Pauling Biotech Symposium Speakers
MIT Faculty Club, Cambridge, MA, USA

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This is a preliminary list of speakers from Academic Institutions. More will be added soon.

Academic Institutions
Shuguang Zhang, PhD MIT
Kim Seth, PhD Harvard
Iain Campbell, PhD Scripps
David Vaux, MD, PhD Walter & Eliza Hall Institute
Li-An Yeh, PhD Harvard
Andrew Marshall, PhD Nature Biotechnology
Arthur Pardee, PhD Harvard
King Li, MD NIH Clinical Center
Howard Martin Fillit, MD The Aging Institute
Irene Bosch, PhD UMASS Medical School
Lee Marshall Ellis, MD Anderson Cancer Center
Thomas D Gilmore, PhD Boston University
Seth Cohen, PhD LRIG
Mark Kon, PhD Boston University
John J. Rossi, PhD City of Hope
Pavel Hradecky, MD Harvard University
Jeremy Zucker Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Bruce Stillman, PhD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
David Baltimore, PhD Caltech
Charles M. Vest, PhD former President of MIT
Michael S. Brown, PhD Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics, Southwestern Medical School
David de Kretser, MD Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development (MIRD)
Jordan S. Pober, MD, PhD Yale University School of Medicine
Sir Gus Nossal

Shuguang Zhang, PhD
Shuguang Zhang PhD, Associate Director, MIT

Dr. Zhang discovered the area of Self-Assembling Peptides in the research lab of Alex Rich at MIT. He has spearheaded the science of self-assembling peptides while heading MIT's Lab of Molecular Self Assembly, as Associate Director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering, and while hosting the biennial Conference on the Self-Assembly of Peptides and Proteins in Biology, Medicine, and Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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Kim Seth, PhD
Kim Seth PhD, Founder Director of GSAS Harvard Biotechnology Club

Dr. Kim received his PhD in Neurobiology from Harvard Medical School. His thesis work focused on the molecular genetics and mechanisms of transcriptional regulation of the gene for corticotropin- releasing hormone (CRH), which plays a critical role in initiating the stress response and has been implicated in such conditions as depression, anorexia nervosa, and drug/alcohol addiction.Prior to graduate school, Kim received his BA cum laude in Economics from Harvard College, spent one year in Paris studying European economic integration, and worked two years in management consulting for the CSC/Index Group in San Francisco and the Parthenon Group in Boston.While in graduate school, Kim also founded Xpogen, Inc (www.xpogen.com), a bioinformatics company located in Cambridge, MA focused on the analysis and integration of complex, high volume, disparate forms of biological data (including clinical and phenotypic information) to reveal the underlying molecular players and mechanisms involved in disease.
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Iain Campbell, PhD

Iain Campbell PhD, Professor and chair of Molecular Biology, The University of Sydney, Adjunct Professor, Department of Neuropharmacology, The Scripps Research Institute

Professor Campbell is a leader in the field of cytokines in central nervous system diseases. He obtained his graduate (1979) and doctoral (1982) degrees in Science from the University of Sydney, Australia. Since 1990, he has been an NIH-funded researcher at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, USA in the Department of Neuropharmacology and from 2004 in the School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. For the past 20 years, Prof. Campbell's research interests have focused on the role of cytokines (and chemokines) in the pathogenesis of disease, particularly in the central nervous system. These studies have pioneered the use of transgenic modeling in mice to understand the mechanisms of action of cytokines in the living brain. In addition to being a current serving Chair of the NBDG study section for the NIH, Prof.Campbell is an editorial board member for numerous scientific journals and has been a regular invited speaker at many national and international scientific meetings including two Nobel Symposia. He has published over 190 papers in top journals with a significant impact in science discovery. He collaborated with Dr. Wong on cytokine research since 1983 when they were both working at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia.

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David Vaux MD, PhD, Medical researcher, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

Dr.Vaux is a leader in Apoptosis that is responsible for maintaining the right number of cells by balancing cell production and cell division. He has made a number of fundamental contributions to the understanding of this process, including recognition of the first component of the cell death mechanism, Bcl-2; unification of the mechanisms of apoptosis in mammalian cells and programmed cell death in the worm C. elegans; discovery of the cellular inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) proteins, and isolation of the first mammalian IAP antagonists Diablo and HtrA2. He has published many papers in top journals such as Nature with a significant impact in the field of apoptosis. He has been invited to give many seminars in apoptosis conferences (both national and international scientific meetings) including the Nobel Symposia on apoptosis in 2002.

