UMass Chan appoints three to endowed chair positions

Three professors at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester will join the more than 60 faculty who’ve been appointed to endowed chair positions.

The new appointees are Eric Baehrecke, professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology, Jeanne Lawrence, professor of neurology and pediatrics, and Alan Mullen, professor of medicine and academic chief of gastroenterology, according to the June 7 announcement from the school. They join more than 60 named chairs at UMass Chan.

“Every endowed chair represents an expression of trust by the medical school’s philanthropic supporters in the promise of our faculty to advance discovery and the health and well-being of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and the world,” Chancellor Michael Collins said in a press release.

Baehrecke’s research focuses on autophagy, the intricate and orderly process by which cells degrade and recycle their components. He has been appointed as the inaugural holder of the newly created Our Danny Cancer Fund Chair in Biomedical Research II. This professorship is intended to support the work of a faculty member whose research programs help advance understanding of cancer biology or facilitate novel cancer therapeutics.

Lawrence’s research is in the field of epigenetics, chromosome regulation and noncoding RNAs. She has been appointed to the Leo P. and Theresa M. LaChance Chair in Medical Research, which was established in 2008 to support a senior physician or researcher whose work is focused on neurology, intellectual disability, or mental illness.

Mullen’s work focuses on patients with liver disease in his clinical practice while his scientific investigations have gone towards the prevention of the development or slow the progression of liver cancer and liver fibrosis. He will officially join the school’s faculty on Aug. 1 and will hold the Mary C. DeFeudis Chair in Biomedical Research.

The three chairs will be inducted at the school’s convocation and investiture ceremony, which takes place on Sept. 15 on the campus’ Albert Sherman Center Auditorium.