Martin Chalfie is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences and past chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University.  In 2008 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for his introduction of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a biological marker.

Dr. Chalfie was born in Chicago, Ill.  He obtained both his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and then did postdoctoral research with Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He joined the faculty of Columbia University as an assistant professor in 1982 and has been there since.

He uses the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate nerve cell development and function, concentrating primarily on genes used in mechanosensory neurons.   His research has been directed toward answering two different biological questions: How do different types of nerve cells acquire and maintain their unique characteristics? How do sensory cells respond to mechanical signals? In his studies, he has introduced several novel biological methods in addition to his work with GFP.

He traces his work on Green fluorescent protein to a 1988 seminar from Paul Brehm about bioluminescent organisms. This led to some crucial experiments in 1992, detailed in his paper “Green fluorescent protein as a marker for gene expression,” which is among the 20 most-cited papers in the field of molecular biology and genetics. He has published more than 200 papers, of which at least 16 have more than 100 citations.

Dr. Chalfie is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (Hon.).  He shared the 2006 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science from Brandeis University and the 2008 E. B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology with Roger Tsien.

Martin Chalfie is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences and past chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University.  In 2008 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for his introduction of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a biological marker.

Dr. Chalfie was born in Chicago, Ill.  He obtained both his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and then did postdoctoral research with Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He joined the faculty of Columbia University as an assistant professor in 1982 and has been there since.

He uses the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate nerve cell development and function, concentrating primarily on genes used in mechanosensory neurons.   His research has been directed toward answering two different biological questions: How do different types of nerve cells acquire and maintain their unique characteristics? How do sensory cells respond to mechanical signals? In his studies, he has introduced several novel biological methods in addition to his work with GFP.

He traces his work on Green fluorescent protein to a 1988 seminar from Paul Brehm about bioluminescent organisms. This led to some crucial experiments in 1992, detailed in his paper “Green fluorescent protein as a marker for gene expression,” which is among the 20 most-cited papers in the field of molecular biology and genetics. He has published more than 200 papers, of which at least 16 have more than 100 citations.

Dr. Chalfie is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (Hon.).  He shared the 2006 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science from Brandeis University and the 2008 E. B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology with Roger Tsien.

Dr. Robert Califf was born in Anderson, S.C., in 1951 and attended high school in Columbia, S.C., where he was a member of the 1969 AAAA South Carolina Championship basketball team.

He graduated from Duke University, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1973 and from Duke University Medical School in 1978, where he was selected for Alpha Omega Alpha. He performed his internship and residency at the University of California at San Francisco and his fellowship in cardiology at Duke University. He is board-certified in internal medicine (1984) and cardiology (1986) and is a Master of the American College of Cardiology (2006).

He is currently vice chancellor for clinical research, director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute (DTMI), and professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. For 10 years he was the founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), the premier academic research organization in the world. He is the editor-in-chief of Elsevier’s American Heart Journal, the oldest cardiovascular specialty journal. He has been author or co-author of more than 900 peer-reviewed journal articles and a contributing editor for theheart.org, an online information resource for academic and practicing cardiologists.  He was recently acknowledged as one of the 10 most cited authors in the field of medicine by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

Dr.Califf led the DCRI for many of the best-known clinical trials in cardiovascular disease. With an annual budget of more than $100 million, the DCRI has more than 1,000 employees and collaborates extensively with government agencies, the medical-products industry, and academic partners around the globe in all therapeutic areas. In cooperation with his colleagues from the Duke Databank for Cardiovascular Disease, Dr.Califf has written extensively about the clinical and economic outcomes of chronic heart disease. He is considered an international leader in the fields of health outcomes, quality of care, and medical economics.

Dr.Califf has served on the Cardiorenal Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Pharmaceutical Roundtable of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). He served on the IOM committees that recommended Medicare coverage of clinical trials as well as the removal of ephedra from the market and on the IOM’s Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors. He is a member of the IOM Forum in Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation and a subcommittee of the Science Board of the FDA.  He was the founding director of the coordinating center for the Centers for Education & Research on TherapeuticsÔ (CERTs), a public/private partnership among the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the FDA, academia, the medical-products industry, and consumer groups. This partnership focuses on research and education that will advance the best use of medical products. He is the co-chairman of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public private partnership focused on improving the clinical trials system.

