest in the world around them. Their love of the arts and music prompted much of their unstintingly generous philanthropy. Much of the Birches’ gifts were anonymous, ranging from saving a critical piece of land in Cape Cod to funding churches, schools and other New York institutions. The Birches’ counsel and generosity have been vital to the success of our mission.

Myron Weisfeldt was the reason our conviction that biological sex was an essentially important determinant of human physiology took root in the first ever program for the study of gender- specific medicine. He urged us to find funding for our idea and embraced our efforts to engage Procter& Gamble in collaborating with the medical school in finding new interventions for the improvement of human health. This was a first-ever model: at that time, collaboration of a university system with a commercial venture was not a popular idea. It was his persuasion of the senior faculty and the then Dean Herbert Pardes that gave us the authority to form the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia. At the time we were not able to convince the university to broaden the title of the program to the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine, but we were soon able to change that with his advice and support. Effecting this partnership was not easy. The senior leadership of the university questioned whether or not any of us were going to receive specific personal financial support from P&G to establish this program; Doctor Weisfeldt was able to demonstrate that this was absolutely not the case; the funding was given exclusively to the medical school and used to support the joint program there. It was Doctor Weisfeldt’s departure from Columbia to chair the department of medicine at Johns Hopkins that prompted us to move our program to a private foundation, as the chairman of medicine at Columbia that succeeded Doctor Weisfeldt did not share in our enthusiasm for gender-specific medicine. Happily, our foundation survived the transition, in no small part due to Doctor Weisfeldt’s continued support of our work. He continues to encourage our work with programs at Johns Hopkins and effected Dr. Legato’s appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins in 2006. As Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins and Medical Consultant for Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, Doctor Weisfeldt provides advice on strategies and evaluation of intellectual property of Johns Hopkins faculty. Dr. Weisfeldt was Chairman of the Cardiology Advisory Board of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute from 1987 to 1990 and was the President of the American Heart Association in 1990. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Sam J. Nole advises our Foundation on financial matters. A graduate of the State University of New York, he also holds a Master’s Business Education Degree from Iona College. After eight years of association with three public accounting and tax planning firms in New York, Mr. Nole established his own practice in 1985. Since then, he has built an eclectic and boutique practice and has become extremely well versed in both U.S. and international taxation. Currently he is writing a Federal revenue ruling request concerning the taxation of special forward contracts for an international lawsuit. He is also in the process of fulfilling a client’s request for a technical opinion concerning the taxation of a retirement account which is indirectly funded by State and City government monies from Union membership dues. He has assisted the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State of New York regarding criminal cases.  Mr. Nole has extensive accounting experience in the areas of bankruptcy, divorce and business valuation.  He has testified at mediation conferences, including at the Judicial Arbitration & Mediation Services (JAMS) proceedings. Mr. Nole has served on the Boards of many not-for-profit organizations and provides financial consulting services to a wide range of community organizations. He previously served on the Advisory Board of Spuyten Duyvil Infantry Pre-School, Inc., a parent cooperative since 1982.  Mr. Nole has been the Treasurer and Board of Director Member of Riverdale Mental Health Association, a not-for-profit, mental health clinic serving the Northwest Bronx and other areas of New York City.  He resigned from both organizations in 2002 in order to devote more time to his growing practice.

Dr. Wendy Bennett is one of our two close collaborators at Johns Hopkins; she is the co-head of the Center for Women’s Health, Sex and Gender Research. We have been a major supporter of her efforts there to further her work in the prevention and management of obesity and type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease among women at high risk.. Her efforts at patient care are based both in the clinic and on effective outreach to the community She focuses in particular at developing and testing health-coaching behavioral interventions to promote healthy lifestyle and weight gain in pregnancy and postpartum care and has established a system of in early home visiting programs. We were able to give major support to a multiyear grant she supervised from the National Institutes of Health which created a Specialized Center of Research Excellence, concentrating on sex and age differences in immunity. Her center also used supplementary grants from us to support to young investigators helping to stem the havoc of the covid epidemic. Doctor Bennett enjoys joint appointments in the Departments of Medicine and Gynecology at Johns Hopkins, as well as at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Departments of Epidemiology and Population, Family and Reproductive Health.
 

