The National Academy of Medicine recently 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. The newly elected members of the National Academy of Medicine and their election citations from the oncology community are listed here:
- Frederick DuBois Bowman, PhD, Dean of School of Public Health and Professor of Biostatistics, University of Michigan, for his research, which has produced foundational analytic approaches for mining biomedical imaging data and has revealed insights across a range of areas, including biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease, brain patterns underlying major depression, neural correlates of cognitive aging, and detection of prostate cancer
- Myles Brown, MD, Emil Frei III Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Director, Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, for his leadership in oncology and endocrinology, whose seminal contributions have fundamentally reformulated the mechanistic understanding of hormone dependence of breast and prostate cancers
- Nancy Carrasco, MD, Professor and Chair of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Joe C. Davis Chair of Biomedical Science, Vanderbilt School of Medicine, for making exceptional contributions to elucidating mechanisms by which ions and other solutes are transported across biologic membranes
- Peter L. Choyke, MD, Senior Investigator, Molecular Imaging Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, for pioneering advances in the imaging of prostate cancer, which have enabled accurate localization of clinically significant tumors
- Ralph J. DeBerardinis, MD, PhD, Professor and Joel B. Steinberg, MD, Chair in Pediatrics and Robert L. Moody, Sr. Faculty Scholar, Children’s Research Institute, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, for fundamentally changing the understanding of cancer metabolism. His work emphasized the importance of mitochondria in tumor growth and identified metabolic vulnerabilities imposed by tumor genetics.
- John E. Dick, PhD, FRS, Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology and Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, and Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, for developing a system for transplanting normal and malignant human hematopoietic cells into immunodeficient mice as a way to identify and characterize both normal and leukemic human stem cells. His lab demonstrated that only a small proportion of these cells were capable of initiating leukemia.
- B. Mark Evers, MD, Director, Lucille P. Markey Cancer Center, Physician-in-Chief of Oncology Service Line, UK Healthcare, Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Surgery, and Markey Cancer Foundation Endowed Chair, University of Kentucky, for his expertise on intestinal hormones and hormonal arcades in oncogenesis. His seminal insights defined the role of gut hormones on normal physiology and metabolism, pioneering innovative understanding of neuroendocrine cell biology and the role of neurohormonal pathways in the development and progression of neuroendocrine tumors.
- David E. Fisher, PhD, MD, Edward Wigglesworth Professor of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, and Chief, Department of Dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital, for elucidating the ultraviolet (UV) pigmentation pathway, UV-seeking endorphin response, skin cancer prevention strategies, and hair-graying mechanism; discovering melanoma and sarcoma oncogenes; and developing a routinely used melanoma diagnostic
- Christopher Friese, PhD, RN, Elizabeth Tone Hosmer Professor, School of Nursing, and Director, Center for Improving Patient and Population Health, University of Michigan, for exposing the significant relationships regarding nursing work environments and patient outcomes such as surgical mortality and the discovery of unsafe practices and adverse effects on outcomes in ambulatory oncology , which have impacted state and federal policies
- Levi A. Garraway, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Product Development, and Chief Medical Officer, Genentech/Roche, for the discovery of genetic drivers of melanoma, prostate cancer, and other malignancies; the discovery of mechanisms of response and resistance to anticancer therapies in melanoma and other cancer types; pioneering platforms and approaches to cancer precision medicine; and incorporating precision medicine principles in therapeutic development
- Aviv Regev, PhD, Head, Genentech Research and Early Development, Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and core member, Broad Institute, for developing experimental and computational methods, especially in single-cell genomics, and applying them to physiology, immunology, and cancer biology and for elucidating transcription factor networks in dendritic cells and T cells
- Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Surgery, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, for defining the mechanistic basis of response and acquired resistance to immune checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapies and for leading multicenter clinical trials that have provided transformative treatments for patients with advanced melanoma
- Louis M. Staudt, MD, PhD, Chief, Lymphoid Malignancies Branch, and Director, Center for Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Institute, for demonstrating that genetic profiling can distinguish lymphoma subtypes, predict patient survival, and individualize therapy, thus playing a key role in launching the era of cancer precision medicine
- Melody A. Swartz, PhD, William B. Ogden Professor, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, for pioneering contributions to the field of lymphatic physiology and immunobiology, and the elucidation of how lymphatics regulate immunity, tolerance, and tumor progression
- Hugues de Thé, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, Collège de France, and physician, Hôpital Saint-Louis, Paris, for his work in first cloning the PML-RARA fusion gene, which is the initiating event for acute promyelocytic leukemia; for defining many of the mechanisms of action of the fusion protein; and for uncovering the basis of responsiveness to retinoic acid and arsenic
- David S. Wilkes, MD, Dean and James Carroll Flippin Professor of Medical Sciences, Departments of Medicine and of Immunology, Cancer Biology, and Microbiology, University of Virginia School of Medicine, for leading his institutions to record levels of research funding; guiding the Harold Amos Faculty Development Program to markedly increase minority physician-scientist trainees; and creating a paradigm shift and novel drug development when discovering autoimmunity contributes to chronic rejection post–lung transplantation and in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
For information about the other scientists who were elected to the National Academy of Medicine, visit https://nam.edu/national-academy-of-medicine-elects-100-new-members-2020.
