C
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Kenneth Ramos, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM) (Chair), is professor of translational medical sciences, Alkek chair of medical genetics, executive director of the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, associate vice president for research, and assistant vice chancellor for health services for the Texas A&M University System. He is an accomplished physician-scientist with designations in the National Academy of Medicine (elected member) and National Academy of Sciences (lifetime associate). He is a transformational leader recognized throughout the world for his scientific contributions in the areas of genomics, precision medicine, and toxicology. With formal training in pharmaceutical sciences, chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, Dr. Ramos is helping to steer the changing landscape of medicine, biotechnology, and health care. In this context, he leads several translational, clinical research, and educational programs that integrate diverse approaches to elucidate genomic mechanisms of disease and to develop novel therapies for several oncologic, pulmonary, and vascular diseases. Dr. Ramos has provided academic, executive, administrative, and scientific leadership in the areas of genetics and genomic medicine and toxicology at various academic institutions, and over the course of his career has positively influenced the career of numerous clinicians and scientists engaged in medical, veterinary, and pharmaceutical practice. He is deeply committed to initiatives that advance modern technological applications to improve the quality of health care and reduce disease burden and health-associated costs.
Christian Abee, D.V.M., M.S., received his D.V.M. from Texas A&M University and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship and training program in comparative medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He began his career as a research scientist at Tulane National Primate Research Center (1974–1979). In 1979, he became director of animal health and resources at University of South Alabama College of Medicine, where he later became chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine and distinguished university professor. He moved to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2005 to
become the Doctor R. Lee Clark professor, chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine, and director of the Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research. He served as principal investigator of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and contracts and directed several NIH-supported national research resources, including the Squirrel Monkey Breeding and Research Resource, the Owl Monkey Breeding and Research Resource, the Rhesus Monkey Breeding and Research Resource, the Specific-Pathogen-Free Baboon Research Resource, and the National Center for Chimpanzee Care. He served as chair of the NIH Comparative Medicine Review Committee; served on the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) Council, the AAALAC International Council on Accreditation, and the Board of Directors of the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR). He has served as president of both the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and the Association of Primate Veterinarians, and he served on the National Scientific Advisory Boards of four National Primate Research Centers. He was an editor of two editions of Nonhuman Primates in Biomedical Research. He is a recipient of the Charles River Prize for his contributions to laboratory animal science and medicine, the Nathan R. Brewer Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to animals and science, and received an Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2007 from the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. He was awarded an emeritus professorship by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2020.
Ashutosh Agarwal, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biomedical engineering, and director of engineering and applied physics of the Desai Sethi Urology Institute at the University of Miami. The research mission of his Physiomimetic Microsystems Laboratory is to develop human-relevant organ mimic platforms to replace or significantly reduce animal testing for discovery of therapies and drugs. Organs on chips are also being employed for modeling of disease states, for conducting mechanistic studies, and for differentiation, maturation, and evaluation of human stem cells. The laboratory is supported by multiple consortium grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the National Cancer Institute). Dr. Agarwal was selected as a Kavli Fellow to participate in the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science symposium in Jerusalem (2019), was a featured speaker at a National Academy of Engineering–National Academy of Medicine Regional Meeting in Miami (2018), and co-organized a National Academies workshop on Microphysiological Systems for Efficacy and Safety Studies, focused on advances in organ-on-a-chip technologies for animals. Dr. Agarwal holds patents related to microphysiological systems and is cofounder of Bio-Vitro LLC, an early-stage startup company established in 2018 with the mission of accelerating development of disease models and novel therapeutics by providing an easy-to-use platform for culture and assessment of 3D cellular constructs. He has also previously received funding from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals related to lung-on-a-chip research.
Szczepan Baran, V.M.D., M.S., is chief scientific officer at VeriSIM Life, a company that has developed and offers pharmaceutical and biotech companies access to an artificial intelligence (AI)–enabled platform that guides preclinical translational drug development by predicting clinical outcomes. A scientist and comparative medicine veterinarian turned “technology geek,” he is passionate about transforming the delivery of innovative medicines to patients through digital technologies and data enablement to be more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally conscious while pushing the scientific envelope and reimagining patient engagement. Prior to joining VeriSIM Life, he was head of emerging technologies within Comparative Medicine at Novartis. In this position, he led an integrated
digital enterprise strategy to modernize and increase the agility of current processes, with a focus on the development and incorporation of patient-relevant AI technologies and digital endpoints. In parallel, Dr. Baran focused on stakeholder engagement to identify adaptation hurdles and develop regulatory qualification pathways for microphysiological systems (MPS) technologies. Dr. Baran has played instrumental roles in establishing and leading the Global Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research Preclinical Digital Biomarkers and MPS Groups with a vision for strategic alignment and data agility. He has received multiple 3Rs Awards for implementation of emerging technologies, including development of novel in vitro techniques to reduce the use of nonhuman primates (NHPs) in malaria research. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He completed his residency in Laboratory Animal Medicine and received a master of science in comparative medicine from the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Baran began his career at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he was recruited to develop the first canine embryonic stem cell lines and collaborate on developing novel NHP and canine transplantation protocols to eliminate graft versus host disease. Before joining Novartis, he held multiple startup and faculty positions and served on numerous boards. He is a Medical & Scientific Advisory Board member at the Canines-N-Kids Foundation. He serves as an ad hoc member on the Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods, AAALAC International as an ad hoc specialist, and as a member of the Boston Innovation Advisory Council. In December 2022, Dr. Baran was appointed to a National Institutes of Health advisory committee to the director working group on novel alternative methods.
Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychology and a core scientist at the California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). She was formally trained as a social psychologist (graduate training), as well as a nonhuman primate (NHP) neuroanatomist, behavioral neuroscientist, and primatologist (postdoctoral training). Her multispecies, multimethod, multidisciplinary laboratory was started in 2016 and focuses on how emotions came to be across evolutionary time and come to be across developmental time, carrying out “womb-to-tomb” comparative and translational affective science and often working in the context of neurodevelopmental disease (e.g., fetal Zika virus infection, Alzheimer’s disease). Her research team is interested in the fundamental components of mood, what makes individuals (humans, monkeys, agricultural animals, plus a variety of other model species such as aplysia) “well” and how features of the social and physical environment create the contexts for moods to emerge. She works across a variety of settings including the laboratory, field (in India and Malaysia), and agricultural barns. An increasing focus of her laboratory’s work is on how to improve NHP science, by increasing transparency to promote evaluation of scientific rigor. Dr. Bliss-Moreau receives research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the University of California. She is a member of the Society for Neuroscience Committee on Animals in Research and participates in the University of California’s Animal Research Transparency Working Group. She recently served as a consultant for Biomere, Inc., related to the contract research organization’s NHP enrichment and training protocols. Dr. Bliss-Moreau has authored more than 70 publications and received national recognition for her innovative research, including the Association for Psychological Science’s “Rising Star” award in 2013, the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions (in animal learning, cognition) in 2018, and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in 2020. Prior to joining the Department of Psychology, she was a faculty member in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Ricardo Carrion, Jr., Ph.D., is professor and director of maximum containment contract research and program co-lead at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, and a core scientist at the Southwest National Primate Research Center. Dr. Carrion’s research program aims to develop and characterize animal models for biosafety level 4 hemorrhagic fever viruses and other high-consequence pathogens. He was the first to show that the common marmoset faithfully mimics human Ebola virus disease, Marburg virus disease, and Lassa fever, thus providing a novel small nonhuman primate (NHP) model for evaluating countermeasures to these diseases. He has characterized a number of models of virus-induced disease that have been used for advanced preclinical development of vaccines and therapies to support eventual licensure via the animal rule pathway. Several filovirus vaccine platforms and therapeutics were advanced by Dr. Carrion’s group using cynomolgus and rhesus Ebola virus macaque models. In addition, his laboratory performed critical preclinical studies for the first approved Ebola antibody therapy. Most recently, Dr. Carrion’s lab has supported development of NHP COVID-19 models and has subsequently used these models for advanced preclinical development of several COVID-19 countermeasures, including mRNA vaccines, subunit vaccines, DNA vaccines, and monoclonal antibodies. Dr. Carrion’s current research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Department of Defense, Advanced Technology International, the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium, Novavax Inc., Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and Gilead Sciences.
J. Mark Cline, D.V.M., Ph.D., is an experienced researcher with more than 25 years of continuous National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and is a board-certified veterinary pathologist specializing in the discovery and development of animal models of cancer and radiation effects. Much of his past work focused on primate studies of hormonal and dietary effects on the pathophysiology of breast and reproductive cancer risk, with comparative work in rodents, and translational studies in human subjects. He is now principal investigator (PI) for the NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Wake Forest Primate Radiation Late Effects Program (U01 AI150578). This unique resource is funded from 2007 to 2027, includes long-term clinical assessments of multiple organ systems in male and female primates, and serves a network of more than 50 investigators across the United States. He also served as PI of a recently concluded Department of Defense/Congressionally Directed Medical Research Focused Program designed to assess cardiac, metabolic, immune, and genomic injury in irradiated nonhuman primates. He is program director for an NIH T32 Postdoctoral Training Program in Laboratory Animal and Comparative Medicine, focused on training graduate veterinarians to become independent researchers. More recently, his laboratory has developed the Primate Cancer Initiative, which conducts outreach to primate research facilities nationally to find primates with naturally occurring cancers and treat them, using novel immunotherapy approaches. This work has high translational value and helps to support cancer therapy for nonhuman primates who might not otherwise be treated. His salary is supported primarily by competitively awarded NIH grants, with limited salary support from Roche for immunotherapy studies.