Dr. Garret FitzGerald is the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he chairs the Department of Pharmacology and directs the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.  Dr. FitzGerald trained in medicine in University College Dublin and its teaching hospitals and in statistics at Trinity College in Dublin and the London School of Hygiene. Following fellowships at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London, the Max Planck Institute in Cologne and at Vanderbilt, Dr. FitzGerald joined the faculty at the last institution and eventually led the Division of Clinical Pharmacology as the William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics. He moved in 1991 to lead the Department of Medicine and Experimental Therapeutics at University College, Dublin and then returned in 1994 to the U.S. to take up direction of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and the General Clinical Research Center as the Robinette Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Penn. These structures were subsumed into ITMAT when it was founded in 2004, anticipating the funding of Clinical and Translational Research Centers two years later by the NIH. ITMAT has grown to more than 650 members and supports research programs, faculty recruitment, education and infrastructural developments relevant to translational research. Dr. FitzGerald has served as Chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Penn. The department is routinely placed on the top three in NIH funding in the United States and supports a Graduate Group in Pharmacological Sciences with about 90 students.

 

Dr. FitzGerald’s research has been characterized by an integrative approach to elucidating the mechanisms of drug action, drawing on work in cells, model organisms and humans. His work contributed substantially to the development of low-dose aspirin. He was the first to describe the dose dependent suppression by aspirin of thromboxane and prostacyclin biosynthesis in vivo and to discover that inhibition of platelet cyclooxygenase by low-dose aspirin occurred in the presystemic circulation and to characterize the interaction by which NSAIDs like ibuprofen could interact with and undermine cardioprotection from aspirin. FitzGerald’s group was the first to predict and then mechanistically explain the cardiovascular hazard from NSAIDs. Since his first prediction of a potential hazard, based on clinical pharmacological studies 12 years ago, evidence consistent with the mechanism proposed – suppression of COX-2 derived prostacyclin – has emerged from (i) multiple studies in model systems including many genetically manipulated mice created by his group, (ii) human genetics, (iii) randomized comparisons amongst NSAIDs and 7 placebo controlled trials of 3 structurally distinct NSAIDs designed to be specific for inhibition of COX-2. Aside from this work, FitzGerald has also discovered many products of lipid peroxidation and established their utility as indices of oxidant stress in vivo. Using this methodology, he demonstrated that conventional doses of vitamin E and C have no impact on lipid perocxidation in healthy individuals with intact endogenous antioxidant defence; that social consumption of alcohol has a pro oxidant effect and that suppression of lipid peroxidation retards atherogenesis in mice. His laboratory was the first to discover a molecular clock in the cardiovascular system and has contributed substantially to our understanding of the importance of peripheral clocks in the regulation of cardiovascular and metabolic function. Dr. FitzGerald’s papers have been published in journals such as Cell, Science, Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, JAMA, PNAS, the JCI and Nature Medicine and have been cited more than 30,000 times. He has also published on science policy in the lay and professional press and is an occasional sports commentator for Il Manifesto. He has been awarded honorary degrees from University College Dublin and the Universities of Edinburgh and Frankfurt. Among his awards are the HarveyMedal, the Boyle Medal, the TaylorPrize and the CameronPrize. 

Dr. FitzGerald serves on the Peer Review Advisory Committee of the NIH, the Science Board of the FDA and the Drug Forum of the Institute of Medicine.

Tadashi Inagami received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1958.  After obtaining his M.S. and D. Sc. degrees in Japan, he returned to Yale in 1962 to the laboratory of professor J.M. Sturtevant.  In 1966 he moved to the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt and established collaboration with Stanley Cohen, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, Emeritus and Nobel laureate. Cohen suggested that Inagami attempt to isolate renin from mouse salivary gland, which laid the foundation for his studies of the renin-angiotensin system.