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Li-An Yeh, PhD
Li-An Yeh PhD, Director of Lead Discovery, Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair

Title: High-throughput screening for new drug discovery

Before taking her present position, Dr. Yeh worked for many years in biotech and pharmaceutical companies. She was the Director of Drug Discovery for NEN Life Science Products in the PerkinElmer responsible for high-throughput drug discovery. She became the Director of Discovery Biology in the biotech company Phytera in Worcester, MA, working on target selection and high-throughput screening in anti-infection, anti-osteoporosis, anti-cancer areas. She was the director of Enzyme Biochemistry at OsteoArthritis Sciences, isolating two novel metalloproteinases from chondrocytes. At Pfizer Central Research, she was responsible for in vitro screening of anti-ulcer therapy, established an osteoporosis drug discovery program and elucidated the mechanism of action of the potent aldose reductase inhibitor, Sorbinil, in diabetic lens.

Dr Yeh’s initial degree was a BS in Agricultural Chemistry from National Taiwan University. She then earned an MS in Chemistry at Kent State University, in Ohio, followed by a PhD in Biochemistry at Purdue University, Indiana, and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard. Dr. Yeh is the author or coauthor of 21 scientific papers and has three issued US patents.
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Andrew Marshall, PhD
Andrew Marshall PhD, Editor, Nature Biotechnology

Titles:
1) Vision and realities of genomic biotechnology (a talk that address the hype about genomic approaches and what they will deliver) Seminar on Oct 10, 2003.

2) Bioentrepreneur, a new educational portal to promote the formation of life science ventures (NBT has recently launched this portal to promote entrepreneurism among scientists http://www.nature.com/bioent) Seminar on Dec 1-3, 2003.

Andrew Marshall is Editor of Nature Biotechnology. He has written numerous articles and editorials on science and technology for the popular media, including The Economist and Popular Science, and for trade publications. In January 2003, he launched Bioentrepreneur at www.nature.com/bioent, a free-access web portal that provides practical information and advice on the challenges facing researchers when starting a biotechnology company. As well as frequently speaking on biotechnology issues at international meetings, he also regularly organizes conferences and symposia for the Nature Publishing Group on biotechnology. He has over 12 years of experience in scientific publishing, and was previously Editor of Current Opinion in Biotechnology. He obtained his PhD and postdoctoral experience in molecular biology and microbiology at King's College London.
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Arthur B. Pardee PhD, (Dr. Linus Pauling Student)

Dr. Arthur B. Pardee is an Emeritus Professor from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, having conducting important research in the areas of tumor growth and regulation. In particular, he has studied the role of estrogen in hormone responsive tumors. Dr. Pardee is credited with the discovery of the differential display methodology, widely used in examining the activation of genes in virtually any cell type. Dr. Pardee received his BS from the University of California at Berkeley and his masters and PhD degrees from California Institute of Technology. Dr. Pardee did a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and began his illustrious career as an instructor in biochemistry at his alma mater, Berkeley. In 1961, Dr. Pardee became Professor in Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University. In 1975, he became a Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He also served as Chief for the Division of Cell Growth and Regulation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He became an emeritus professor in 1992. Dr. Pardee is the recipient of many scientific awards, including membership of the National Academy of Sciences and is the past president of both the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Biological Chemists. He has published over 500 papers and holds many patents.
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King Li MD, NIH Clinical Center

Dr. Li earned his MD in 1981 from the University of Toronto, Canada. He completed a residency in diagnostic radiology there and was chief resident in 1986. He then completed an MRI fellowship at the University of Michigan. In 1987, he became the Co-director of MRI at the University of Florida and in 1990 he served as the Director of Body MRI at St. Joseph's Hospital and Barrows Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. He joined Stanford University Medical Center's Department of Radiology in 1991 and became a tenured Associate Professor in 1997.