Myrtle Davis, D.V.M., Ph.D., is scientific vice president of discovery toxicology at Bristol Myers Squibb. Previously, she served at the National Cancer Institute as chief of the Toxicology and Pharmacology Branch of the Developmental Therapeutics Program. Dr. Davis has previous experience as a research advisor in the Drug Safety group of Lilly Research Laboratories (Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical company). In both roles, she contributed to the advancement of several drug candidates and to the understanding of toxicological mechanisms. Dr. Davis also has several years of academic experience as an associate professor in the
Department of Pathology in the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland. She is currently responsible for leading scientific efforts in discovery toxicology to provide target and molecular hazard identification. She also leads and oversees the toxicology efforts needed to support mechanistic understanding of the toxicities of potential new drugs during their discovery. A native New Yorker, Dr. Davis completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Toxicologic Pathology at the University of Maryland. She earned a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and obtained her doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine. She also completed undergraduate work in chemistry and math at Tuskegee University. Dr. Davis is a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, an active member of the Society of Toxicology (currently serving as vice president), and a member of the Society of Toxicologic Pathology. She is currently serving on the Board of Scientific Councilors of the National Toxicology Program, and she is a reviewer for the Assay Development and Screening Technologies Laboratory of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Dr. Davis served as associate editor for Toxicological Sciences and Toxicologic Pathology, and as editor-in-chief of the ILAR Journal. She has authored several book chapters and coauthored peer-reviewed publications on a range of topics. She has also developed course content and lectures for medical and graduate student education. In December 2022, Dr. Davis was appointed to a National Institutes of Health advisory committee to the director working group on novel alternative methods.
Asgerally Fazleabas, Ph.D., is professor and associate chair of research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research, and codirector of the Reproductive and Developmental Sciences Program at Michigan State University. His research is focused on using the baboon as a nonhuman primate (NHP) model to understand early embryo–maternal dialog and implications of implantation failure, and the development of a baboon model for endometriosis to study early events in lesion development and impact on fertility. Dr. Fazleabas’s laboratory was the first to conclusively demonstrate that signals from the primate embryo, like those of other species, induce cell-specific changes in uterine gene expression. These changes are thought to play critical roles in establishing a synchrony between the maternal environment and the developing embryo that is a prerequisite for a successful pregnancy. The unique nature of the endometriosis NHP model he has developed, as well as the strong multidisciplinary group that he has established, has led to important and fundamental findings regarding the causative effects of endometriosis on aberrant gene expression in the eutopic endometrium that may contribute to infertility. Furthermore, studies from his laboratory have identified the genes that may be involved with the process of angiogenesis and cell adhesion during the establishment of lesions in the peritoneal environment. Dr. Fazleabas received his B.S. from California State University, Fresno, and his Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Following his postdoctoral training in reproductive biology/cell and molecular biology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, he joined the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Illinois Chicago where he held the rank of professor and director of women’s health and reproduction until October 2009. He has received several awards for his work, including the Carl Hartman Award from the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Dr. Fazleabas is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, serving as an advisor to the Developmental and Reproductive Sciences Division. He receives research funding for work with NHP models from the National Institutes of Health and Comanche Biopharma, a preclinical biopharmaceutical company developing a novel siRNA therapy for the treatment
of preeclampsia. Dr. Fazleabas is also a consultant with Ship of Theseus, a startup company focused on the development of mutated proteins for endometriosis treatment.
Melanie Graham, M.P.H., Ph.D., is a professor in the departments of Surgery, Medical School, where she holds the Robert and Katherine Goodale chair in minimally invasive surgery, and veterinary population medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and is director of the Preclinical Research Center (PCRC) at the University of Minnesota. She was trained in surgical modeling and as an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. She completed doctoral training at Utrecht University as a primatologist focused on animal welfare science, with a thesis titled “Working on the 3Rs: Utilization of refinement to enhance the value of translational research in nonhuman primates.” Dr. Graham’s research focuses on validity in preclinical modeling and refining models of chronic disease to maximize their predictive accuracy to the clinic. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has presented both nationally and internationally on her work defining model limitations, methods for refining the animal experience to improve well-being, and novel approaches for improving experimental rigor. She is similarly recognized for her deep expertise in the study of metabolic diseases and interventions centered on regenerative medicine, specifically innovative cell-based therapies and immunomodulation. Accordingly, Dr. Graham has integrated this work to lead influential pivotal trials that include the successful demonstration of both long-term diabetes reversal after islet xenotransplant and immunosuppression-free transplantation in primates. She is committed to engaging scientists with the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement) in the most meaningful way by objectively demonstrating their impact on the scientific value of experimental animal models. Dr. Graham serves on the Academy of Surgical Research Board of Directors and participates in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Nonhuman Primate Transplantation Tolerance Cooperative and the NIAID Immunobiology of Xenotransplantation Cooperative Research Program. She is a board of directors emeritus of the North American 3Rs Consortium, a nonprofit focused on refinement, reduction, and replacement of animal models in scientific research. Dr. Graham is a member of a scientific advisory group convened by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust to conduct a review of the current status of nonhuman primate academic research across funding bodies in the United Kingdom. She is the site investigator for PCRC, and her research is supported by the State of Minnesota, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Department of Defense, and National Institutes of Health.
