While many Tulane doctors will be moving to new locations in mid-January, faculty and staff on Tulane health insurance plans can still expect the same excellent care and coverage from their physicians. Employees enrolled in university medical plans receive reduced levels of copay fees for both primary care and specialist Tulane doctors.

The Tulane University School of Medicine's partnership with LCMC Health will expand local access to comprehensive and specialty care, advance academic medicine, and boost innovation and training opportunities throughout a broader footprint in the Gulf South region. Plus - you’ll still find many great Tulane doctors right downtown! 

Click here for a complete list of clinic location updates.

As of January 15th, 2024, Tulane providers can be seen at East Jefferson General and Lakeside Hospitals in Metairie, Touro Infirmary LCMC Health uptown, Lakeview Medical Center in Covington, and University Medical Center in downtown New Orleans. A free-standing emergency room and several clinics will remain in the former Tulane Medical Center downtown, and there are many more Tulane Doctors clinics around the region. If you aren’t sure where your doctor is located, you can visit TulaneDoctors.com anytime for a complete list of clinics and locations.

“Just because some of our physicians are relocating does not mean we are going anywhere; it means we are going everywhere! We are ensuring that our top-notch doctors are as accessible as ever and bringing the future of medicine to even more people in our community,” says Kim Peters, CEO of the Tulane University Medical Group. “Providing continuous coverage and care for our patients is our top priority, whether at a TUMG-operated clinic or in an LCMC Health facility.”

For more on the health benefits for Tulane employees, 

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The Tulane Transplant Institute offers comprehensive disease management for patients with end-stage organ disease of the kidney, liver, and pancreas. 

Tulane Doctors Extend Their Reach in 2024

How can you tell if a fruit fly is hungry? Ask a computer.

While that may sound like a bad dad joke, it’s reality at Tulane University, where researchers have developed a new A.I. tool that can tell you if a fruit fly is hungry, sleepy or singing (yes, fruit flies sing).

Dubbed MAFDA (for Novel Machine-learning-based Automatic Fly-behavioral Detection and Annotation) the system uses cameras and a newly developed software to track and identify complex interactive behaviors of individual flies within a larger group. This allows researchers to compare and contrast the behaviors of fruit flies with different genetic backgrounds.

For more than a century, scientists have used fruit flies’ simple genome and short lifespan to decode mysteries of inheritance and immunity in humans with studies of 

, as fruit flies are known in the scientific world, nabbing six Nobel Prizes. Fruit flies and humans share 60 percent of the same DNA.

Previous algorithms were less accurate at tracking individual flies within a group, but the MAFDA system makes studying the tiny, winged insects easier.

“Fruit flies are like pioneers in the discovery of new things, from innate immunity to the chromosome theory of inheritance,” said corresponding author 

, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and the Gerald & Flora Jo Mansfield Piltz Endowed Professor in Cancer Research at Tulane School of Medicine. “To be able to quantify the flies’ behavior is really a step forward in behavior studies.”

Wenkan Liu, a School of Medicine graduate student who developed the MAFDA system, said the significance of the platform is “undeniable.”

“It speeds up research, minimizes human error, and provides intricate insights into behavior genetics,” Liu said. “This tool is potentially pivotal as it enhances reproducibility and paves the way for new explorations in large-scale behavioral analysis.”

MAFDA was developed as part of a recent study, which discovered that the gene that causes flies to perceive pheromones, chemical substances produced by other fruit flies that are vital to attraction and other processes, is the same gene that controls pheromone production in the first place. These findings, 

, challenge the status quo view that separate genes control pheromone production and perception. The findings have broad applications in the fields of human behavioral evolution, metabolism and sex dimorphism.

Going forward, the researchers hope to see MAFDA used in a variety of applications. Jie Sun, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at Tulane School of Medicine, said MAFDA could eventually be used to study other insects as well as mice and fish, and the system may be useful in studying drug effects in humans.

“The more information we give the machine, the better it gets at correctly identifying different behaviors from courtship to feeding and so on,” Sun said. “This is a very important, meaningful tool.”

MAFDA is already in use on other research projects at Tulane and researchers are working to package the system so it can be used by more scientists both at Tulane and around the world .

“That’s the goal,” Deng said. “The original idea was to be able to identify the health status of flies. That may be too much to ask right now, but we’re hoping this will be more broadly used by the community and hopefully in the future we can go in that direction."

The Novel Machine-learning-based Automatic Fly-behavioral Detection and Annotation system uses cameras and a newly developed software to track and identify complex interactive behaviors of individual flies within a larger group, allowing researchers to compare and contrast the behaviors of fruit flies with different genetic backgrounds. 

A New AI System Can Decode Fruit Fly Behaviors: Why That’s ‘Pivotal’ for Future Human Genetics Research

Stefan C. Grant, MD, JD, MBA, will serve as the next Chief of the Section of Hematology and Medical Oncology in the John W. Deming Department of Medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. Dr Grant will also serve as Deputy Director of the Tulane Cancer Center and Deputy Director of the Louisiana Cancer Research Center (LCRC). He joined Tulane and the LCRC on March 15, 2023.

Dr Grant is a thoracic medical oncologist who comes to Tulane from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he was Professor of Medicine within their Section of Hematology and Oncology. He also served as Associate Director for Clinical Trial Operations within the National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center; under his leadership of clinical trials operations, the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant was twice renewed. He was Director for Intellectual Property Strategy and Maintenance within the Center for Technology Innovation and Commercialization at Wake Forest. Previously, Dr Grant served as Medical Director of the Hematology Oncology Clinic at Acton Road at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and within its NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr Grant is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology. He obtained his medical degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and underwent postgraduate training in South Africa and the United Kingdom. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and his fellowship in Hematology and Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. After completing his fellowship, he joined the faculty of Memorial Sloan-Kettering within the Thoracic Oncology Service of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College. While in New York, he obtained his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. He is a member of the New York state bar and is a registered patent attorney. In addition, Dr Grant holds an MBA from UAB’s Collat School of Business.

Dr Grant’s research has been focused on immunologic approaches to the treatment of lung cancer, the use of targeted therapies, and pragmatic clinical trials. Dr Grant served a three-year term as a member of the steering committee of the Association of American Cancer Institute Clinical Research Innovation and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.

 served as Section Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Tulane for over seventeen years. Dr Leissinger will remain an active faculty member and continue to serve as Director of the Louisiana Center for Bleeding and Clotting Disorders with a greater focus on research and mentorship. 

Dr Grant will bring fresh perspectives and new ideas to our community, joining many outstanding clinicians, physician-scientists, and basic scientists delivering excellence in education, patient care, and research.

Stefan C. Grant, MD, JD, MBA, will serve as the next Chief of the Section of Hematology and Medical Oncology in the John W. Deming Department of Medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. 

Tulane Cancer Center

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Tulane Doctors Extend Their Reach in 2024

A New AI System Can Decode Fruit Fly Behaviors: Why That’s ‘Pivotal’ for Future Human Genetics Research

Dr Stefan C. Grant to serve as Section Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology