Announcement
January 24, 2008
Three new members joined the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council in January 2008.
The council, which meets three times a year, is composed of leaders in the biological and medical sciences, education, health care and public affairs. Its members, who are appointed to four-year terms, perform the second level of peer review for research and research training grant applications assigned to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), one of the National Institutes of Health. Council members also offer advice and recommendations on policy and program development, program implementation, evaluation and other matters of significance to the mission and goals of NIGMS.
The new members are:
Mariano A. Garcia-Blanco, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. He studies mechanisms through which the genetic material RNA uses instructions in genes to make different proteins. Dr. Garcia-Blanco earned an A.B. in biochemical sciences from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and an M.D.-Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
Howard H. Garrison, Ph.D., deputy executive director for policy and director of the office of public affairs at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Bethesda, Md. His activities include policy development, legislative affairs, government relations, coalition building and communications. Dr. Garrison earned an A.B. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City. His research entails identifying and characterizing the molecular processes that underlie regeneration in flatworms. Dr. Sánchez Alvarado earned a B.S. in molecular biology and chemistry from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and a Ph.D. in pharmacology and cell biophysics from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio.
