The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) today announced the election of 90 regular members and 10 international members during its annual meeting. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

“This extraordinary class of new members is comprised of exceptional scholars and leaders who have been at the forefront of responding to serious public health challenges, combatting social inequities, and achieving innovative discoveries,” said National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau. “Their expertise will be vital to informing the future of health and medicine for the benefit of us all.  I am truly honored to welcome these esteemed individuals to the National Academy of Medicine.”

New members are elected by current members through a process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. A diversity of talent among NAM’s membership is assured by its Articles of Organization, which stipulate that at least one-quarter of the membership is selected from fields outside the health professions — for example, from such fields as law, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. The newly elected members bring NAM’s total membership to more than 2,200, including the 190 international members.

Established originally as the Institute of Medicine in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine addresses critical issues in health, science, medicine, and related policy and inspires positive actions across sectors. NAM works alongside the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering to provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also encourage education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increase public understanding of STEMM. With their election, NAM members make a commitment to volunteer their service in National Academies activities.

Newly elected regular members of the National Academy of Medicine and their election citations are:

Opeolu Makanju Adeoye, MD, professor and chair, department of emergency medicine, Washington University, St. Louis. For his seminal work on national thrombolysis treatment rates for stroke and population access to thrombolysis and thrombectomy that identified disparities in stroke treatment rates and access to treatment. He led the American Stroke Association’s Recommendations on Establishing Stroke Systems of Care that has had significant health policy impact.

Marcella Alsan, MD, MPH, PhD, professor of public policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. For her scholarly insights on understanding the origins of medical mistrust and the role it plays in understanding health disparities. Her work has shaped policy in addressing disparities through increasing health care workforce diversity and improving messaging in reaching historically marginalized and vulnerable populations.

Julie A. Baldwin, PhD, Regents’ Professor, department of health sciences, and director, Center for Health Equity Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. For internationally recognized pioneering research on community-driven HIV/AIDS and substance use prevention interventions for Indigenous youth implemented in school systems and Native communities in the U.S. and globally; and creating innovative public health research and training academic enterprises affording new pathways for Native and other historically underrepresented scientists.

Mark F. Bear, PhD, Picower Professor of Neuroscience, department of brain and cognitive sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. For his discovery of fundamental mechanisms by which sensory experience and deprivation modify synapses by increasing or decreasing their strength during the development of the brain, and how these mechanisms contribute to, and can be marshalled to treat, developmental brain disorders.

Seth Franklin Berkley, MD, chief executive officer, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, Geneva, Switzerland. For being a global health leader and vaccine expert and leading efforts to vaccinate over half the world’s children, preventing some 15 million deaths. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-established COVAX, enabling developing country distribution of more than 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses. He also led a major initiative to develop HIV vaccines.

Craig Blackstone, MD, PhD, chief, movement disorders division, department of neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital; and professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Mass. For identifying cellular pathogenic mechanisms underlying common forms of hereditary spastic paraplegia and providing fundamental insight into the basic biology and functions of the endoplasmic reticulum.

Carlos Blanco, MD, PhD, director, division of epidemiology, services, and prevention research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. For his pioneering work on the development of treatment and preventive interventions for substance use disorders that has shaped national thinking and guided over $3 billion in National Institutes of Health-supported research on the opioid epidemic, justice-involved populations, pain and addiction, cannabis legalization, and vaping.

Arleen F. Brown, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and co-director, UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of California, Los Angeles; and chief, division of general internal medicine and health services research, Olive-View UCLA Medical Center. For being a pioneer in understanding how community, policy, health system, and individual factors contribute to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke in multiethnic communities. Throughout the pandemic, she has applied this expertise to enhance vaccine uptake and improve recovery from COVID-19.

Namandjé N. Bumpus, PhD, chief scientist, U.S. Food and Drug Administration; and professor of pharmacology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore. For pioneering and seminal work in the fields of drug metabolism and antiviral pharmacology, and for advancing health equity through the translation of fundamental drug metabolism studies to the prediction of drug outcomes in humans.

Martin D. Burke, MD, PhD, May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation, department of chemistry, and professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana. For creating a modular molecular synthesis platform with broad applications in health science and technology, including his pioneering research on molecular prosthetics for cystic fibrosis, and for helping mitigate the spread of COVID-19 with saliva-based testing.

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, MACP, chief executive officer, Council of Medical Specialty Societies, Chicago. For her national leadership on the future of health care quality and improvement. Through a combination of effective leadership, methodological rigor, creativity, and innovation, she has significantly enhanced the nation’s ability to measure health/health care quality and disparities to promote quality and reduce health/health care inequities.

Nicole Calakos, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and neurobiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C. For discoveries and leadership in basal ganglia physiology and its role in disease, including pioneering approaches to study basal ganglia circuitry, elucidating fundamental concepts for the molecular, cellular, and circuit basis of habit and compulsion, and discovering a unifying pathway mechanism for dystonia and subsequent drug development opportunities.

Yvette Calderon, MD, MS, chair of emergency medicine, Mount Sinai Beth Israel; and professor of emergency medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City. For outstanding contributions incorporating public health and primary care interventions in the emergency department for underserved communities, including HIV/hepatitis C testing, counseling, and treatment programs in New York City, now replicated internationally, partnering emergency departments, health departments, and community organizations; and for substantial efforts to augment diversity and inclusion in our medical workforce.

Christopher Carpenter, PhD, E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. For his outstanding research on public policies intended to curb risky behaviors and his seminal work evaluating the clinical and economic effects of LGBTQ-related public policies including same-sex marriage.

Ana Mari Cauce, PhD, professor of psychology and president, University of Washington, Seattle. For exemplary and visionary leadership in public higher education administration; innovations in health research, education, and service systems that enhance pathways for women and underrepresented groups; initiatives to address interconnections between health equity, population health, and climate change; and pioneering behavioral health intervention research on Latinos.