Dr. Li's research interests include development of novel site- and disease-specific drug delivery systems, and he has been the Director of the In-Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford. He has served as principal or co-investigator on grants from institutional, industrial and federal sources. He has multiple patents on novel drug delivery systems and combining imaging with genomics and proteomics for developing new molecular targets and personalizing treatments.

Dr. Li has won research awards from professional organizations and Teacher of the Year awards at three different institutions. He has over 150 published abstracts in national and international meetings, lectured in many courses and workshops and was course director for two courses. He has published more than 65 scientific papers, 5 book chapters and 15 review articles and is on the editorial board of a new journal on molecular imaging.
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Howard Martin Fillit MD, The Institute for the Study of Aging

Dr. Fillit is the founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Aging, an innovative biomedical venture philanthropy established by the Estee Lauder Trust in New York City. The Institute’s mission is to catalyze and fund research on discovery and development of drugs to treat cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Its Founder’s program provides seed capital to new biotechnology companies dedicated to Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery research. Through the Biotechnology Development Program, the Institute assists early-stage companies in such research.

A physician-scientist (geriatrician and neurobiologist), Dr. Fillit has a career of progressively increasing management responsibility in academia and in industry. Prior to his recent work at the Institute, Dr. Fillit was the Corporate Medical Director for Medicare at NYLCare Health Plans with over 125,000 Medicare members in 8 regional markets. Dr. Fillit also has a distinguished academic career and is currently a clinical professor of geriatrics and medicine and a professor of neurobiology at The Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center.

Dr. Fillit has received numerous awards and honors, including the Rita Hayworth Award from the Alzheimer’s Association in 1999 for research and practice in Alzheimer’s disease. He has given hundreds of talks throughout the world in his field. He has participated in or chaired numerous advisory boards in industry, including Pfizer, Janssen, Novartis, Sanofi-Synthelabo and Accorda Therapeutics. He is currently Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for Neurochem, Inc., the largest biotechnology IPO in Canada. He is a fellow of the American Geriatrics Society, the American College of Physicians, the Gerontological Society of America and the New York Academy of Medicine. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles, abstracts and books, including the leading Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. Dr. Fillit was selected by his peers for listing in “Best Doctors for 2001-2002” as a leading physician in the United States.
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Irene Bosch PhD, Assistant Professor in Medicine at UMASS Medical School

Dr. Bosch has held her present position for the last four years. Her research interests are to understand pathogenesis by human RNA viruses, among them dengue, yellow fever, hantaviruses, arenaviruses and West Nile virus. She graduated in 1993 from Harvard University, where she did her doctoral degree in cellular and molecular biology of parasites. She then took two consecutive post-doctoral training positions at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, where she worked with Dr. James Croop on cancer research and Arthur Pardee inon gene expression studies (differential display) as well as with the Department of Human Retrovirology studying cytokine/chemokine responses to HIV.

All of that contributed to Dr. Bosch's interest in methodologies for studying gene expression in infected cells at her present position. This is linked to her interest in defining the patho-physiologic mechanisms of hemorrhagic viruses. In this context, she has devoted a lot of attention to vascular biology and has developed methods for studying viral pathogenesis in vitro. She maintains close contact with clinical and epidemiological studies on dengue infection in field work in Venezuela, and has established a student rotation abroad for the MD/PhD and PhD programs at the UMASS Medical School. She contributes to the PipeLine project at UMASSMED, which brings underrepresented students into scientific careers. Currently she participates in the Research Center of Excellence for Immunology and the Research Center of Excellence for Biodefense as well as in the international ICIDR NIH grant on dengue research in the Americas. Over a dozen graduate and undergraduate students, as well as post-doctoral fellows hadhave worked in her laboratory.
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Lee Marshall Ellis MD, FACS, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Dr Ellis is Professor of Surgery and Director of Fellowship Research Training in the Department of Surgical Oncology, and Professor of Cancer Biology at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He did undergraduate work at Emory and Johns Hopkins Universities, and received his MD from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He has presented at over 140 meetings and published more than 300 papers, articles and abstracts.

