Appendix B
Biographical Sketches of Planning Committee
James G. Fox (Co-Chair) is a professor and director of the Division of Comparative Medicine and a professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an adjunct professor at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He is a diplomate and a past president of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine, past president of the Massachusetts Society of Medical Research, past chairman of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care Council, past chairman of the National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health (NIH/NCRR) Comparative Medicine Study Section and past president of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. He has served on the editorial board of several journals, is a past member of the NIH/NCRR Scientific Advisory Council, and the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Global Health and an advisory committee to the NIH directors concerned with the physician-scientist workforce. Dr. Fox was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2004. Dr. Fox is considered an international authority on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of gastric and enterohepatic helicobacters in humans and animals. He is largely responsible for identifying, naming, and describing many of the diseases attributed to various helicobacter species; most notably their association with hepatitis, liver tumors, inflammatory bowel disease, and colon cancer. His past and current research has been funded by NIH and the National Cancer Institute, as well as by private industrial sources, for the past 35 years. He has been the principal investigator of an NIH postdoctoral training grant for veterinarians for the past 25 years and has trained 60 veterinarians for careers in biomedical research. He also has an NIH training grant for veterinary students and has introduced more than 100 veterinary students to careers in biomedical research.
Joseph T. Newsome (Co-Chair) is currently an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and the clinical director of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources at the University of Pittsburgh. He received a BSc in microbiology in 1980, a master’s degree in pathobiology in 1982, working with the research team
of Dr. Richard Olson that developed the first vaccine for feline leukemia, and obtained a doctorate of veterinary medicine in 1986 from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. For the next 10 years he wore multiple hats at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, including as facility manager, assistant professor of surgery and pathology, and clinical veterinarian overseeing surgery and radiological research support. In 1996 he became a diplomat of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and concurrently completed a postdoctoral training program in experimental pathobiology, assisting in the development of the animal models for the team that eventually led to the current human papillomavirus vaccine. From 2000 to 2012 he was the University of Pittsburgh’s attending veterinarian. He is the author or co-author of more than 65 articles and book chapters. During his career he has been the principal investigator (4) or co-investigator (6) on multiple National Center for Research Resources, Office of Pharmaceutical Industry Research, National Institutes of Health–funded grants focused on renovations or new construction projects related to vivaria in multiple institutions. He is involved in national and industry level organizations such as American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM), Association of Primate Veterinarians, American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS), and American Veterinary Medical Association with leadership roles such as being a subcommittee chair for the ACLAM foundation since 2010 and was vice chair of the Policies & Procedures Coordinating Committee of AALAS. His current focus and expertise are in management, biosecurity, biocontainment, facility design and operations, and cancer modeling, immunology, and virology.
Wendy S. Garrett is a physician-scientist and her basic science laboratory is located at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Garrett is a physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her laboratory is focused on defining the dynamic interactions between the mucosal immune system and gut microbiota. The Garrett laboratory’s experimental questions are grounded in understanding how interactions between intestinal microbial communities and the immune system contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. Dr. Garrett has recently received the following awards for her research: a Damon Runyon Foundation Fellowship, a Burroughs Wellcome Career in Medical Sciences Award, a V Foundation Scholar Grant, a Cancer Research Institute Investigator Award, and a Searle Scholars Award.
Jeffrey I. Gordon is the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his AB from Oberlin College and his MD from The University of Chicago. He joined the Washington University faculty after completing his clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology and doing postdoctoral research at NIH. He was head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology before becoming the founding Director of a university-wide, interdisciplinary Center for Genome Sciences and
Systems Biology. His group has developed new experimental and computational approaches to characterize the assembly and dynamic operations of human gut microbial communities; this work has involved studies of novel gnotobiotic animal models, twins concordant or discordant for physiologic phenotypes, and children and adults representing diverse geographic, cultural and socioeconomic conditions. A central question he and his students are pursuing is how our gut microbiomes contribute to obesity and childhood undernutrition. Gordon has been the research mentor to more than 120 PhD and MD/PhD students and postdoctoral fellows since he established his lab. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society.
Vincent B. Young is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his MD and PhD from Stanford University. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was previously on the faculty at Michigan State University prior to joining the University of Michigan in 2007. Dr. Young has a long-standing interest in understanding the pathogenesis of bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract and the role of the normal microbiota in human health and disease. Dr. Young led a Human Microbiome Project on the role of the microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease. He is also involved in projects that look at microbial communities in the lungs of patients with HIV infection and cystic fibrosis. Current research in the Young lab includes a “team science” effort to understand the pathogenesis Clostridium difficile infection by an integrated approach that combines clinical research, bacterial genomics, microbial ecology, and immunology/host response projects. He is also leading a group of investigators that is developing the use of stem cell–derived intestinal organoids as a novel alternative model system for the study of enteric disease agents.