Zhijian “James” Chen, PhD, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science and professor, department of molecular biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. For discovering the DNA sensing enzyme cGAS and its product cGAMP, thereby solving the question of how DNA triggers immune responses from the interior of a cell. He also discovered MAVS, which mediates immune defense against RNA viruses. These discoveries greatly advance our understanding of nucleic acid immunity and diseases.

Regina S. Cunningham, PhD, RN, FAAN, chief executive officer, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Philadelphia. For leadership in advancing outcome-driven improvements in quality, health equity, and clinician well-being through the development of advanced care delivery models and innovative interprofessional roles. Her expertise as a health care executive, researcher, and educator has catalyzed the implementation of innovations nationally and internationally.

Deborah Victoria Deas, MD, MPH, vice chancellor for health sciences and Mark and Pam Rubin Dean, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside. For contributing to the extant literature, generating millions in grant funding on adolescents with substance use disorders, and being a national contributor to addressing health disparities through diversifying the physician workforce, especially Black males in medicine.

Marie-Carmelle Elie, MD, FACEP, FCCM, endowed professor and chair, department of emergency medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, Birmingham. For being the first African American woman to chair an academic emergency department in the nation, representing the first scholar at the crossroads of the emergency medicine, critical care, and palliative care disciplines to achieve such recognition in North America.

Wafaie Fawzi, MBBS, DrPH, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and professor of nutrition, epidemiology, and global health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. For making outstanding contributions to advancing the science of safety and efficacy of nutritional interventions in the prevention and management of major global health threats, for spurring translation of evidence into policy and programs, and for leading major efforts to train future public health leaders.

Henri Ronald Ford, MD, MHA, dean and chief academic officer, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Miami. For his charismatic, mission-driven leadership at three institutions, transforming the landscape for building diversity, equity, and inclusion into the educational and clinical fabric of medicine. His extraordinary administrative skills catalyzed cultural change, financial turnaround, and innovative curricular reform training the next generation of physicians and physician-scientists while promoting health equity.

Elizabeth J. Fowler, PhD, JD, deputy administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and director, CMS Innovation Center, Washington, D.C. For being a chief architect of the Affordable Care Act and Medicare Modernization Act and leading CMS efforts on Medicare payment and delivery system reform.

Wayne A. I. Frederick, MD, MBA, Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery and president, Howard University, Washington, D.C. For being a tireless and gifted higher education leader and health care administrator and world-renowned surgeon. As president of Howard University, he has worked to develop a diverse health care workforce while serving as an adviser to U.S. and international officials in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Katherine A. Gallagher, MD, John R. Pfeifer Professor of Vascular Surgery, professor of surgery and of microbiology and immunology, and vice chair of basic and translational science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. For her innovative translational research on epigenetic regulation of immune cells during normal and pathologic tissue repair and other cardiovascular disease processes.

Sankar Ghosh, PhD, Silverstein and Hutt Family Professor and chair, department of microbiology and immunology, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City. For being a pioneer in the purification and cloning of the members the NF-kB family of transcription factors, key effectors of many physiological and pathological states. He elucidated the mechanisms by which NF-kB is regulated and established strategies for targeting it therapeutically for inflammatory diseases and cancer.

Peter M. Glazer, MD, PhD, Robert E. Hunter Professor and chair, department of therapeutic radiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. For discovering that tumor hypoxia causes genetic instability and that IDH1 mutations suppress DNA repair in cancers, conferring vulnerability to radiation and PARP inhibitors. He developed novel DNA repair inhibitors for cancer therapy and triplex-forming oligonucleotides for gene editing. His work led to multiple new clinical trials for cancer.

Farshid Guilak, PhD, Mildred Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Washington University; and director of research, Shriners Hospitals for Children, St. Louis. For contributions to the understanding of musculoskeletal diseases such as arthritis, and the development of new disease therapies through the creation of multiple novel fields of biomedical engineering, including functional tissue engineering, mechanogenetics, and synthetic chronogenetics.

David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. For seminal contributions to the field of neurofibromatosis and related disorders, establishing novel human and murine preclinical model systems to elucidate the impact of germline genetics, cancer cells of origin, and the tumor microenvironment on pediatric brain tumor biology, patient risk assessment, clinical outcome, and targeted therapeutics.

Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, professor of internal medicine and public health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and medical director, Physicians for Human Rights, New York City. For her pioneering research on the intersections of health, human rights, and health equity that has informed national and international programs and policies. She has designed and implemented effective peer, family, and community support programs in low-resource settings, elucidated health impacts of human rights violations, and successfully advocated for remedies.

Tracey Holloway, PhD, Jeff Rudd and Jeanne Bissell Professor of Energy Analysis and Policy, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison. For advancing understanding of the health benefits of climate solutions, and connecting scientific methods from the atmospheric sciences with health information needs. In particular, she has championed satellite applications to health through her leadership of NASA initiatives, and connected climate with health for over 20 years.

Lora V. Hooper, PhD, professor and chair, department of immunology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. For pioneering analyses of how the gut microbiota shape host metabolism and immunity. Notably, she demonstrated how gut anti-microbial peptides contribute to host-bacterial homeostasis, including facets of mucosal barrier function. Her approaches have integrated, in an elegant, innovative and highly informative manner, the experimental tools and concepts of several disciplines to provide key new biological insights.

Elizabeth A. Howell, MD, MPP, Harrison McCrea Dickson President’s Distinguished Professor and chair, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. For illuminating the extent and origin of racial and ethnic disparities in women and children’s health, and elucidating interventions to remedy these disparities through her pioneering health services research, leadership, and advocacy.

Judith A. James, MD, PhD, chair and member, Arthritis and Clinical Immunology Research Program, and vice president of clinical affairs, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation; and associate vice provost for clinical and translation science and professor of medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City. For being a pioneer in the field of systemic autoimmunity, significantly advancing the understanding of how autoimmune diseases start and how immune responses evolve. She characterized pre-clinical events in systemic autoimmunity and helped launch the first lupus prevention trial.

