HHS Secretary Names Five to NIAID Advisory Council
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced five appointments to the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council, the principal advisory body of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The council provides recommendations on the conduct and support of research, including training young scientists and disseminating health information derived from NIAID research. The council is composed of physicians, scientists and representatives of the public who contribute their time and expertise for a four-year term.
The new council members are: Luis A. Diaz, M.D., professor and chairman of the department of dermatology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; J. Brooks Jackson, M.D., M.B.A., professor and chairman of the department of pathology at Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md.; Dorothy E. Lewis, Ph.D, professor of immunology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas; Richard M. Locksley, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, San Francisco; and Margaret A. Liu, M.D., senior advisor in vaccinology at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.
Dr. Diaz is professor and chairman of the department of dermatology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studies cutaneous autoimmunity. He has made important contributions in autoantibody-mediated disease in pemphigus and pemphigoid. Additionally, he is interested in medical education and patient care.
In addition to holding the position of professor of immunology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Dr. Lewis is director of the department's graduate program, director of the Core Flow Cytometry Facility and director of the Immunology Core for the Center for AIDS Research at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Lewis is interested in the immune response to HIV and the mechanisms responsible for failure to generate sufficient memory cells in most infected people. She is also an expert in Flow Cytometric applications and serves as an advisor to the Los Alamos National Flow Facility.
Dr. Liu is senior advisor in vaccinology at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and is also vice-chairman of Transgene, S.A. Additional appointments included chairmanship of the Scientific Advisory Group of the International Vaccine Institute. A pioneer in the field of DNA vaccines, her research interests are in the field of immunology, in particular the generation of cellular immunity for viruses and cancer.
Dr. Locksley, chief of infectious diseases, is also professor of medicine and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. He has served as a member and chair of study sections for NIAID and the World Health Organization, and chairs the U.S.-Japan Immunology Board for NIH. Dr. Locksley's research investigates mechanisms by which T cells acquire their distinct effector functions and attempts to understand the dysregulation of effector function that occurs in a variety of infectious and inflammatory diseases.
Dr. Jackson is professor and chairman of the department of pathology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He also serves as director of the clinical HIV Laboratory at Johns Hopkins Hospital and has been involved in numerous clinical HIV therapeutic and prevention trials in the United States, Uganda and China. He is a funded investigator in the NIAID- sponsored adult and pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Groups and the HIV Network for Prevention Trials. Dr. Jackson is the protocol chair of several adult and perinatal HIV prevention trials in the United States and Uganda including the HIVNET 012 perinatal nevirapine trial.
NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.
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