School of Medicine announces latest round of faculty promotions

Stanford Report, April 28, 2004

By JOYCE THOMAS

James I. Fann, MD, was promoted to associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery.

Based at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Fann studies endovascular approaches to cardiac valve repair, non-surgical lung volume reduction and minimally invasive heart surgery. He chairs the animal-care subcommittee at the VA.

Fann received his medical degree in 1985 from Northwestern University. He completed a general surgery residency, vascular surgery fellowship and cardiothoracic surgery residency at Stanford. He became a staff surgeon at the VA in 1996 and joined the Stanford faculty in 2000.

Stephen L. Huhn, MD, was promoted to associate professor of neurosurgery and, by courtesy, of pediatrics. He is chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Packard.

Huhn won the Harman Pediatric Clinical Scholar Initiative Award in 2002, which provides a three-year grant to study neural progenitor cells in pediatric brain tumors. He will be principal investigator on an upcoming trial using neural stem cell implantation for Batten's disease. He received the 2003 Stanford Neurosurgery Faculty Teaching Award, given by neurosurgery residents.

Huhn obtained his medical degree in 1987 from the University of Arizona and completed residencies in surgery and neurosurgery at the University of Maryland. His fellowship training included two years in neuro-oncology at UCSF's Brain Tumor Research Center and a year in pediatric neurological surgery at Northwestern. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1996.

Anna Messner, MD, was promoted to associate professor of otolaryngology and of pediatrics. She established the first specialty clinic in pediatric otolaryngology at Packard.

In 1998 she became service chief of pediatric otolaryngology and in 2002 she was appointed residency director of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery.
Her research includes congenital cytomegalovirus infections in children, congenital hearing loss, perioperative care of the tonsillectomy patient, ankyloglossia and vocal cord paralysis.

She received her MD in 1989 from Bowman-Gray, Wake Forest University, where she remained for a residency in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery. She completed a pediatric otolaryngology fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, and joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.

George Van Hare, MD, was promoted to professor of pediatrics. He directs the pediatric cardiology fellowship program.

Van Hare, a leading pediatric electrophysiologist, is director of the joint pediatric arrhythmia center that serves Stanford and UCSF as well as Northern California. He has pioneered many electrophysiology procedures in children including radiofrequency ablation and advanced arrhythmia-mapping techniques.

He received his medical degree in 1980 from the University of Connecticut and completed a pediatrics residency at Case Western Reserve followed by fellowships in pediatrics at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and in pediatric cardiology at UCSF. He served on the UCSF faculty and at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland before his recruitment to Stanford in 1998.

Molecular biologist Zijie Sun, PhD, was promoted to associate professor (research) of urology and of genetics. He serves on the biochemical endocrinology section and the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive & Kidney Diseases special study section for urology research. He has served as scientific reviewer for the prostate cancer program of the Department of Defense since 2000. At Stanford he directed research in the Department of Surgery (otolaryngology) for five years and then moved last September to the Department of Urology.

Sun received his MD in 1983 from the Wannan Medical College and a PhD in molecular microbiology in 1988 from Shanghai Medical University. In 1989 he emigrated from China to the United States and completed postdoctoral fellowships in molecular biology at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and Harvard. Before joining Stanford in 1998 he was an instructor in medicine and staff physician in the cancer biology program at Harvard.