Steven Joffe, MD, MPH, Art and Ilene Penn Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and chair, department of medical ethics and health policy, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. For being a leading expert in research ethics and developing the most widely used instrument for measuring the quality of research informed consent; re-conceptualized grounding the ethics of human subjects research in scientific experimentation rather than medical care; and building a world-leading medical ethics division.

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD, Leverhulme Visiting Professor in Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London; adjunct professor, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; and senior fellow and adjunct associate professor, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta. For contributing novel insights about the epidemiology of health disparities related to racial classifications. She is the preeminent spokesperson on pathways linking racism to poor health outcomes by using innovative, powerful allegories to enable inclusive dialogue and catalyze collective action on this critical public health issue.

Sheena Ann Josselyn, PhD, senior scientist, Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids); and professor, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. For pioneering work that defined the cellular and molecular basis of the memory trace (“engram”) and identified how these processes are disrupted in psychiatric, neurodegenerative, and substance use disorders. Through her discovery of the engram, Josselyn’s work lays the foundation for developing novel, targeted treatments for human disorders.

Katalin Karikó, PhD, professor, University of Szeged, Hungary; and adjunct professor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. For the development of nucleoside-modified mRNA and the nucleoside-modified mRNA-lipid nanoparticle vaccine platform, the foundations for the first two FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines — pivotal discoveries which opened the door to ending the global pandemic and may revolutionize the delivery of efficacious and safe vaccines, therapeutics, and gene therapies.

Sachin Kheterpal, MD, MBA, Kevin K. Tremper Professor of Anesthesiology, associate chair for strategy and technology, and associate dean for research information technology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor. For being an international leader in anesthesiology informatics and clinical research. His leadership of the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG), with data on more than 16 million patients from more than 50 hospitals across multiple countries and dozens of states, has transformed the field through international epidemiologic studies, national personalized quality improvement implementation, pragmatic clinical trials, and data science.

Laura L. Kiessling, PhD, Novartis Professor of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. For chemistry-enabled fundamental discoveries regarding protein-glycan interactions pertinent to immunity and inflammation, host-microbe interactions, and human development, and leveraging these findings for new therapeutic strategies.

Jonathan Kipnis, PhD, professor of pathology and immunology, Washington University, St. Louis. For his breakthrough discovery of meningeal lymphatic vessels that drain central nervous system (CNS) fluids into peripheral lymph nodes and serve as a physical connection between the brain and immune system. This finding challenged the prevailing dogma of CNS being an “immune privileged organ.” The implications of this work range from neurodegenerative to neuroinflammatory diseases.

Eugene V. Koonin, PhD, evolutionary genomics group leader and NIH Distinguished Investigator, computational biology branch, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. For his work on the identification of clusters of homologous genes that created the foundation for systematic study of genome evolution and function. His work illuminated the evolution of microbes and viruses including discovery of adaptive immunity in bacteria and archaea, the basis for the genome editing technology known as CRISPR.

Dimitri Krainc, MD, PhD, Aaron Montgomery Ward Professor and chair, Davee Department of Neurology, and director, Simpson Querrey Center for Neurogenetics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago. For his groundbreaking discoveries in the area of neurodegenerative disorders. Informed by genetic causes of disease, his work has uncovered key lysosomal and mitochondrial mechanisms across different neurodegenerative disorders that has led to pioneering design and development of targeted therapies.

Grace M. Lee, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine; and associate chief medical officer, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, Stanford, Calif. For being an authority on vaccine policy, vaccine safety, and infectious disease policy. Her expertise has culminated in multiple key leadership roles. Her work on CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has helped guide national decisions, including phasing of COVID-19 vaccine implementation.

Rachel L. Levine, MD, assistant secretary for health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. For her expertise in pediatrics and adolescent medicine, and being the first openly transgender official ever to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She is a voice for federal-state cooperation, issues of health equity, and has been an outstanding leader in emergency response to addiction and overdose.

Anna Suk-Fong Lok, MD, MBBS, professor of internal medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. For conducting the first systematic study on hepatitis B virus reactivation among patients receiving chemotherapy. She was a key investigator in interferon and nucleos/tide analogue trials leading to their approval for hepatitis B. She led the first study demonstrating that hepatitis C can be cured by orally administered direct-acting antiviral drugs.

Crystal L. Mackall, MD, founding director, Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy, and Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor and professor of pediatrics and medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For pioneering immune therapies for children’s cancers, and for discovering fundamental principles of human immunology and translating these insights into cutting-edge engineered cell therapies for cancer.

Tippi C. MacKenzie, MD, professor of surgery and director, The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research; co-director, Center for Maternal-Fetal Precision Medicine; Benioff Distinguished Professor in Children’s Health and John G. Bowes Distinguished Professor in Stem Cell and Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. For her seminal contributions to the field of fetal medicine by pioneering novel in utero molecular therapies for fetuses with genetic diseases, such as in utero stem cell transplantation for alpha thalassemia major and in utero enzyme replacement therapy for lysosomal storage disorders.

Edward Wile Maibach, PhD, MPH, Distinguished University Professor and founding director, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. For groundbreaking research on public understanding of climate change, and for leadership in organizing a range of professional communities including physicians and other health professionals, climate scientists, and broadcast meteorologists to educate the public and policymakers about the health risks of climate change and health benefits of climate solutions.

Miguel Marino, PhD, associate professor, departments of family medicine and biostatistics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Ore. For being a world leader in primary care biostatistics. As co-founder of the Primary Care Latino Equity Research lab, he pioneers novel quantitative approaches to study racial/ethnic subpopulations in electronic health record (EHR) data. His pioneering methods to use EHR data for health equity research have revolutionized this field.