Dr Ellis’ laboratory investigates factors driving angiogenesis in primary and metastatic colon cancers, and has established that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the predominant angiogenic factor that leads to colon cancer metastasis. Current investigations examine mechanisms by which VEGF is upregulated in colon cancer. The laboratory also investigates agents that block VEGF activity in a mouse model of colon cancer liver metastasis. Initial studies show that anti-VEGF therapy decreases the size of liver metastases and leads to endothelial cell apoptosis. This work has led to investigating other factors that may be involved in endothelial survival. The laboratory has found that a small protein secreted from colon cancer cells can inhibit endothelial cell apoptosis. Studies are under way to determine the identity of this factor and to investigate the signal transduction pathways that mediate this process. Other studies include investigations on angiogenesis ofin gastric cancer and factors leading to the development of malignant ascites and pleural effusions.
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Thomas D Gilmore, PhD
Thomas D Gilmore PhD, Professor of Biology, Boston University

Title: Role of Rel/NF-kB Transcription Factors in Lymphoma

Dr. Thomas D Gilmore received his PhD in 1984 under the mentorship of Dr. G Steven Martin from the Zoology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on the characterization of substrates of oncogenic tyrosine kinases. From 1984-87, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow with Dr. Howard M Temin at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

He joined the Biology Department at Boston University in 1987, and is currently a Professor there. Dr. Gilmore and his laboratory have been primarily interested in the role of Rel/NF-kB transcription factors in lymphoma. In addition to his research at Boston University, he has written many reviews in his research area and has taught several graduate and undergraduate courses. More information on Dr. Gilmore and his research can be obtained at www.nf-kb.org.
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Seth P. Cohen, PhD
Seth P. Cohen PhD, Lab Robotics Interest Group, New England Chapter

Moderator: July 30 Nobel Pauling Biotech Symposium: Biotech vs. Big Pharma Panel Discussion

Dr. Cohen received his PhD in Microbiology from the University of Georgia, Athens, where his research focused on virulence factors associated with staphylococcal infections. He then went on to post-doctoral research at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston where he studied the physiology, genetics and biochemistry of multiple drug resistant bacteria with Dr. Stuart Levy. Following his post-doctoral research, Dr. Cohen developed DNA probes and assays for infectious disease diagnostics at Gene-Trak Systems in Framingham, MA. For the past 7 years he has been at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge MA, initially developing high throughput screening assays for the anti-infective discovery programs, later headed up the HTS group and most recently as the Program Director for Millennium’s Lead Discovery department.
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Mark Kon, PhD

Mark Kon PhD, Boston University

Title: Statistical Issues in Microarray Analysis

Dr. Mark Kon is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Boston University, with a affiliation with the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems. He has previously had appointments at Columbia University as an Assistant and Associate professor, Tufts University as an Assistant Professor, and at MIT as a graduate instructor. He holds Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics, Physics and Psychology from Cornell University and a PhD in Mathematics from MIT.

Dr. Kon has given numerous invited lectures and has over 60 publications in mathematics, statistics, computer science, and neural network theory, including one book. His current research and applications interests include statistics and probability, neural networks, computational complexity, optimization, and numerical analysis. With Prof. Leszek Plaskota, he has recently worked on topics related to statistical learning theory and development of designs for feed-forward neural networks. He is on the editorial board of Neural Networks, and has been on the organizing committee of the World Congress on Neural Networks.

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John J. Rossi PhD, City of Hope National Medical Center

Dr. John Rossi is highly respected by both scientists and clinicians as a thought leader in the development of therapeutic applications of RNA interference (RNAi) for the treatment of HIV infection and AIDS. Dr. Rossi received a BA in biology from the University of New Hampshire and a PhD in microbial genetics from the University of Connecticut. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Brown University Medical School, he has been on the faculty of City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, CA, where he is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Dean of the Graduate School of Biological Sciences at the Beckman Research Institute as well as director of clinical programs in the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Rossi is the author of more than 190 scientific papers based on his extensive work on diagnostics for HIV, the design of catalytic RNA/ribozyme complexes to inhibit HIV infection, and clinical treatment of HIV-infected patients by autologous transplantation of hematopoietic stem cell candidates with transduced ribozyme genes. His present focus is on enhancing the intracellular efficacy of ribozyme decoys and siRNAi and their application to gene therapy for HIV. Dr. Rossi was honored with the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Outstanding Speaker Award in 1991. He is currently on the editorial boards of Antisense Research and Development, Gene Therapy and Molecular Biology and Molecular Therapy.

