Three Johns Hopkins University researchers have been
elected to membership in the National
Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. Lisa A. Cooper,
Harry C. Dietz and Nancy Kass are among
65 new members nationwide. Election to this prestigious
body affirms their remarkable contributions
to medical science, health care and public health, as well
as to the education of generations of
physicians. It is one of the highest honors for those in
the biomedical profession.
Cooper is a Liberian-born professor of
medicine at the School of Medicine and the Bloomberg
School of Public Health. An internist and
epidemiologist, she has conducted landmark studies
designed
to understand and overcome racial and ethnic disparities in
medical care and research. Her research
has sought to better define barriers to equitable care
across ethnic groups and to identify ways for
medical science to address a growing awareness of racial
and ethnic differences in disease prevalence,
disease risk and care delivery. In 2007, Cooper won a
prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as
a "genius grant," for her work on these topics.
Dietz is the Victor A. McKusick Professor of Pediatrics,
Medicine and Molecular Biology and
Genetics in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic
Medicine, an investigator in the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute and director of the William S.
Smilow Center for Marfan Syndrome
Research.
Dietz studies how blood vessel walls develop and are
maintained, with a focus on processes that
contribute to inherited forms of cardiovascular disease.
His work on Marfan syndrome, a potentially
fatal connective tissue disease, which is thought to have
affected Abraham Lincoln, has led him from
discovery of the molecular basis of the disease to a
current clinical trial of a surprising potential
treatment: a medication used to treat high blood
pressure.
He has received multiple prestigious awards, including
the Richard D. Rowe and Young
Investigator awards from the Society for Pediatric
Research, the Curt Stern Award from the
American Society of Human Genetics, the Antoine Marfan and
Hero With a Heart awards from the
National Marfan Foundation and induction into the American
Society for Clinical Investigation and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Kass is the deputy director for public health at the
Berman
Institute of Bioethics and is the
Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health
in the Bloomberg School's
Department of
Health Policy and Management. Kass' work focuses on
research ethics, including identifying simpler
ways of conducting informed consent to increase research
participants' understanding; public health
ethics and the ethics of infectious diseases, including
pandemic influenza; and the ethics of
international public health research and community
engagement.
Kass is often called on to consult with national
leaders and decision makers on difficult
bioethics issues. She co-chaired the National Cancer
Institute Committee to develop
Recommendations for Informed Consent Documents for Cancer
Clinical Trials and has served as
consultant to the President's Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments, the National
Bioethics Advisory Commission and the National Academy of
Sciences.
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