James MacDowell Markert, MD, MPH, FAANS, chair, department of neurosurgery, University of Alabama, Birmingham. For being a world expert on oncolytic viruses, author on first-ever paper of genetically engineered oncolytic viruses, primary author on the first-in-human trial of an oncolytic virus, senior author on first use of an IL12-expressing virus for human glioma, and currently conducting adult and pediatric brain tumor trials.

Peter Wayne Marks, MD, PhD, director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Md. For leading the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic response by playing a pivotal role in establishing Operation Warp Speed; establishing FDA guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine development; and establishing FDA’s policy for emergency use authorization and approval of COVID-19 vaccines.

Michelle Kay McGuire, PhD, director and professor, Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow. For being an internationally renowned expert on maternal, dietary, and environmental factors influencing human milk composition. Her research on the milk microbiome changed the paradigm of human milk sterility, with direct implications to maternal and infant health and well-being. She has been a leader in the global effort to provide evidence-based breastfeeding recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael McWilliams, MD, PhD, Warren Alpert Foundation Professor of Health Care Policy and professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. For being an exceptional scholar, whose seminal research has examined the design and impact of health care payment systems and the organization and quality of health care delivery. Known for his rigor, creativity, and depth, he has produced groundbreaking evidence and substantive insights that have directly influenced federal payment policy, which he now helps design as a senior advisor to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.

Paul Salomon Mischel, MD, professor and vice chair for research, department of pathology, and professor, by courtesy, department of neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine; Institute Scholar, Sarafan ChEM-H, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For his paradigm-shifting research on extrachromosomal DNA, which has opened a new field in cancer biology with profound implications for non-Mendelian disease genetics and the impact of altered genome architecture. His pioneering research has provided seminal insight into the molecular pathogenesis of brain cancer, revealing a landscape of actionable drug targets.

Lisa M. Monteggia, PhD, Barlow Family Director, Vanderbilt Brain Institute, and professor of pharmacology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. For making seminal contributions to the neurobiology of emotion; pioneering work identifying a causal link between neurotrophin signaling and antidepressant action; and transformative contributions to our understanding of synaptic plasticity mechanisms that underlie the therapeutic effects of psychiatric treatments.

Rachel A. Morello-Frosch, PhD, MPH, professor, School of Public Health and department of environmental science, policy, and management, University of California, Berkeley. For being a renowned expert on structural determinants of environmental health inequities.  She examines this environmental justice question in the context of climate change, air pollution, and environmental chemicals and effects on women’s health, perinatal outcomes, and community health. She is a leader in the application of community-engaged data science.

Margaret P. Moss, PhD, JD, RN, FAAN, professor, faculty of applied science, and nursing director, First Nations House of Learning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. For exemplary leadership in nursing, law, and Indigenous health inequities as the only American Indian nurse with a Ph.D. and J.D. Director of the First Nation’s House of Learning at University of British Columbia, she co-led the Indigenous Strategic Plan, one of the few in North American universities, launched to a global audience, and published the first nursing text on American Indian Health.

Bhramar Mukherjee, PhD, John D Kalbfleisch Collegiate Professor and chair, department of biostatistics, and professor, department of epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor. For seminal contributions to statistical methods in public health and biomedical sciences; pioneering methods for the integration of genes, environment, and disease phenotypes across health conditions; analysis of the COVID-19 epidemic that have informed policy in India; exemplary leadership; and nationally recognized initiatives to diversify the data and statistical science workforce.

Kari C. Nadeau, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For leadership in studies of climate change and health, drawing on expertise in immunology, genetics, environmental sciences, allergy, and asthma. Her pioneering research that environmental exposures modify immune cell genes linked to health effects is leading to new policies as well as therapeutic and prevention strategies.

Victor Nizet, MD, distinguished professor and vice chair for basic research, department of pediatrics, and distinguished professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego. For discovering numerous hallmark virulence mechanisms of bacterial pathogens and key roles of antimicrobial peptides, neutrophils, and macrophages in innate immunity. His translational research has yielded innovative approaches to counteract the threats of antibiotic resistance and sepsis.

John N. Nkengasong, PhD, U.S. global AIDS coordinator and special representative for global health, U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C. For making seminal scientific contributions in viral diagnostics. As Africa CDC director, he led Africa’s pandemic preparedness and COVID-19 response, including his vociferous advocacy for vaccine equity. His nomination to lead PEPFAR draws upon his past global health leadership at the U.S. CDC’s Global AIDS Program.

Akinlolu Ojo, MD, PhD, MBA, executive dean, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City. For identifying major racial disparities in kidney transplantation. He established a national donor assistance program that has supported more than 10,000 live organ donors. Ojo established a continent-wide research consortium conducting clinical and translational research in more than 14,000 sub-Saharan Africans. As dean, he increased students underrepresented in medicine and the diversity of medical school matriculants by 83%.

Saad B. Omer, MBBS, MPH, PhD, director, Yale Institute for Global Health; Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), Yale School of Medicine; professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases, Yale School of Public Health; and adjunct professor, Yale School of Nursing, New Haven, Conn. For using high-impact science to inform and change vaccine policy and clinical vaccine recommendations in multiple countries. He conducted seminal studies on vaccine refusal, maternal immunization, and COVID-19, and he used public scholarship to advocate for vaccines and served in senior policy/advisory roles for the World Health Organization, Gavi, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Anthony E. Oro, MD, PhD, Eugene and Gloria Bauer Professor of Dermatology and co-director, Stanford Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine and Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For solidifying the first link between Hedgehog signaling and human cancer and building chromatin maps identifying how environmental factors drive tumor epigenetic plasticity and drug-resistance. He built developmental chromatin maps to uncover disease mechanisms and enable clinical manufacturing of pluripotent cell-derived tissues for incurable skin diseases.