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Pavel Hradecky, MD

Pavel Hradecky MD, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University and Flybase Harvard

Dr. Pavel Hradecky is a Research Associate in bioinformatics at Harvard University, with an interest in comparative genomics, genome annotation and genetic model organism databases and their relevance to human biology and disease.

After receiving an MD from Charles University School of Medicine in Prague, Czech Republic, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. H. Franklin Bunn at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, studying cellular oxygen sensing and response to hypoxia. Since 2001, he has been a Research Associate in the group of Dr. William Gelbart at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard and a member of the FlyBase Consortium, an international group of biologists and computer scientists responsible for the database of genetic and molecular data for Drosophila. He was a part of the team that performed the complete re-annotation of the Drosophila melanogaster genome and participates in comparative analyses of the genomes of D. melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae and other insect genomes that are fast becoming available.

Dr. Hradecky has been on the committee of the MIT European Club since 2001 and is currently a Co-chair of the European Career Fair at MIT. He is also a founding member of the European Professional Network Association, an organization to promote cooperation, mobility and career development for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and young professionals in Europe and the USA.

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Jeremy Zucker Bioinformatics Specialist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Jeremy Zucker obtained a B.S. in Applied Mathematics, and a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Electrical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1997. After graduating, he joined the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab as research staff, studying reaction-diffusion equations and biologically-inspired programming paradigms such as amorphous computing and cellular automata. In 2002, Jeremy joined the Research Computing department at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and began collaborating with the Church Lab at Harvard Medical School to develop a bioinformatics pipeline for constructing genome-scale metabolic models. He is interested in computational and symbolic methods to bridge the gap between functional genomics databases and system models.

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Bruce Stillman, PhD

Bruce Stillman, PhD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Dr. Bruce Stillman is President and CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). A native of Australia, he moved to Cold Spring Harbor as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 1979. Dr. Stillman has been Director of the CSHL Cancer Center since 1992, and in 1994 he succeeded Dr. James D. Watson as Director of CSHL. Stillman's research focuses on the mechanism and regulation of inheritance of both DNA and chromatin structures in eukaryotic cells, particularly in yeast and human cells. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

His lab investigate the mechanism and control of DNA replication in eukaryotic cells, primarily using human cells and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Through previous studies of Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA replication, we have identified the cellular proteins that function to replicate the viral DNA and assemble the replicating DNA into chromatin. These proteins are also required for replication of the cell's chromosomes during S phase of the cell cycle. Moreover, CAF-1, a protein that facilitates chromatin assembly dependent upon DNA replication, participates with the DNA replication protein PCNA to propagate epigenetically determined states of gene expression and the inheritance of chromatin structures.

In studies using S. cerevisiae, we have identified the chromosomal DNA replication origin sequences that are important for the initiation of chromosome duplication. These sequences are recognized by an initiator protein that is a large protein complex referred to as the origin recognition complex (ORC). ORC binds to the sequences that control DNA replication throughout the cell cycle and interacts with other proteins, such as Cdc6p, MCM helicase and others, in a cell cycle-dependent manner, to control initiation of chromosome replication. We study how this process works and how it integrates into cell cycle control. We have identified the human cell homologues of some of these initiation proteins and are using them to identify origins of DNA replication in mammalian chromosomes and to study the regulation of S-phase progression during the mammalian cell cycle.

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David Baltimore, PhD

David Baltimore, PhD President, Caltech, The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1975

Dr. David Baltimore, one of the most distinguished biologists and winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize for his work in virology, became the seventh president of the California Institute of Technology on October 15, 1997. Before coming to Caltech, Dr. Baltimore was an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, and served from the institute's creation in 1982 to 1990, when he became president of Rockefeller University. His career has been distinguished by his dual contribution to biological research and to national science policy.

Dr. Baltimore helped pioneer the molecular study of animal viruses, and his research in this field had profound implications for understanding cancer and, later, AIDS. In the mid-1970's, along with several other eminent biologists, he played a pivotal role in creating a consensus on national science policy regarding recombinant DNA research and also established standards that are followed by the genetics community to this day.

Dr. Baltimore has been a major figure in Washington as head of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee (1996-02), and also in 1986 as co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine's committee on a National Strategy for AIDS. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Society of London.

