People Briefs

Theodore Friedmann, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has been appointed to the Muriel Jeannette Whitehill Chair for Biomedical Ethics at the school. Friedmann, who has been at UC-San Diego since 1969, has focused his research efforts on the genetic mechanisms underlying disease and the development of methods to correct genetic defects. In a benchmark 1972 essay in Science (175:949-55), Friedmann introduced the phrase "gene therapy" to describe the potential of treating genetic diseases by replacing defective genes with normal ones. In the same essay, he also posed a series of ethical questions that today are used as discussion guidelines by those who conduct and monitor biomedical research. As Whitehill professor, Friedmann will continue his collaboration with other UC-San Diego faculty who are applying genetics to the understanding and, potentially, the treatment of heart disease, cancer, and neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. His laboratory also continues to address the technical aspects of delivering genes into different model systems, targeting specific cells to achieve permanent correction of fundamental defects that lead to disease. The Whitehill chair was established in 1988 with a gift from physician Jules Leonard Whitehill in honor his wife, who died in 1986 of cancer. Eve Slater, an associate clinical professor of medicine at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, has been appointed vice president of clinical and regulatory development for Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories (MSDRL), a Rahway, N.J.-based division of Merck & Co., Inc., the pharmaceutical giant. Slater joined Merck's basic research staff in 1983. Three years later, she was promoted to executive director for biochemistry and molecular biology. Most recently, she served as executive director of clinical and regulatory development. Now, as vice president of this department, she will be responsible for MSDRL's interactions with the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies. She will also have responsibility for The Merck Manual and The Merck Manual of Geriatrics. Before joining MSDRL, Slater was an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Additionally, she was chief of the hypertension unit of Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was the first woman to be named chief resident in medicine. Slater received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Vassar College and her M.D. from Columbia University. Glen L. Hortin, Karen Hsiao, and Stephanie L. Lee are the recipients of the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation's 1990 Scholarships in Medical Science. The three will receive $100,000 a year for up to three years through grants to their respective medical schools (Funding Briefs, The Scientist, July 23, 1990, page 22). Hortin, 36, assistant professor of pediatrics and assistant professor of pathology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will study the molecular interactions of complement components toward understanding the roles of these proteins in immune-complex diseases. He is a 1976 graduate of Illinois State University, where he majored in chemistry. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in 1983. Hsiao, 35, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, will investigate the molecular genetics of inherited human prion diseases in order to better understand transmissable cerebral amyloidosis. She earned an A.B. in chemistry and physics from Radcliffe College/Harvard University in 1975. She received a Ph.D. in developmental neuroanatomy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. A year later, she was awarded an M.D. from the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. Lee, 36, an assistant professor of medicine at New England Medical Center Hospitals, Tufts University School of Medicine, will study the molecular basis of rat thyrotropin releasing hormone expression in neuroendocrine cells. A 1975 graduate in chemistry and biology from University of California, Santa Barbara, Lee received her Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology in 1980 from UC-San Diego. Her 1982 M.D. is also from UC-San Diego. Materials scientist Russell Judd Diefendorf has joined Clemson University's faculty as the P.W. and Bobbie McAlister Trustees Chair in Advanced Engineering Materials. Diefendorf was previously director of the High Temperature Advanced Structural Composites Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He will guide Clemson's teaching and research in composite engineering materials. The McAlister chair was established in 1987 by industrialist and Clemson alumnus P.W. McAlister and members of his family. Diefendorf earned his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Toronto.

People Briefs

The Scientist Staff

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