Gregg Semenza
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Gregg L. Semenza, professor of pediatrics in
the School of Medicine, and Jane I. Guyer,
professor and acting chair of Anthropology in
the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, have been
elected members of the National Academy of Sciences for
their excellence in original scientific
research. Membership in the NAS is one of the highest
honors given to a scientist or engineer in the
United States. Semenza and Guyer will be inducted into the
academy in April 2009 during the
organization's 146th annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The election of Semenza and Guyer, along with 70
others, brings the number of Johns Hopkins
faculty in NAS to 21. There are currently just over 2,000
active NAS members, nearly 200 of whom
have won the Nobel Prize. Among the academy's renowned
members have been Albert Einstein, Robert
Oppenheimer, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright and Alexander
Graham Bell.
One of today's pre-eminent researchers on the
molecular mechanisms of oxygen regulation,
Semenza has led the field in uncovering how cells adapt to
changing oxygen levels. He has identified
and studied the HIF-1 (hypoxia-inducible factor 1) protein,
which controls genes in response to
changes in oxygen availability. HIF-1 controls genes
involved in adaptation to low oxygen--those that
control energy manufacture, generation of new red blood
cells and the growth of new blood vessels.
He currently is studying the role of HIF-1 in cancer,
ischemia and chronic lung disease, the most
common causes of mortality in the U.S. population.
Semenza received his medical degree and doctorate from
the University of Pennsylvania and did
his residency in pediatrics at Duke University Medical
Center. At Johns Hopkins, where he did his
postdoctoral research in medical genetics, he is a member
of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of
Genetic Medicine and director of the Vascular Biology
program in the Institute for Cell Engineering.
On the faculty since 1990, he has authored more than 100
research articles and a number of book
chapters and sits on the editorial boards of several
scientific publications.
Among the honors he has received are the E. Mead
Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics,
the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation's Jean and Nicholas
Leone Award, the American Heart
Association Established Investigator Award and the Lucille
P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical
Science. He was recently elected to the Association of
American Physicians.
"Dr. Semenza's groundbreaking discovery of the
hypoxia-inducible factor has started an entire
new field of research and helped put Johns Hopkins on the
academic map nationally and
internationally," said Chi V. Dang, vice dean for research
at the School of Medicine. "His outstanding
service to the Hopkins community--his involvement with
multiple training programs, teaching several
courses each year and participation in several
committees--is a draw for talented graduate students,
fellows and faculty. We are thrilled that his work has been
recognized with this rare honor."
Jane Guyer
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Jane Guyer earned her doctorate in anthropology from
the University of Rochester and her
bachelor's degree in sociology from the London School of
Economics and Political Science. She joined
the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2002 as a professor in the
Department of Anthropology, and in 2007
added a secondary appointment in History. Before coming to
Johns Hopkins, she was director of the
Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, and
also served on the faculties of Harvard
University and Boston University.
Guyer's research has focused on material life, with
major emphasis on issues related to food, oil
and money. Most recently, Guyer has been studying the
China-India-Africa-Brazil axis of global trade
in small consumer items, but she has devoted her entire
career up to now to economic transformations
in West Africa, particularly the productive economy, the
division of labor and the management of
money. Guyer's most recent book, Marginal Gains: Monetary
Transactions in Atlantic Africa (2004), re-
examines the anthropological and historical record on
monetary transactions in Atlantic Africa.
The author of numerous research articles and editor of
many collected works, Guyer also serves
on several national and international committees, including
the International Advisory Group to the
World Bank and the governments of Chad and Cameroon on the
Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development
and Pipeline Project and the board of directors of the
African Studies Association.
"Professor Guyer has enriched the School of Arts and
Sciences immensely by her presence,
through her extraordinary scholarship and her broader
contributions to our academic community--her
mentorship of graduate students, her leadership of the
Department of Anthropology, her wisdom on
our Academic Council," said Adam F. Falk, the James B.
Knapp Dean of the Krieger School. "I am
immensely pleased to see her honored by election to the
National Academy, both because she is
personally so deserving and because it represents a
recognition and appreciation for her field of
inquiry, one that is ever more critically relevant in our
world."
The National Academy of Sciences is a private,
nonprofit honorific society of distinguished
scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research,
dedicated to the furthering of science and
technology and to their use for the general welfare.
Established in 1863, the academy has served to
"investigate, examine, experiment and report upon any
subject of science or art" whenever called upon
to do so by any department of the government.
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