Dr. Kellie Murphy and Dr. Ted Brown receive Dr. Alan Bocking Lifetime Academic Achievement Award for 2022
From our colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital:
We would like to congratulate Dr. Kellie Murphy and Dr. Ted Brown on receiving Mount Sinai's Dr. Alan Bocking — Lifetime Academic Achievement Award for 2022.
Dr. Murphy completed her obstetrical residency program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in 1995, followed by her Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellowship and Master of Epidemiology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and School of Public Health in New York. In July of 1998, she joined the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is a Professor at the University of Toronto and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation at U of T. Over her career, her primary research interests have included the use of antenatal corticosteroid therapy, infectious diseases, clinical trials and perinatal epidemiology. She has delivered more than 200 local, national and international invited lectures, published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles with a Scopus-generated h index of 44, and is recognized as a leading expert in antenatal corticosteroid therapy.
She was the Principal Investigator of the international multicentre randomized controlled trial, “Multiple courses of Antenatal Corticosteroids for preterm birth Study” MACS, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). This study recruited 1,858 participants, through 80 centres from 20 countries. Unlike the prior trials, which suggested that multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids might be associated with respiratory benefit, MACS demonstrated that repeated courses of antenatal corticosteroids were not beneficial but were significantly associated with a decrease in birth weight, length and head circumference. MACS globally changed the clinical practice of dosing antenatal corticosteroids toward a more cautious approach.
Currently, she is Co-Principal Investigator of CIHR funded “SiNgle dose of Antenatal Corticosteroids SNACS non-inferiority randomized control trial for people at risk of preterm birth Study.” SNACS intends to randomize 3,250 people to single vs. standard double dose of antenatal corticosteroid therapy from tertiary centres in Canada and Australia.
Her other randomized clinical trial involvement and contributions include: MiTy Metformin in Type II Diabetes Mellitus, CONCEPTT Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Women with Type 1 Diabetes in Pregnancy Trial, CHIPS Control of Hypertension In Pregnancy Study, DUC Delayed Umbilical Cord Clamping in Preterm Infants, SUMMIT Scaling Up Psychological Treatments for Perinatal Depression and Anxiety Symptoms via Telemedicine, tDCS Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Depression in Pregnancy, Prenatal Vitamin D trial in Bangladesh and The ProSPAR Study: Progesterone Supplementation for HIV Positive Pregnant Women on Antiretrovirals.
In July 2014, she was appointed Head of Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Mount Sinai Hospital. In this position, she has overseen the annual departmental grant competitions, advised and supported faculty research, and overseen the activities of the research staff. In July 2015, she was appointed Vice Chair, Research for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Toronto. In this role, she has been responsible for the organization of the U of T Research Day, Merit Award competition, CREMS and Chair's Summer Student competition, and most recently the Synergy Grant competition. In both of these roles, she has worked diligently to mentor, support and teach others. Finally, this includes the mentorship of numerous graduate students, medical students, residents, fellows, nurses, midwives, and junior faculty in support of their efforts to achieve their educational and research goals.
Dr. Ted Brown obtained his PhD in Zoology, with a focus on neuroendocrinology, from Iowa State University, which he completed at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He was awarded an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship upon completion of his PhD and spent four years in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University. He joined our department in 1989 and moved to the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) upon the merger of the Mount Sinai and Toronto General Hospital OB-GYN Departments in 2000.
The Brown laboratory has been continuously funded by several major granting agencies, including MRC/CIHR, the US Department of Defense, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Ontario Cancer Network and NSERC. His work transitioned through the years from a neuroendocrine focus to prostate cancer and then to ovarian cancer. He holds the Mount Sinai Auxiliary Chair in Women’s Health and Ovarian Cancer. Recent work in his laboratory has centred on understanding a potential role for ovulation in the development of high-grade serous ovarian cancer. He has published over 115 peer-reviewed papers and 7 book chapters with a Scopus-generated h index of 42 and 6,238 citations. A large number of his graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and mentored clinical residents have successfully published their findings and progressed their careers.
Dr. Brown contributes to the academic mission of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in several ways. At the University department level, he served as the head of the REI Division from 2005 until 2020, and was recently appointed as the inaugural head of the Division of Reproductive Sciences. He has been a member of the University department’s Executive Committee since 2005 and sits on a number of department committees, including the senior promotions committee, research committee, faculty appointments committee, and faculty development committee, and has played an instrumental role in organizing the department’s annual Research Day for many years. Within the Sinai Health System OB/GYN department, Dr. Brown chairs the Points Adjudication Committee and chairs the Biosafety Committee in the LTRI, and regularly participates in the adjudication of internal department grant applications. He also previously served on the UHN Institutional Research Ethics Board for 12 years.
Dr. Brown holds cross-appointments to the Department of Physiology, the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP), and the Institute of Medical Research (IMS). He sits on the Leadership Committee and Graduate Faculty Appointments Committee in IMS and directs the IMS Summer Undergraduate Research Program. He sits on the Graduate Academic Committee in the Department of Physiology and on the Curriculum Committee for the MHSc Laboratory Medicine Program in the Department of LMP. He is a committed educator and since 1999 has directed an Advanced Reproductive Physiology course offered to fourth-year undergraduate students and graduate students. He also co-directs a graduate course in Clinical Research Approaches offered through the LMP department and assists with the delivery of MSC1008, an IMS graduate course in Embryology and Teratology. Through the years, he has developed a number of courses and has participated in several courses by providing tutorials and lectures.