Dr. Baltimore was awarded the 1999 National Medal of Science in recognition of his research achievements, his excellence in building scientific institutions, and his ability to foster communication between scientists and the general public. He was a co-recipient of the 2000 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize and was awarded a 2002 AMA Scientific Achievement Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1974, and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign member of both the Royal Society of London and the French Academy of Sciences. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewed articles.

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Charles M. Vest, PhD

Charles M. Vest, PhD former President of MIT

Dr. Charles M. Vest, a native of West Virginia, became president of MIT in 1990. He has set three strategies for maintaining and enhancing the excellence of MIT: identifying the most critical emerging directions in education and research, providing a strong financial base for MIT's programs, and improving the value and efficiency of services in support of these programs. President Vest is the Vice Chair of the Council on Competitiveness, and serves as a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the Massachusetts Governor's Task Force on Economic Growth and Technology, and the National Research Council Board on Engineering Education. Prior to coming to MIT, he served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan, where he earned his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering.

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Michael S. Brown, PhD

Michael S. Brown, PhD Professor, Director, Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics, Southwestern Medical School

Dr. Michael S. Brown graduated in 1962 from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, with chemistry as his major subject. In 1966 Brown received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He did an intern and resident in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The years 1968-1971 were spent at the National Institutes of Health where Brown served initially as Clinical Associate in gastroenterology and hereditary disease. He then joined the Laboratory of Biochemistry, headed by Earl R. Stadtman, a pioneer in the disclosure of the mechanisms by which enzymes are regulated. In 1971 Brown joined the division of Gastroenterology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

In 1974, Brown was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He became a Professor in 1976. In 1977 he was appointed Paul J. Thomas Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and Director of the Center for Genetic Disease at the same institution. In 1985, Brown was appointed Regental Professor of the University of Texas.

Dr. Brown was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 1980. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Society of Biological Chemists, and the American Society for Cell Biology.

Dr. Brown has received many awards (see Biography). Brown and Goldstein jointly delivered the following lectures: Harvey Lecture (1977); Christian A. Herter Lectures at Johns Hopkins University (1979); Harry Steenboch Lectures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1980); Smith, Kline, and French Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley (1981); Duff Memorial Lecture of the American Heart Association (1981); Doisy Lectures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1983); the first Pfizer Lecture in Honor of Konrad Bloch at Harvard University (1985); and the Berzelius Lecture at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm (1985).

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David de Kretser, MD Foundation Director of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development (MIRD) at Monash University, Melbourne

Professor David de Kretser AO is the Foundation Director of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development (MIRD) at Monash University, Melbourne. In addition to being Director, he is the Associate Dean of the university’s Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (Biotechnology Department) and Executive Chair of the Monash Institutes of Health.

Professor de Kretser received his MBB in 1962 from the University of Melbourne and completed his MD in 1969 at Monash University, where he studied the structure and function of the human testis.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. In 2000, Professor de Kretser was admitted as an Officer in the Order of Australia.

For the past decade, Professor de Kretser has served on the Executive Council of the International Society of Andrology, including a term as President. He has also served on the Bioethics Committee of the Uniting Church of Australia, Victorian Synod.

His research into reproductive biology infertility and endocrinology has seen over 600 papers featured in national and international peer reviewed journals, and over 65 of these papers being presented at international meetings. He is also the Editor of a number of books and has served on a number of editorial boards of international journals.

Professor de Kretser has made important contributions to electronmicroscopy of the testis and to the field of male infertility and co-directed a program of research that resulted in the first isolation of inhibin which has led to numerous studies on its role in reproductive biology. Together with his graduate students and fellows, of whom he has supervised over 30 PhD and 25 international postdoctoral fellows, his laboratory has established the presence of paracrine regulatory mechanisms in the testis and is currently exploring the molecules involved. His research is continuously supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, World Health Organisation and the Ford Foundation. Recently, he was awarded a grant from the Federal Government to establish and direct Andrology Australia which will enhance public and professional education and research in the area of Men’s Health.

Professor de Kretser's work has also been recognised by the Senior Organon Award of the Australian Endocrine Society in 1977 and the Serono Lecturer of the American Society for Andrology.

