Anne L. Thurn, Ph.D., Director, Evidence-Based Review Program

Anne L. Thurn, Ph.D. joined the ODS as the Director of the office’s new Evidence-Based Review Program in 2002. The evidence-based reviews will help to fulfill ODS’ mission by stimulating research in dietary supplements. She also oversees the development of information for the public on botanical dietary supplements.

Prior to joining the ODS, Dr. Thurn worked for the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 2000, Dr. Thurn was selected as Director, Cancer Information Products and Systems (CIPS). CIPS encompasses four separate branches and includes a staff of more than 50. In her capacity as Director, Dr. Thurn had overall responsibilities for all activities and operations of the program, including information development, maintenance, and dissemination, evaluation of new technologies, development of partnerships with organizations sharing common goals, and development and maintenance of the Cancer.gov web site.

In 1997, Dr. Thurn became Chief of the International Cancer Research Databank Branch (ICRDB) and was responsible for overseeing the development of content and user interfaces for NCI cancer information. During her tenure as Chief of the ICRDB, Dr. Thurn led the effort to develop a central NCI dictionary of cancer terms, implemented a program for the development of NCI’s first evidence-based information on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and directed the efforts of senior staff in the redesign of the CancerNet website. Since its launch in November 1999, CancerNet has received numerous awards, including first prize for patient information from the British Medical Association.

Dr. Thurn began her work at NCI in 1992 as a Scientific Review Administrator and supervised the work of the PDQ Editorial Boards of cancer experts responsible for development and maintenance of the evidence-based, peer-reviewed cancer information summaries. She also directed NCI’s efforts in writing clinical trials abstracts for consumers and in coordinating the review of the summaries by cancer advocacy organizations.

Dr. Thurn received her Ph.D. from the department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Columbia University in New York. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.