José A. Pagán, PhD, professor and chair, department of public health policy and management, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York City. For leadership in aligning health care delivery, payment, and social systems to address health equity and specifically for understanding ripple effects of uninsurance in U.S. communities. He has strengthened capacity to measure and improve health equity, including under pandemic conditions, helping guide future practices nationally.

Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD, The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Harvard Medical School, and professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. For scholarship on the burden and determinants of mental health problems in resource-poor settings — and on the deployment of community resources for their prevention, diagnosis, and care — has transformed policy and practice globally and driven the emergence of “global mental health” as a vibrant field of research, training, implementation, and advocacy.

Monica Elizabeth Peek, MD, MPH, MSc, Ellen H. Block Professor of Health Justice, department of medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago. For international leadership in reducing health disparities, through research on how structural racism and the social determinants of health perpetuate disparities among African Americans. Her cutting-edge research has informed national guidelines and best practices regarding shared decision-making between patients and physicians and community-engaged strategies to improve health among African Americans.

Christine A. Petersen, DVM, PhD, FASTMH, professor, department of epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City. For leadership in the epidemiology, immunity, and transmission of emerging pathogens. Her groundbreaking research in vaccine development and computational modeling have delineated critical determinants of vector-borne disease protection of people and animals to lessen the burden of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases across health settings.

Katherine S. Pollard, PhD, director, Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, Gladstone Institutes; professor, University of California, San Francisco; and investigator, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco. For discovering Human Accelerated Regions and demonstrating that these fast-evolving developmental enhancers regulate psychiatric disease genes uniquely in humans. Her open-source software for gene expression, comparative genomics, and microbiomes are used worldwide.

Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, medical oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. For documenting the clinical and functional relevance of intratumoral cellular heterogeneity.  She has convincingly shown, using novel technologies and experimental models, that many other cell types besides the neoplastic cells are responsible for the biological and physiological characteristics of any individual tumor.

John Quackenbush, PhD, Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and chair, department of biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. For being a pioneer in computational and systems biology and reproducible research with a record of continuous innovation. His recent work bridges the gap between genetics and gene regulation, giving unprecedented insight into human health and disease including how a person’s sex influences disease risk and response to therapy.

Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, FACEP, Warren Alpert Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine and deputy dean, School of Public Health, and director, Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, Brown University, Providence, R.I. For recognition as a national public health leader and communicator who has brought deeper understanding of public health challenges and who has changed public health paradigms through technology-based interventions to reduce violence (particularly firearm injury), mental illness, substance use, and infectious disease risk.

Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, Hugh Jackson Morgan Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry and chair, department of medicine, and physician-in-chief, Vanderbilt University Hospital, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn. For pioneering basic science investigation of kidney cancer and her work revealing the biological diversity of these tumors, in addition to uncovering novel mechanisms of cancer promotion paving the way for new therapeutics. She has created national mentorship networks and forged pathways for physician-scientist recognition and career impact.

Marc Elliot Rothenberg, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics and director, division of allergy and immunology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; and director, Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati. For being recognized as a thought leader in allergy who uncovers mechanisms and then new therapies, contributing to a new class of drugs (anti-eosinophil therapy) and elucidating an allergen sensing mechanism.

Norman E. Sharpless, MD, professor of medicine, cancer policy and innovation, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill. For being a highly regarded cancer researcher with significant contributions to advance our understanding of cellular aging, circular RNAs, and the cell cycle.

Krishna V. Shenoy, PhD, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Hong Seh and Vivian W.M. Lim Professor, departments of electrical engineering and, by courtesy, bioengineering, neurobiology and neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For making seminal contributions both to basic neuroscience and to translational and clinical research. His work has shown how networks of motor cortical neurons operate as dynamical systems, and he has developed new technologies to provide new means of restoring movement and communication to people with paralysis.

Yang Shi, PhD, professor and director of epigenetics, Cancer Research UK Oxford Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, England; and member, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. For making the groundbreaking discovery that histone methylation, a central epigenetic mechanism long considered irreversible, is in fact reversible. He identified the first histone demethylase and subsequently many others. His elegant mechanistic discoveries revolutionized the epigenetics field and have had far-reaching impact on basic and translational research.

Ida Sim, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and computational precision health, and UCSF director, UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health, University of California, San Francisco. For her clinical expertise and innovative methods supporting a modern electronic infrastructure that bridges mobile computing with institutional records and clinical trials data. She has championed and created groundbreaking technical and policy architectures and tools, enriching care processes with patient experience information and accelerating discovery through open data sharing.

Mario Sims, PhD, FAHA, professor of social medicine, population and public health, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside. For pioneering work documenting that perceived racial discrimination, especially if highly burdensome, predicted both higher baseline prevalence of hypertension in African Americans and a higher incidence of hypertension eight to 10 years later.

Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD, professor and chair, department of physical medicine and rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh; and director, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Rehabilitation Institute, Pittsburgh. For research that follows an integrated and transdisciplinary approach to exploring the biology of intervertebral disc degeneration and its relationship to back pain. She explores treatments, including motion-based therapies and biologic interventions, influencing inflammation and mechanobiology of the musculoskeletal systems, with particular emphasis on the spine. This work, “Low Back Pain: Biological, Biomechanical and Behavioral Phenotypes,” recently received a Mechanistic Research Center grant from NIH/NIAMS.

Sohail F. Tavazoie, MD, PhD, Leon Hess Professor, Rockefeller University, New York City. For seminal studies that have uncovered molecular and cellular processes governing cancer metastasis including the discovery of a hereditary basis for metastasis, and advancing novel anti-metastatic therapies into clinical testing.

Sally Temple, PhD, scientific director, Neural Stem Cell Institute, Regenerative Research Foundation, Rensselaer, N.Y. For using novel clonal analyses of mammalian forebrain progenitors to reveal stem cells in the central nervous system and discovering that internal counting mechanisms govern progenitor cell divisions.  In recent years she pioneered approaches in stem cell biology for modeling and developing therapies for retinal and brain neurodegenerative disorders.