Inagami is internationally recognized for his pioneering research on renin and angiotensin II (AII) receptors that constitute key mechanisms in the cardiovascular regulation and degenerative diseases by the renin-angiotensin system.  In 1977 he identified renin by isolating the first pure and stable renin from porcine kidney, and discovered that it was a new member of the aspartyl protease family with a unique substrate specificity strictly limited to angiotensinogen.  In 1978, using the first specific antibodies to renin and an affinity chromatographic method, he demonstrated the presence of specific renin in the brain and discovered in 1981 that renin in neuronal cells is capable of producing angiotensin by an intracellular mechanism.  He and his collaborators found renin in other non-renal tissues such as the adrenal, pituitary, and vascular tissues, and showed that their action is independent of renin in plasma. By 1982 he determined the amino acid sequence of renin from mouse submaxillary gland. This new concept had a major impact on developments in research on tissue renin.   

Inagami then turned his attention to the hypotheses that abnormalities in the AII receptor signaling causes cardiovascular disease.  In the early 1990s he and his collaborators expression-cloned several isoforms of the type I receptor (AT1, AT1A and AT1B) and a new gene for the type 2 receptor, AT2.  He and his collaborators produced AT2 receptor gene knockout mice and discovered that the AT2 receptor has a major effect in controlling cardiac left ventricular hypertrophy.  He also discovered that vascular cell hypertrophy and remodeling is mediated by transactivation of epidermal growth factor receptor, a receptor tyrosine kinase, by the G-protein coupled angiotensin type 1 receptor, AT1.  These studies enabled further research on the pathophysiological roles of the renin-angiotensin system in the cardiovascular system.

Currently, Dr. Inagami's laboratory is focused on molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in pathobiology of vascular, cardiac and renal tissues and cells.  His scientific activities have been devoted to education and research on the basic mechanism of serious cardiovascular diseases including high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart failure, and irreversible degenerative failure of the kidney.

Inagami served for 16 years as the director of the Specialized Center of Research in Hypertension, which was established at Vanderbilt by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH. He was named Stanford Moore Professor or Biochemistry in 1991, and he has been presented numerous prestigious national and international awards.

Today, Inagami's laboratory is considered one of the world leaders in cardiovascular disease research.   Results of his studies have been published in more than 650 papers in refereed scientific journals for biochemistry, physiology, and cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Evangelia (Litsa) Kranias was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. She came to the United States as a Fulbright undergraduate scholar to attend the University of Chicago in 1966. Subsequently, she received her doctorate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry from Northwestern University in 1974, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical School of Northwestern University. In 1978, Dr. Kranias joined the University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, where she is currently a Distinguished University Research Professor, professor and chair of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics, Hanna Professor of Cardiology and co-Director of the Cardiovascular Center of Excellence.

Dr. Kranias has received numerous awards and honors, including the University of Cincinnati Faculty Achievement Award, the Medical Center Drake Medal, the George Rieveschl Award for Distinguished Scientific Research and the AHA Samuel Kaplan Award. She also delivered the Janice Pfeffer Distinguished Lecture of the ISHR.

Dr. Kranias has served on the Council of the NIH National Center of Research Resources and as chair of the Advisory Committee of the NIH Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers. She is currently serving on the Research Committee of the AHA, on the executive committee of the ISHR and as treasurer of the North American Section of the ISHR.

Dr. Kranias has been elected to the Council of the Biophysical Society, the Council of the North American Section of the ISHR, and the International Council of the ISHR. She is a Founding Fellow of the ISHR and Fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the AHA, the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences and the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society.  She has also served as associate editor of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology as well as on the editorial boards of several major journals.

Dr. Kranias has published over 250 scientific papers, including 211 original articles. Her research has been funded uninterruptedly by NIH and was honored by a RCDA and a MERIT Award. Dr. Kranias has also mentored many young scientists and has served as an exemplary role model for young women in science. She was named one of the “2007 Leading Women” for Women’s advocacy.

Dr. Kranias’ research program has provided fundamental insights into the regulatory mechanisms and signaling pathways underlying calcium homeostasis in cardiac physiology and pathophysiology with special emphasis in heart failure. She was the first to demonstrate a key role of phospholamban in the regulation of cardiac contractility and showed that by controlling the levels of phospholamban alone, it is possible to fine-tune the heart’s pumping action.  This key discovery opened a new front of therapeutic targets in heart failure. Dr. Kranias has also extended her basic research findings to the clinical arena and has elucidated the functional significance of Ca-handling in the deteriorated function of human failing hearts.  Furthermore, she identified genetic variations in key Ca-cycling proteins, which may predispose to arrhythmias and heart failure. Dr. Kranias’ goal is to build a comprehensive understanding of cardiac calcium cycling and contractility in health and disease.

