Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt has appointed five 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. NIDDK Director, Allen M. Spiegel, M.D., welcomed the following members at NIDDK’s February meeting:

Janice Lee Arnold, M.D., is a board certified urologist with 15 years of practice in the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area. Dr. Arnold’s area of expertise is lower urinary tract disorders involving the prostate and urinary bladder. She is one of the area’s leading specialists in the treatment of urinary incontinence and has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and promote research funding of prostate cancer. She is an Executive Board member of the Northern Virginia Medical Society and is on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Division of the American Cancer Society. She is currently serving as President of the National Society of Women in Urology. Dr. Arnold joins the Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases (KUH) Subcommittee.

Janet O. Brown-Friday, R.N., M.S.N., M.P.H., is the Clinical Manager of the Diabetes Clinical Trials Unit at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. As Clinical Trials Manager Ms. Brown-Friday is responsible for multiple NIH-funded clinical trials and acts as supervisor of all clinical operations, including oversight or submission of protocols to all Institutional Review Boards (IRB), staff education and development, direct case management of study volunteers, management of study data, development of patient education materials, patient education, and manager of clinical budget. From 1995 until 2002, Ms. Brown-Friday was the Albert Einstein College of Medicine study coordinator and supervisor for the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and was a member of the DPP national study group protocol development team. Ms. Brown-Friday is currently serving as the study coordinator of the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS) at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ms. Brown-Friday is also a member of the National Diabetes Education Program’s African American Workgroup and DPP Translation Workgroup. She joins the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases (DEM) Subcommittee.

Jeffrey Scott Flier, M.D., is the George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also the Chief Academic Officer and Harvard Faculty Dean for Academic Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Flier’s research interests include the study of molecular biology of insulin action in health and disease, the pathophysiology of obesity and weight regulation, the physiology of leptin, and transgenic models of diabetes and obesity. From 1974 to 1978, Dr. Flier served as a Clinical Associate in the Diabetes Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases, the predecessor of the current NIDDK, in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Flier is a member of the American Diabetes Association, the Endocrine Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He joins the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases (DEM) Subcommittee.

William L. Henrich, M.D., is the Theodore E. Woodward Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He is also the Physician-in-Chief of the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Henrich’s research interests include hemodynamic stability during dialysis, analgesic effects on the kidney, and the intrarenal renin-angiotensin system. Dr. Henrich is a past and current NIH and NIDDK grantee and has served as an NIH study section Chair, as well as an External Review Committee Chair. He is an active member of the National Kidney Foundation, the American Society of Nephrology, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Henrich joins the Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases (KUH) Subcommittee.

Brian P. Monahan, M.D., FACP, is Associate Professor of Medicine and Hematology/Oncology Division Director in the Department of Medicine at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Maryland. As such, he serves as Program Director in Hematology and Medical
Oncology at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. He is the Chair of the Department of Defense Working Group on Cancer Research and Policy at the United States Military Cancer Institute. He is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore. His research interests include translational research, graduate medical education in hematology and medical oncology, phase I clinical trials of novel anti-cancer agents, and malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Monahan is a Captain in the United States Navy, and has distinguished himself with more than 19 years of military service. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Hematology, American College of Physicians and the American Medical Association. Dr. Monahan will serve as an Ex-Officio member of the Advisory Council.

They will serve until 2008.

Established by law and charter, 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 4-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.