URMC Scientist Honored by American Society for Clinical Investigation

University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Laura M. Calvi, M.D., a rising biomedical scientist, was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation, one of the nation's oldest and most respected medical honor societies.

The ASCI accepts about 75 of the country’s top scientists into its ranks each year. URMC has 18 members in this elite organization.

“The ASCI selects the best and brightest in scientific research and naturally they have included Laura Calvi,” said Mark Taubman, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry. “She is a talented scientist and clinician, and we have high expectations for her.”

Calvi is a former Pew Scholar and recognized for her novel cancer stem cell research within URMC’s James P. Wilmot Cancer Center. She studies blood stem cells and their relationship to leukemia, the bone marrow microenvironment, and bone-forming osteoblasts. Because cancer patients often lose the ability to quickly reproduce healthy blood cells after aggressive treatment, one important aspect of her work tests new opportunities to replenish normal cells in the bone marrow. 

Her research work crosses disciplines including endocrinology, stem cell biology, musculoskeletal disease and radiation biology. Calvi is a member of the URMC Center for Musculoskeletal Research and the Center for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation.

She is an associate professor of Medicine, Endocrinology/Metabolism and Neurosurgery. Calvi  and colleague G. Edward Vates, M.D., Ph.D., helped develop the Multidisciplinary Neuro-endocrinology Clinic as a center of excellence for management of patients with pituitary tumors.

A graduate of Union College, Calvi earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and then completed her residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. She then pursued fellowship training in endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital, working with Stina Schipani, M.D., Ph.D., Hank Kronenberg, M.D., and David Scadden, M.D., and trained in neuroendocrinology at its Neuroendocrine Clinical Center and Pituitary Tumor Center. She joined the University of Rochester Medical Center in 2002 and has built a strong research lab and clinical program.