The extensive philanthropy of Thomas F. Secunda, Co-Founder, Vice Chairman and Member of the Management Committee of Bloomberg, LP, covers a broad spectrum of interests through the Secunda Family Foundation. Mr. Secunda has been an extremely generous donor to our foundation, awarding us 2 million dollars for the support of young investigators throughout the world. Mr. Secunda is a signatory of The Giving Pledge, by which an individual commits to donating half of his wealth to philanthropy either during his lifetime or in his will. Mr. Secunda’s wife and daughters are deeply involved in the decisions he makes regarding the causes he supports and he views his foundation as a genuine family affair. The Secunda Family Foundation focuses on improving community life in two ways: supporting the development and improvement of public lands and national parks and enhancing the reach and depth of museums and cultural institutions. Other gifts are awarded to support medical research (from which among others, we have benefited) and to Jewish causes, particularly programs designed to fight antisemitism. Most recently, effective relief to and restoration of facilities in the US Virgin Islands accelerated their recovery from the devastation wreaked by Hurricanes and Irma and Maria.

One of the two prestigious chairwomen of our annual gala celebrations, Marlene Kurz continuously provides our Foundation  with wise counsel and guidance. She is a highly experienced and accomplished business leader, serving as a fourth-generation co-owner and Vice President of A.K. Stamping in Mountainside, New Jersey. She has over 46 years of experience in various roles within the company: early in her career, she was trained by IBM on 5340 mainframe systems before pivoting to the family business, where she continues to play a key part in strategic decision-making and overseeing changes in the company’s US and China manufacturing divisions. A graduate of Bucknell University, she also attended courses at the prestigious Wharton School of Business. Ms. Kurz is a dedicated philanthropist; she is actively involved in civic and charitable organizations, serving as an Executive Committee member of UCEDC, a Non-Profit Economic Development Corporation in New Jersey. Her impressive career and commitment to both business and community reflect her strong leadership, adaptability, and dedication to our community.

One of the most effective partnerships our foundation has ever enjoyed was that with Craig Wynett, who was appointed by the then chairman of P&G, Mr. John Pepper, to make our program a reality. At the time, Mr. Wynett was the chief creative officer at P&G and had founded a new startup within the company, Corporate New Ventures, which commanded a 250-million-dollar budget to seek out in an effort to produce innovative new products. Fortunately, Mr. Wynett believed a partnership with a major university was an ideal way to fuse the talents of corporate expertise in manufacturing and marketing new commodities and the scientists whose ground-breaking discoveries would be ideal concepts for new products. Over a two-year period, he, Doctor Weisfeldt and Dr. Legato collaborated in creating a rich tapestry of ideas for the new venture. Our days were filled with laughter, excitement and unbounded enthusiasm for the program. He was an essential ingredient of our ultimate success and those early days, filled as they were with the humor and creativity of this unique individual remain one of our most important memories. Mr. Wynett’s development methods have been studied by Harvard researchers and replicated by R&D executives from a myriad of other multinationals. Mr. Wynett is the co-author with Mehmet Oz of You: The Owner’s Manual, which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

Dr. Marek Glezerman understood the power of gender-specific medicine from the earliest days of its conception as an idea; he was a friend and collaborator with Dr. Legato from the first international conference in Berlin in 2006 that assembled the small group advancing the new science. His wisdom and competence were a major factor in making gender specific medicine a solid and ever evolving new concept—a concept which now has proven to be valid even for single cell studies harvested from astronauts and appearing in the current issue of Nature, reporting important sex differences in the impact of space travel on humans. He not only is the Founding President of The Israel Society for Gender-and Sex-Conscious Medicine but was the moving force in welding together a group of international experts to form the International Society for Gender- Specific Medicine. His career is studded with a remarkable list of accomplishments: he is Professor Emeritus Chairman of Gender Medicine and chairman of the Ethics Committee at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. He has also served as the director of the Research Center for Gender Medicine at the Rabin Medical Center. He is also a member of the Israel Ministry of Health’s National Council for Obstetrics and Gynecology, Genetics and Perinatology. He has written and/or edited five books and has published more than 330 scientific articles in professional journals.

Dr. Martin R. Post, founder of the New York Cardiology Associates, is an expert whose assistance we seek on a near-daily basis to help us sort out some of the most complex issues our patients face. He has a broad palate of philanthropic support which happily includes substantial gifts to our Foundation’s funding of our young investigators at institutions through the world. His support for justice and equality is realized through his work with the JPB Foundation, which addresses the daunting challenges of our time: voting rights, the defense of minority groups and innovative ways to combat authoritarianism, attesting to his strong interest in helping all humans to achieve a more successful and empowered existence. Doctor Post is a man of impeccable rectitude and modesty; we value his counsel and support.