Alan Thevenet N. Tita, MD, PhD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director, Center for Women’s Reproductive Health, associate dean for global and women’s health, Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham. For his work as an innovative and impactful perinatal epidemiologist and clinical trialist, who leads large, collaborative, multi-center national and international trials and observational studies that have shifted practice and policy and improved the quality of national and global obstetric care.

Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD, director, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. For his leadership in biomedical engineering and the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Technology (RADx Tech) initiative. He helped guide the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic by engaging government, academia, and the R&D innovation/entrepreneurship community to increase SARS-COV-2 test capacity and performance in home, point-of-care, and lab settings at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact.

Chien-Wen Tseng, MD, MSEE, MPH, professor, department of family medicine and community health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. For making seminal contributions to ensure medication access for 1 in 4 Americans unable to afford their prescriptions. Her work on Medicare Part D drug benefits (11 JAMA-affiliated manuscripts) supported 2020 legislation to redesign Part D to protect 48 million patients from losing coverage mid-year.

David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, FAACR, Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor and director, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. For his transformative leadership in pancreatic cancer biology. His work has led to the development of powerful pancreatic cancer models, which has been fundamental to preclinical studies of understanding targeted therapy and treatment of pancreatic cancer. He most recently has been a leader in organoid-based cancer models.

Omaida C. Velázquez, MD, FACS, David Kimmelman Endowed Chair in Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and professor of surgery, departments of biochemistry and molecular biology and of radiology, and chair, DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami; and surgeon-in-chief, University of Miami Health System and Jackson Memorial Hospital Health System, Miami. For pioneering research that identified E-selectin as a membrane-bound adhesion molecule that induces pro-angiogenesis and healing, in a vascular medicine field where previously only soluble factors had been considered therapeutic candidates. Her groundbreaking work ushered a paradigm-shifting platform to reverse tissue damage by arterial occlusion or diabetes.

Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque, DDS, PhD, deputy director, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and NIH laboratory chief, Viral Oral Infections in Immunosuppression and Cancer, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health; and professor emeritus, departments of dentistry and of microbiology and immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bethesda, Md. For making seminal contributions to our understanding of the role of virus-host interaction in oral disease. Most notably, she showed that oral Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) permissive infection was a lytic and transforming infection. Her paradigm-shifting work described oral Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) replication and oral iatrogenic Kaposi’s development.

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and director, Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, department of medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. For discovering the technology of modification of mRNA for vaccine design, which has launched a new era of vaccine development. The modified mRNA vaccine design has been used in both the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and has revolutionized the field of vaccine development.

Ruth Enid Zambrana, PhD, distinguished university professor, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland, College Park. For pioneering research that has transformed our understanding of the social determinants of minority women’s health. A leading authority on Hispanic health, she continues to do path-breaking work on the health of underrepresented faculty, strategies to increase underrepresented scholars in the health professions and the translation of research into policy.

Newly elected international members and their election citations are:

Pedro L. Alonso, MD, PhD, professor of global health, faculty of medicine and health sciences, and consultant, department of international health, Hospital Clinic – University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. For his role as a visionary leader in global health: as director of the WHO Global Malaria Program he leads policy development and implementation including recommendation for use of the first malaria vaccine. For establishing key research centers in Mozambique and Barcelona, and for conducting groundbreaking research in malaria prevention.

Peter John Campbell, MBChB, PhD, chief, Cancer, Aging, And Somatic Mutation Program, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. For being a pioneer in cancer genomics and tumor evolution. He has led a major effort to define the signatures of somatic mutations in many cancer types, defined patterns of selection operative during cellular transformation, and identified genes involved in specific tumors as they form, progress, and metastasize.

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, MA, DPhil, head, climate change and health unit, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. For global leadership in creating quantitative estimates of the overall health impacts of climate change and building capacity to address climate and health in more than 30 low- and middle-income countries. His work informed World Health Assembly resolutions, and the first WHO global conferences on health and climate.

Bart De Strooper, MD, PhD, director, UK Dementia Research Institute; and professor, KU Leuven, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, and University College London, London, United Kingdom. For his work in understanding the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease in an unrelenting search for therapeutic targets that can help patients. He has discovered gamma-secretase and shown how presenilin regulates Notch signaling. He has developed a cellular theory and novel humanized disease models to explore polygenetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Jan Deprest, MD, PhD, FRCOG, professor in obstetrics and gynaecology, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, and University College London, United Kingdom. For his landmark translational studies through the Eurofoetus consortium, which led to the development of a percutaneous method for fetoscopic occlusion of the fetal trachea. His work has changed the standard of care worldwide for fetal diseases such as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Connie J. Eaves, PhD, distinguished scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Research Institute; professor and distinguished university scholar, departments of medical genetics, medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine and the School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. For profoundly impacting our knowledge of hematopoietic and mammary stem cells in both murine and human systems. Her focus on single cell stem cell analyses is widely regarded as seminal, leading to improved purification and detailed characterization of what makes a stem cell a stem cell.

Gagandeep Kang, MD, PhD, FRCPath, FAAM, FASc, FNASc, FNA, FFPH, FRS, professor, division of gastrointestinal sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. For her outstanding contributions to understand and improve child health through her research in enteric infectious diseases and vaccinology over decades benefiting children in India and low- and middle-income countries, and more recently to vaccine science, vaccination policy, and communication during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Farees (Fary) Khan, AM, MD, MBBS, FAFRM (RACP), consultant physician in physical and rehabilitation medicine and director, Rehabilitation Royal Melbourne Hospital; professional fellow, department of medicine, dentistry, and health sciences, University of Melbourne; and lead rehabilitation physician, PeterMac Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia. For organizing grassroots-level responses of underresourced countries in assisting persons with disabilities, who are inequitably affected by climate change-related disasters. As a top rehabilitation scientist, she is an architect of the National Rehabilitation Medicine Strategy for the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

Robert James Mash, MBChB, DCH, DRCOG, FRCGP, FCFP (SA), PhD, distinguished professor and executive head, family and emergency medicine, and head of division, family medicine and primary care, faculty of medicine and health sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. For being internationally known as “the leading family medicine researcher” in sub-Saharan Africa, and being recognized as a lifetime honorary member of the World Organization of Family Doctors, and for his “extraordinary contribution to medicine” by the South African Medical Association. He is president of the South African Academy of Family Physicians.