Dr. Kuller received his B.A. degree in 1955 from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., his M.D. in 1959 from George Washington University School of Medicine, his M.P.H. in 1964 and Dr.PH. in 1966 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. He trained in internal medicine in Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1959-61 and in preventive medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1964-65, and is board certified in preventive medicine.  He was a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, reaching the rank of professor of epidemiology from 1971-72. At the same time, he was also a faculty member at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He was chair and professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh from 1972-2002 and is currently Distinguished University of Public Health and Professor of Epidemiology.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He waspPresident of the American College of Epidemiology from 1985-86, the American Epidemiological Society from 1989-90 and the Society for Epidemiological Research from 1994-1995. He was president of the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board in 1994-96. Dr. Kuller was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow from 1983-84, working with the late Representative Claude Pepper. He was a member of the Board of Scientific Councilors at the National Cancer Institute from 1983-87 and a member of the NIA National Advisory Council on Aging from 2001-05. He is a Fellow of the American Heart Association Councils on Epidemiology, Cerebrovascular Disease and  Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism. He was also a founding member of the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Kuller was a MERIT awardee at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for his research on sudden cardiac death from 1986-96. He received the Abraham Liliienfeld Award of the American College of Epidemiology in 1988, the Alumni Achievement Award at George Washington University in 1985, the Johns Hopkins Centennial Scholar and Society of Scholars in 1991. In 2002, he received the Distinguished Council Achievement Award from the American Heart Association in 2002 and the Joseph Stokes, III Award from the American Society for Preventive Cardiology in 2009.

In 1993, he co-chaired the National Institutes of Health report on the Recruitment and Retention of Women in Clinical Studies. He has been on the editorial boards of many journals, including Stroke, Atherosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, American Journal of Epidemiology and the European Journal of Epidemiology.

Dr. Kuller has authored and co-authored more than 600 papers. He has been actively involved in research related to inflammation and CVD and precipitants of heart attack. More recently, he has been involved in studies of the determinants of heart disease among individuals infected with HIV who are being treated with effective antiviral therapy. Another major interest is the interrelationship between vascular disease, aging and Alzheimer’s disease and the potential prevention of dementia.

Roger Y. Tsien, born in 1952, received his A.B. in chemistry and physics from Harvard College in 1972. He received his Ph.D. in physiology in 1977 from the University of Cambridge and remained as a research fellow until 1981. He then became an assistant, ssociate, then full professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1989 he moved to the University of California, San Diego, where he is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor in the department of pharmacology and of chemistry and biochemistry. He was a scientific co-founder of Aurora Biosciences Corporation (1996), which went public in 1997 (ABSC) and was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in 2001 (VRTX). He was also a scientific co-founder of Senomyx Inc. in 1998, which went public in 2004 (SNMX).

Dr. Tsien is best known for designing and building molecules that either report or perturb signal transduction inside living cells. These molecules, created by organic synthesis or by engineering naturally fluorescent proteins, have enabled many new insights into signaling via calcium, sodium, pH, cyclic nucleotides, nitric oxide, inositol polyphosphates, membrane and redox potential changes, protein phosphorylation, active export of proteins from the nucleus, and gene transcription. He is now developing new ways to target contrast agents and therapeutic agents to tumor cells based on their expression of extracellular proteases.

His honors include First Prize in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (1968), Searle Scholar Award (1983), Artois-Baillet-Latour Health Prize (1995), Gairdner Foundation International Award (1995), Award for Creative Invention from the American Chemical Society (2002), Heineken Prize in Biochemistry and Biophysics (2002), Wolf Prize in Medicine (shared with Robert Weinberg, 2004), Rosenstiel Award (2006),  E.B. Wilson Medal of the American Society for Cell Biology (shared with M. Chalfie, 2008), and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with O. Shimomura and M. Chalfie, 2008). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.