Dr. Giuseppe Caracciolo is without question one of the most valuable colleagues our Foundation has ever had. He has been a sophisticated advisor and supporter of our work from its inception. As the Scientific Affairs & Operations Director at the Menarini Foundation in Italy, he helped us produce a series of world-class seminars devoted to some of the most important problems in medicine. He is an experienced and well-trained physician in addition to his remarkable administrative competence: he is a cardiologist with a rich history of working both in the clinical setting with patients and in the pharmaceutical industry. His work with a series of prestigious world-class institutions including the University of Messina, the Icahn School of Medicine, The Mayo Clinic, and UC Irvine, enriched his research expertise and gave him the responsibility to plan, supervise and bring to fruition valuable clinical trials. In his leadership role at the Menarini Foundation, he was an integral part of the team that conceptualized the Menarini Foundation’s new House of Science, a building in Fiesole dedicated to the hosting of distinguished scientists from around the world who explore current topics of worldwide interest in biomedicine. His latest gift to us is his guidance and collaboration with our recent symposium in Florence, “Building a Spacefaring Civilization: Advancing the Renaissance of Science, Medicine and Human Performance in Civilian Spaceflight.” The intellectual achievements of our own Foundation and the international biomedical community have been in a very real sense immeasurably enriched by his gifts of advice and support to all of us.

Carine Joannou’s leadership with Marlene Kurz of our fundraising efforts is best exemplified in her co-chairmanship of our annual gala, a major source of support for our organization. Her work with us mirrors many of the ingredients in her history as her leadership of her family’s firm, Jamis Bicycles. Her company is a remarkable example of entrepreneurial spirit, vision, and dedication to preserving her family legacy. Her father, a Cyprus immigrant, began importing lightweight English bicycles from the UK to the United States in 1937, just before World War II. After his passing in 1981, the family faced a crucial decision about the future of the business. Carine, just 22 years old at the time, chose to continue her father’s dream and honor his legacy. In 1979, she acquired Jamis Bicycles, and later, NIRVE Bicycles, a cruiser lifestyle brand that complemented Jamis’ focus on high-end bikes. The company is present in 24 countries around the world and sold through a network of bicycle retailers across the USA. Over the past four decades, both Jamis and NIRVE have maintained strong reputations for their history, legacy, and commitment to designing bikes by cyclists, for cyclists. Carine’s journey exemplifies the power of vision, resilience, and the importance of adapting to changing market dynamics, all while staying true to her father’s high standards.

Isobel and Marvin Slomowitz are a husband and wife team that used their enthusiasm for our program to help us produce our first gala at the Doubles Club 10 years ago, convinced in the importance of our mission and urging their friends to help support our cause. When we asked Isobel what to list as the most important component of her partnership with us, she answered: “25 years of instant and forever friendship.” They have been an unending source of counsel and financial contributions to help us develop a robust scholarship program for young investigators. Their interest in health care began with Mr. Slomowitz’s service in Korea, where his heroism in tending the wounded earned him a Bronze Star. The Slomowitz’s philanthropy is legion: they have donated an operating suite at the Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petah Tikvah and established a chair at the Hadassah Medical Center in Israel. They are President’s Circle members of the famed Weitzman Institute of Science. New York Presbyterian Hospital is a prime beneficiary of their support: they endowed the Isobel and Marvin Slomowtiz Pre-Operative Care Center there and helped finance the Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center.

Dr. Donald W. Landry served as the Physician-in-Chief at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons from 2007 through 2023. He was crucially important for us as the second chairman of medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons who offered substantial and effective help to our work. When it was clear that we were setting up our foundation as a private entity, we asked him if we could use the M. Irené Ferrer fund of almost one million dollars that we had raised in her honor for the support of our work. He was immediately helpful and negotiated an arrangement in which the income from that fund would be used to support the work of young investigators at Columbia. Those chosen were required to use the parameter of biological sex in planning their research protocols. In addition to his invaluable help as department chairman, he had a particularly engaging historical tie with us; at the time that Procter & Gamble came to see what we as Columbia research faculty could offer in terms of important projects, Doctor Landry, then a young investigator, presented his ground breaking work on cocaine antibodies, one of the standouts of that site visit. He has been a source of support and counsel that has kept us in close collaboration with the Columbia faculty. Dr. Landry was the founding director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics and is currently the President of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters. He received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President George W. Bush for his work in stem cell research.