NIH Director Welcomes Seven New Members to the
Advisory Committee to the Director
Bethesda, Maryland — The National Institutes of Health (NIH)
has selected seven individuals to serve as members of the Advisory
Committee to the Director (ACD). Since 1966, the ACD has advised
the NIH Director on policy and planning issues.
“These seven outstanding new members to the NIH Advisory Committee
to the Director join a dedicated team of esteemed advisors,” said
NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “The NIH relies on the willingness
of these great minds and the efforts of other scientists and public
members who participate on advisory councils and peer-review committees.”
The ACD advises the NIH Director on policy matters important to
the NIH mission of conducting and supporting biomedical and behavioral
research, research training, and translating research results for
the public.
The new members, who join 13 current members of the council, are
Catherine D. DeAngelis, M.D., MPH, of Chicago, Illinois; Karen
A. Holbrook, Ph.D., of Columbus, Ohio; Ralph I. Horwitz, M.D.,
of Stanford, California; Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., of Seattle, Washington;
Alan, I. Leshner, Ph.D., of Washington, District of Columbia; John
C. Nelson, M.D., MPH, FACOG, FACPM, of Chicago, Illinois; and Barbara
L. Wolfe, Ph.D., of Madison, Wisconsin.
Catherine D. DeAngelis, M.D., MPH, is editor-in-chief
of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association;
editor-in-chief of Scientific Publications and Multimedia Applications;
and Professor of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine. She received her M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s
School of Medicine; her MPH from the Harvard Graduate School of
Public Health (Health Services Administration); and her pediatric
specialty training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. DeAngelis
oversees JAMA as well as nine Archives publications
and JAMA related Web site content. Dr. DeAngelis is a
past council member of the National Academy of Science, Institute
of Medicine, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, and has served as an officer of numerous national academic
societies, including former chairman of the American Board of Pediatrics
and chair of the Pediatric Accreditation Council for the Residency
Review Committee of the American Council on Graduate Medical Education.
Karen A. Holbrook, Ph.D., is president of The
Ohio State University, and professor of Physiology and Cell Biology
and Medicine (Dermatology) in the College of Medicine. Dr. Holbrook
earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and a Ph.D. in biological structure from the University of Washington
School of Medicine. She came to Ohio State from the University
of Georgia, where she served as senior vice president for academic
affairs and provost, as well as professor of cell biology and adjunct
professor of anatomy and cell biology and medicine at the Medical
College of Georgia. Prior to these roles, she served at the University
of Florida at Gainesville as vice president for research and dean
of the Graduate School, as well as professor of anatomy and cell
biology and medicine (dermatology). She spent the majority of her
academic career as a professor of biological structure and medicine
at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where her research
focused on human fetal skin development and genetic skin disease.
Ralph I. Horwitz, M.D., is the Arthur Bloomfield
Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University.
Dr. Horwitz received his M.D. from the Pennsylvania State University
College of Medicine; trained in internal medicine at McGill University
and the Massachusetts General Hospital; and was a research fellow
in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale. He
is internationally known for his pioneering research that helped
to establish the field of clinical investigation and outcomes research;
for his innovative programs in the education of physicians and
the training of physician scientists; and his visionary renewal
of the social contract linking the practice of medicine to the
civic responsibility of the profession of medicine. He is an elected
member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Institute
of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Association
of American Physicians (AAP). He recently completed a term as president
of the American Board of Internal Medicine and member of the Council
of the AAP.
Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., is the American Cancer
Society Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences
at the University of Washington. Dr. King was an undergraduate
mathematics major at Carleton College. She completed her Ph.D.
in genetics at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrating
in her dissertation that human and chimpanzees are 99 percent identical
in protein and DNA sequences. She was a postdoctoral fellow at
the University of California, San Francisco and a faculty member
at University of California, Berkeley prior to joining the University
of Washington. Her current research focuses on the genetics of
complex human traits, particularly inherited predisposition to
breast and ovarian cancer.
Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D., is chief executive officer
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
and executive publisher of its journal, Science. Previously,
Dr. Leshner had been Director of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Deputy Director
and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
Before that, he held a variety of senior positions at the National
Science Foundation. Dr. Leshner began his career at Bucknell University,
where he was Professor of Psychology. He received an A.B. in Psychology
from Franklin and Marshall College and M.S. and Ph.D. in Physiological
Psychology from Rutgers University. Dr. Leshner is an elected member
of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science;
and a fellow of AAAS, the National Academy of Public Administration,
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2004, he was
appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Science Board.
John C. Nelson, M.D., MPH, is a board certified
obstetrician and gynecologist from Salt Lake City, Utah. A graduate
of Utah State University and the University of Utah, Dr. Nelson
has been in active clinical practice since 1975. He has served
as deputy director of the Utah Department of Health and was president
of the Salt Lake County Medical Society, the Utah Medical Association,
and served as the 159th president of the American Medical Association.
He is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
as well as the American College of Preventive Medicine and is currently
serving as medical director for HealthInsight, the Quality Improvement
Organization (QIO) for Utah and Nevada. He has served on numerous
federal committees, most recently the Medicaid Advisory Commission.
He has long been concerned with access to health care coverage
for all Americans, the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities
in health care, prevention of disease, and quality improvement
in health care delivery.
Barbara L. Wolfe, Ph.D., is Professor of Economics,
Population Health Sciences, and Public Affairs and Faculty Affiliate
at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
where she also is currently serving as Director of the La Follette
School of Public Affairs. Dr. Wolfe did her undergraduate work
at Cornell University and her doctoral work in economics at the
University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses broadly on poverty
and health issues. Current projects examine the effect of expansions
in public health insurance on health care coverage and labor force
outcomes; the role of income on health using a natural experiment;
whether housing voucher programs lead to higher earnings, higher
quality child care, and less reliance on other public assistance
programs; the adequacy of resources when individuals retire and
during their first decade of retirement; and the increasing selectivity
of high quality universities. She is a member of the Institute
of Medicine (http://www.iom.edu/)
and vice chair of the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of
Medicine Board on Children, Youth and Families.
Additional information is available at www.nih.gov/about/director/acd/index.htm.
The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is
responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes
and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating
the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office
of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible
for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional
information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The Nation's
Medical Research Agency is comprised of 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 investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common
and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs,
visit www.nih.gov. |