NIDDK Welcomes Four New Members to Advisory Council
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt appointed four
new members to the Advisory Council of the National Institute of
Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the institute
announced today. NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The
NIH is the federal agency with primary responsibility for funding
and conducting biomedical research within the United States.
The NIDDK advisory council meets three times annually to advise
the NIDDK about its research portfolio. The council typically undertakes
broad issues of science policy. Members of the advisory council
are drawn from the scientific and lay communities, are appointed
for four-year terms, and represent all areas within the institute's
research mission. An important role of the council is to provide
second-level peer review of grant applications that have been scored
by scientific review groups. The council members are an important
liaison between the research communities they represent and the
NIDDK, which supports each community's research efforts.
NIDDK Director, Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D., M.A.C.P., will chair
the advisory council meeting on Jan. 30 and introduce the following
new members:
David M. Altshuler, M.D., Ph.D., is assistant
professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School, is
a member of the Diabetes Unit and Department of Molecular Biology
at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is the director of the Program
in Medical and Population Genetics at the Whitehead Institute/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Genome Research
in Boston. His research interests include the study of human
genome sequence variation as a way to understand the inherited
basis of common human diseases, with a particular focus on the
genetic basis of type 2 diabetes and its complications. Dr.
Altshuler joins the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases
(DEM) Subcommittee.
Nancy C. Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., is dean and vice
chancellor of Academic Affairs at Duke University School of Medicine
in Durham, N.C. Dr. Andrews is the first
woman to be appointed dean of Duke's School of Medicine and
is the only woman to lead one of the nation's top 10 medical
schools. Prior to her appointment at Duke, she served as
dean for Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies at Harvard Medical
School in Boston. She is also an internationally renowned
researcher in the fields of pediatric hematology and oncology. Dr.
Andrews' research interests include the study of iron absorption
and its role in hereditary hemochromatosis, an inherited disease
that causes an accumulation of excess iron in the body. Dr.
Andrews joins the Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases (KUH)
Subcommittee.
James W. Freston, M.D., Ph.D.,
is the Boehringer Ingelheim Chair of Clinical Pharmacology and
professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of
Medicine at Farmington. Dr. Freston's research interests
include the clinical pharmacology of digestive diseases, including
acid-related disorders and drug-induced liver injury. He
is a member of the NIDDK-funded National Drug-Induced Liver Injury
Network (DILIN). Dr. Freston was appointed to the NIDDK
Advisory Council last year for a one-year term and has been reappointed
this year for a four-year term. He will continue to serve
on the Digestive Diseases and Nutrition (DDN) Subcommittee.
James P. Schlicht, M.P.A.,
is executive vice president and chief government affairs and
advocacy officer at the American Diabetes Association (ADA). Mr.
Schlicht is a member of the senior management team at the ADA
and reports directly to the ADA chief executive officer. He
is directly responsible for management of all advocacy and government
affairs functions and is responsible for formulation, adoption,
strategic development and implementation of all public policy
positions of the ADA. Prior to joining the ADA, Mr. Schlicht
worked for several pharmaceutical companies in the area of government
affairs. He also served as a management analyst in the
U.S. General Accounting Office and as a budget specialist in
the U.S. Office of Management and Budget before serving as a
staff aide to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Mr.
Schlicht joins the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases
(DEM) Subcommittee.
NIDDK conducts and supports research in diabetes and other endocrine
and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition, and obesity;
and kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases. Spanning the full
spectrum of medicine and afflicting people of all ages and ethnic
groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, severe,
and disabling conditions affecting Americans. For more information
about NIDDK and its programs, see www.niddk.nih.gov.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's
Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and
Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting
and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research,
and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and
its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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