Three JHU Researchers Elected to Institute of Medicine (web article)

Three Johns Hopkins University researchers have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. Robert Blum, MD, MPH, PhD, Scott Zeger, PhD, and Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, are among 65 new members nationwide. Election to this prestigious body affirms their remarkable contributions to medical science, health care and public health, as well as to the education of generations of physicians. It is one of the highest honors for those in the biomedical profession. As members, they commit to work with the Institute on committees and studies that address a broad range of health policy issues.

Blum, the William H. Gates Sr. professor and chair of the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, focuses his research in the areas of adolescent sexuality, chronic illness and international adolescent health care issues. In May 2006, Blum was named the interim director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. He is a past-president of the Society for Adolescent Medicine; has served on the American Board of Pediatrics; was a charter member of the Sub-Board of Adolescent Medicine; is a past chair of the Alan Guttmacher Institute Board of Directors and served as chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Adolescent Health and Development. He is a consultant to The World Bank and UNICEF, as well as the World Health Organization where he has served on the Technical Advisory Group of the Child and Adolescent Health Department and the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of the Human Reproductive Program. He has been awarded the Society for Adolescent Medicine’s Outstanding Achievement Award (1993); and in 1998 was the recipient of the American Public Health Association’s Herbert Needleman Award “for scientific achievement and courageous advocacy” on behalf of children and youth. He has edited two books and has written over 220 journal articles, book chapters and special reports.

Zeger, the Frank Hurley and Catharine Dorrier professor in Biostatistics and chair of the Bloomberg School’s Department of Biostatistics, develops novel designs and methods of analysis for biomedical data. With Johns Hopkins colleague, Kung-Yee Liang, he created the method GEE for the analysis of data from longitudinal, time series, genetic and other studies that produce correlated responses. He has made substantive contributions to environmental epidemiology, quantifying the health effects of smoking and air pollution. Zeger served as statistical expert for the U.S. Justice Department and several states in their suits against the tobacco industry. He is also involved in clinical research, having served on the Board of Scientific Advisors to the Merck Research Laboratory and on the steering committee of the Hopkins Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigations. Zeger is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, co-editor of the Oxford Press journal Biostatistics and on the editorial boards of the Annual Review of Public Health and the Springer-Verlag Series on Statistical Science. Zeger is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and two books. In 2005, Science Watch® identified him as one of the 25 most-cited mathematical scientists of the past decade. He has mentored the thesis or post-doctoral research of 30 graduate students and fellows at Johns Hopkins. He was awarded the 1987 American Statistical Association’s Snedecor Award (with Kung-Yee Liang) for best paper in biometry, the 1991 Spiegelman Award from the American Public Health Association for contributions to health statistics and the 1987, 2002 and 2006 Johns Hopkins Golden Apple Award from public health students for excellence in teaching.

Dang, The Johns Hopkins Family Professor in Oncology Research, is vice dean for research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He oversees the Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and is a professor of medicine, pathology, oncology and cell biology with joint appointments in molecular biology and genetics. Dang is a practicing hematologist-oncologist and is senior editor of Cancer Research and serves on the editorial boards of Current Cancer Therapy Reviews, Drug Discovery Today, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Molecular Medicine, Molecular and Cellular Biology and Neoplasia. He has authored over 160 scientific and medical articles, book chapters and a book. He was a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors, was elected to The Association of American Physicians and is a past-president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2003). He received the Vietnamese-American National Gala Golden Torch Award for medicine and education in 2005. He holds an NIH/NCI MERIT award and has sponsored 10 NIH K08 physician-scientist awardees, mentored 12 PhD doctorates and 26 post-doctoral fellows. The Dang laboratory has contributed to the understanding of the function of the MYC cancer gene, which has emerged as a central switch in many different human cancers.

Other faculty members of the Bloomberg School of Public Health previously elected to the Institute of Medicine include: Robert Black, MD, MPH, the Edgar Berman Professor in International Health and chair of the Department of International Health; Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH, the Philip Franklin Wagley Professor in Biomedical Ethics; Manning Feinleib, MD, MPH, DrPH, professor of Epidemiology; Charles Flagle, D ENG, professor emeritus of Health Policy and Management; Leon Gordis, DrPH, MPH, professor of Epidemiology; Diane Griffin, PhD, MD, the Alfred and Jill Sommer Professor and Chair in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology; Bernard Guyer, MD, MPH, the Zanvyl Krieger Professor in Children’s Health; Robert Lawrence, MD, associate dean for Professional Education and Programs and the Edyth H. Schoenrich Professor in Preventive Medicine; Neil Powe, professor of Epidemiology and Health Policy and Management; Jonathan Samet, MD, the Jacob I and Irene B. Fabrikant Professor in Health, Risk and Society; Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS, dean emeritus of School of Public Health; Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, University Distinguished Service Professor of Health Policy and Management; Donald Steinwachs, PhD, professor of Health Policy and Management; Carl Taylor, MD, DrPH, MPH, professor of International Health; and Henry Wagner, MD, professor of Environmental Health Sciences.