Marleen Temmerman, MD, MPH, OB/GYN, PhD, director, Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya; and founding director, International Centre for Reproductive Health, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. For being one of the penholders of the U.N. Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health, founding director of the International Center for Reproductive Health at Ghent University, with sister research organizations in Kenya and Mozambique, and a collaborative academic network of 32 universities and seven NGOs worldwide, and director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, East Africa.

Click here to view the full article on the National Academy of Medicine website.

Dear colleagues,

I​’m pleased to announce that Anand K. Ganesan, MD, PhD, has accepted the role of associate dean for physician-scientist development, effective September 1, 2022.

This new role is a key position supporting Daniela M. Bota, MD, PhD, vice dean of clinical research. In his new role, Dr. Ganesan will be responsible for:
Creating a physician-scientist training program (analogous to the UCLA STAR Program) that combines clinical fellowships or residency training with formal advanced research training

• Coordinating with clinical departments to develop and submit training grant applications
• Collaborating with the Department of Medical Education and clinical departments to develop funded research programs for medical students (e.g., summer research projects)
• Identifying gaps in the physician-scientist pipeline and working with stakeholders to increase opportunities for research training and support for grant submissions
• Increasing the number of K award applications for junior scientists, including those faculty members that are part of the Physician-Scientist Training Program (PSTP) administered by the UCI School of Medicine Research Development Unit (RDU)

Dr. Ganesan is a UCI home-grown physician-scientist. He applied for a K award shortly after coming to UCI in 2006, and has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2008.

Dr. Ganesan created a physician-scientist training program in the Department of Dermatology, which matched its first candidate into the residency in 2016. To date, Dr. Ganesan has mentored four physician-scientists, two of whom obtained KL2 career development awards, one of whom obtained an NIH K23 career development award, and another who is currently preparing their career development award application.

Along with the training program, Dr. Ganesan also created a non-ACGME fellowship to support physician-scientist training in the Department of Dermatology and is currently the primary investigator of a T32 training grant that has one dedicated slot for physician-scientists. Dr. Ganesan also has a successful track record of mentoring physician-scientists both at UCI and around the country. In addition, he currently serves as the chair of an NIH study section that specifically reviews physician-scientist career development awards.

Dr. Ganesan’s research focuses on understanding how melanocytes respond to environmental cues (UV irradiation, inflammation) in order to maintain normal homeostasis, and determining how this homeostasis is disrupted in diseases such as melanoma and vitiligo. His work spans from basic to clinical research as he recently discovered a new class of drugs to treat cancer and also manages clinical trials for patients with vitiligo.

Dr. Ganesan received his medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Mary Medical Center – Long Beach, as well as a residency in dermatology and a physician-scientist training program fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He completed his doctoral studies in microbiology and molecular genetics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Ganesan on this new appointment.​

Michael J. Stamos, MD
Dean, UCI School of Medicine

Click here to view the full message from Dean Michael Stamos.

Inspired by a ruby beam of light, the Beckman Laser Institute co-founder changed science, medicine – and UCI

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Michael Berns, longtime faculty member and founding director of the UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, at his home on Saturday, August 13, 2022. Professor Berns earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University in 1964 and 1968, respectively. He came to UCI from the University of Michigan in 1973 as the chair of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology within the School of Biological Sciences, and also held appointments in the School of Medicine and The Henry Samueli School of Engineering. Professor Berns co-founded, with Arnold Beckman, the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic in 1982 and served as its director until 2003. He also founded the first Laser Microbeam Program, the UCI Center for Biomedical Engineering, and the UCI Photonics Incubator. He was the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor from 1988-2020. Professor Berns’s pioneering work focused on the use of laser technology in medical and biological research. He developed tools and techniques for the surgical use of lasers, down to the level of manipulating single cells and individual chromosomes. He published extensively on the use of lasers in both biomedical research and medical treatment of illnesses including skin disorders, vascular disease, eye problems, and cancer. Professor Berns was an elected fellow/member in numerous scientific and engineering societies, including, the Royal Society of Biology of Great Britain, the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. In 1994, he was awarded the UCI medal – the highest award at UCI for outstanding career achievements. Michael Berns will be greatly missed by his friends and professional colleagues around the world. The entire university community joins me in sending condolences to his devoted children, Greg and Tammy. chancellor.uci.edu

Known as “the father of laser microbeams,” Michael Berns has followed a path guided by mentors

By Karen Thomas, The International Society for Optics and Photonics

Editor’s note: On Saturday, 13 August 2022, a few days after this article was published, Michael Berns passed away at the age of 79. He will be greatly missed by family, friends, and colleagues.

“It was 1966 and all I knew about lasers was that Goldfinger was going to slice James Bond in half,” says SPIE Fellow and consummate storyteller Michael Berns of his initial introduction to lasers. “Then one of my professors at Cornell told me that the department had purchased a small ruby laser but did not know what to do with it, and he felt it might be useful for very fine tissue ablation if coupled to a microscope.”

A professor of biomedical engineering, surgery, and developmental and cell biology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and cofounder and founding director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic (BLIMC), Berns is also this year’s recipient of the SPIE Gold Medal in recognition of his work in bioengineering research and his distinguished career that has brought together engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians to collaborate on groundbreaking discoveries and innovations.