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Jordan S. Pober, MD, PhD

Jordan S. Pober, MD, PhD Professor of Pathology, Dermatology, and Immunobiology Director, Interdepartmental Program in Vascular Biology and Transplantation (VBT) Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine

Training:
1971 - B.A. Biology, Chemistry, History, Haverford College, Haverford, PA
1977 - M.D. School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1977 - Ph.D. Molecular Biophysics/Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1977-1978 Resident, Pathology, Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT
1978-1980 Postdoctoral Fellow, Biochemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1980-1981 Resident, Pathology, Brigham & Womens Hospital, Boston, MA

Expertise:
Biology and immunology of vascular endothelium; biology of cytokines; biological bases of disease

Research Interests:
My laboratory is interested in several related research problems addressing the immunobiology of vascular endothelium. First, we study how endothelial cells may promote the recruitment, activation and differentiation of T cells by presenting antigens. A major focus of this work is the identity of the molecules that endothelial cells use to provide costimulation. Second, we study how endothelial cells respond to cytokines such as TNF and acquire the capacity to recruit and activate inflammatory effector cells. A major focus of this work is the regulation of adhesion molecule expression. Third, we study how immune effector cells and molecules injure endothelial cells and how endothelial cells resist immune-mediated injury. Many of these processes are studied in the context of the host response to vascularized allografts or xenografts, and a major overall goal of this work is to develop strategies to improve clinical transplantation. Immunopathology Transplantation Pathology

Professional Service:
1981- American Association of Pathologists (renamed American Society Investigative Pathology in 1993)
1984- American Association of Immunologists
1987- United States-Canadian Academy of Pathology
1994 - North American Vascular Biology Organization
1996- Fellow, Molecular Medicine Society
1994-1996 Councilor, North American Vascular Biology Organization
1996-1999 Councilor, American Society for Investigative Pathology
1996-1997 President-Elect, North American Vascular Biology Organization
1997-1998 President, North American Vascular Biology Organization
1995-2000 Co-Editor-in-Chief, Laboratory Investigation
2000-2002 Associate Editor, Laboratory Investigation
2000-2003 Editor, Immunity
2000- American Society of Transplant Surgeons

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Sir Gus Nossal

Sir Gus Nossal

Sir Gus Nossal was born in Bad Ischl, Austria in 1931 and came to Australia with his family in 1939. He studied Medicine at The University of Sydney and, after two years' residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sir Gus moved to Melbourne to work as a Research Fellow at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (the Hall Institute). Sir Gus was knighted in 1977 and made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1989. Amongst his numerous honours are fellowship of the Royal Society of London; Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences; Member of the Academie des Sciences, France; the Robert Koch Gold Medal, the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, and the Emil von Behring Prize.

His research accomplishments are world-renowned. His classic work confirming Burnet's theory of antibody formation was a watershed in understanding the immune system. As researcher and as Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI, 1965-96) he has helped build the foundations of modern immunology while working to improve global health through his long-term involvement with the World Health Organization (WHO), most recently as Chairman of the Global Programme for Vaccines and Immunization.

Sir Gus' influence has formed and shaped the scientific affairs of Australia for three decades, and continues to do so. Some of his achievements and involvements include: The Cooperative Research Centres Scheme, VicHealth which he then chaired for a decade, A founder (1996) of Foursight, a company providing advice on R&D and science to companies, investment institutions, academics and government, Professor of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne, President of the Australian Academy of Science, helping bring life to AMRAD, now one of our most prominent biotechnology companies

Sir Gus has exerted strong influence on government policy especially in his years as President of the Australian Academy of Science, making the comment (30 April, 1998) in : "The science community over the last decade has strongly supported government policies re-orienting the nation's research and development effort towards economic, social and environmental goals, but there is a risk of this trend going too far. In particular, basic research within universities at the cutting edge of fundamental knowledge is threatened by an unprecedented degree of competitiveness for research grants. Four-fifths of applications now fail."

As a communicator of science he is unparalleled - inspiring future generations of scientists through lectures, radio and television. He has also been involved in national organisations of social significance, including his role as deputy chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.

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If you would like to be involved with the 2006 Pauling Symposium please email Dr. Grace Wong at gw@studentvision.org.





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