Today, Berns is widely known as the “the father of laser microbeams” thanks, in part, to his groundbreaking work in delineating how the laser can perform subcellular surgery on chromosomes. With a focus on light interactions with cells and tissues, his research works to address biomedical problems such as nervous-system repair at the single-cell level, a laser-leveraging technique that extends to degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s.

Those who lit the path

Throughout a lifetime of accomplishments that include scientific firsts, philanthropy, painting, and authoring international spy thrillers, Berns notes the mentors his had along his journey.

Perhaps the first in his life was his grandfather, an inventor who raised Berns on Long Island, New York. Described as a “very gentle, kind man,” Bern’s grandfather had come from “the old country” at age 14, and the family never knew more than that about his past.

“He became a clothing designer for Treo, a New York clothing company, and had a wall with all his patents,” says Berns. “The one that always stuck with me was the “stretch girdle” that resembled an American Flag. He liked to tell the story of being sued by the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] for desecration of the American flag. They were all pulled off the market and distributed as mementos to our extended family.” Berns has one of the samples on a bright metal mannequin on display in his home, along with several of his grandfather’s patents. “The design for that girdle ended up as part of an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC as an example of 1960s pop art.”

“My grandpa was a real tinkerer with gadgets and that is where I first honed my technical skills,” Berns adds. “Whenever some new technology came out, he was interested. We went up on the roof of our apartment building with a pair of binoculars to see the Russian Sputnik fly over.” The satellite itself was barely apparent, but its R-7 core stage was visible as a bright light moving across the sky.

Changing course

As noted earlier, Berns discovered lasers as a graduate student at Cornell University in the rarely 1960s. One of the first among his fellow students to experiment with lasers, he used a ruby laser as a micro-surgical device to study the development and evolution of the leg-building region of a millipede. “Actually, it was a complete failure,” notes Berns. “But the lesson for me was that just because something didn’t work in one type of experiment, that didn’t mean it wasn’t useful for something else.”

After finishing his PhD at Cornell, he headed out to Pasadena, California, to use lasers to manipulate single cells. “I was fortunate to have a postdoc mentor in Donald Rounds who basically said, ‘There’s the lab, have fun.’ And I did.”

Part of the fun included becoming the first to perform subcellular surgery of chromosomes (Nature, 1969), followed by a 1970 Scientific American article, “Cell Surgery by Laser.” He was first to perform laser nanosurgery in a cell with the goal of cell survival and subsequent cloning, and he introduced the use of real-time digital image processing in biology, widely used in microscopy (Science, 1981).

Berns credits the Nature and Scientific American articles with helping him land his first academic job as an assistant professor in the department of zoology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He had always loved animals so his career goal since childhood was to become a veterinarian. But as seems to be a theme in his life, he got sidetracked by another influential mentor.

“It was my high school biology teacher, Robert Abrams, who asked me if I would help him measure tumors on mice after school at a research lab on Long Island,” says Berns. “He’s really the one who first introduced me to laboratory research and the scientific method. I read my first Scientific American magazine as part of his advanced biology class and decided that my goal was to someday write an article for that magazine.”

As a postdoc and professor, Berns wasn’t really interested in the clinical or medical uses of lasers, but he took notice that at key conferences the utility of lasers was often being discussed. “At some point I realized that getting big grants was more likely if I was investigating laser use for a disease,” says Berns. “This led me to cancer and the use of light-activated dyes for the diagnosis and treatment of human and animal cancers — like in pet dogs, cats, and snakes.”

Lighting the LAMP

In 1979, Berns was awarded a prestigious NIH Biotechnology Resource grant to establish what he called the LAser Microbeam Program (LAMP), a laboratory for laser microscopy using sophisticated continuous-wave (CW) and short-pulsed picosecond lasers.

After spending a year building the LAMP system — an instrument with a tunable wavelength laser microbeam and a wide range of energies and exposure durations — Berns sent out invitations to every CEO of medical and biotech companies in Orange County, California. To his surprise, Arnold Beckman (then 80 years old and still running Beckman Instruments in Fullerton, California), came through his door.

“He was fascinated with lasers and how I was focusing them inside of cells to perform sub-cellular surgery, says Berns. “This started a friendship that continued until he passed away at the age of 104. After a year or so, I proposed that he support the construction of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, a facility where basic scientists and clinicians would rub shoulders in the same building.”

The institute and clinic became the first interdisciplinary program that combined engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians under the same roof, leading to intense interactions that resulted in over 52 inventions, including biomedical devices now used worldwide.

Giving back

Currently, Berns is leading two research projects: one funded by the BLIMC non-profit corporation to develop an internet-based robotic laser scissors-tweezers microscope (RoboLase), and a second on nervous system repair following laser damage, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. But he’s also involved in community and philanthropic activities, becoming an influential mentor just as the mentors in his life did for him. While director of UCI’s BLIMC, Berns garnered more than $63 million in extramural grants and $40 million in philanthropic support.

Berns has served on the editorial board of SPIE’s Journal of Biomedical Optics (JBO) for more than ten years. During this time, he has promoted the journal to the wider scientific community, encouraging them to publish their work in it and making JBO an essential go-to journal for new and interesting results in biomedical optics. He has chaired a session at the SPIE Conference on Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation at SPIE Optics + Photonics for the past 14 years, giving numerous keynote and invited talks.

“I have always been involved with community activities,” says Berns. “While raising our kids in Orange County, I was on the Planning Commission of San Juan Capistrano, and now I’m trying to motivate our university community to get behind our ecological preserve by offering to match any gifts. I have been fortunate to have had personal relationships with such pillars of our society as Arnold Beckman and David Packard. I learned from them that giving back to the society that made our careers successful is uniquely rewarding.”

He adds that “extending the use of optical technologies to high-school students is very rewarding especially when their eyes light up in amazement. It reminds me of my own high-school experience with my biology teacher, Mr. Abrams.”

Portions of this article were originally published in the 2022 Photonics West Show Daily.

Read more on the The International Society for Optics and Photonics website.