Kelly Metcalf Pate, D.V.M, Ph.D., is director of the Division of Comparative Medicine and Dorothy W. Poitras associate professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a veterinarian-scientist and boarded specialist in laboratory animal medicine with more than 15 years of independent and collaborative expertise in the development and refinement of nonhuman primate and murine models of human disease, especially in the context of host–pathogen interactions. Dr. Metcalf Pate’s laboratory focuses on the elucidation of the role of platelets in the immune response to infectious disease, with a focus on the downstream effects of the platelet’s interactions with other cells throughout the pathogenesis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and cytomegalovirus infection, and how modulating the response of platelets to infection alters the course of disease. Recent work in her group has expanded to include the influence of environmental factors, especially social stress and the microbiome, on the immune response to viral infection, and on the translational validity and reproducibility of work with animal models. Her research is currently funded by the Department of Defense. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Metcalf Pate was faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she facilitated the development and
refinement of animal models of HIV pathogenesis as cochair of the Center for AIDS Research Cure Scientific Working Group, oversaw the research training programs funded by Boehringer Ingelheim and Charles River for veterinarians and veterinary students, and founded the Johns Hopkins University summer Veterinary Scholars Research Program and the summer Laboratory Animal Fellowship. She currently serves as an ad hoc consultant for AAALAC International, vice chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science, member of the Primate Care Committee of the American Society of Primatologists, member of the Association of Primate Veterinarians, and member of the advisory board for the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing; previously, she served as chair of the Animal Welfare Advisory Board for the Morris Animal Foundation. Dr. Metcalf Pate is a diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine since 2011. In December 2022, she was appointed to a National Institutes of Health advisory committee to the director working group on novel alternative methods. Dr. Metcalf Pate received her B.A. from Boston University, her D.V.M. from Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine, and her Ph.D. and comparative medicine fellowship training from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Guo-li Ming, M.D., Ph.D. (NAM), is Perelman Professor of Neuroscience and a member of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She received her medical training on child and maternal care from Tongji Medical University in China in 1994 and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, in 2002. After her postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Dr. Ming became an assistant professor at The Johns Hopkins University in 2003 and professor in 2011. The research in her laboratory centers on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal development and its dysregulation using mouse systems and patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. Dr. Ming has received a number of awards, including the Charles E. Culpeper Scholarship in Medical Science in 2003, Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship in 2005, young investigator award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2012, and A. E. Bennett Research Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry in 2014. She became a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2019. Dr. Ming is cofounder of and sits on the scientific advisory board of 3Dnamics, a biotechnology company that generates disease-specific and organoid models for preclinical drug screening and efficacy/toxicity testing.
Steven Piantadosi, M.D., Ph.D., is a clinical trials methodologist and senior statistician in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and professor in residence at Harvard Medical School. He has been associate group chair for strategy and innovation since 2018 in the Alliance National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) group, one of five cancer clinical trials groups supported by the National Cancer Institute. As of October 2022, Dr. Piantadosi serves as the contact principal investigator for the Alliance NCTN grant. From 2007 to 2017, he was the inaugural director of the Samuel Oschin Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2010 to 2017 he was a member of the National Academies National Cancer Policy Forum. Dr. Piantadosi served 20 years as founding division head for Biostatistics and Bioinformatics in the Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research has been in clinical trials design, methods, and applications in diverse fields including cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and emphysema. Dr. Piantadosi has advised numerous public and commercial entities regarding clinical trials and taught extensively in domestic and international venues for more than 30 years. Dr. Piantadosi holds a consulting contract with Janssen Pharmaceuticals to serve as chair of the data monitoring
board for an international clinical trial for prostate cancer. In addition, he serves as chair of a Data and Safety Monitoring Board for an international retinitis pigmentosa clinical trial sponsored by the National Eye Institute. Dr. Piantadosi serves as consultant to the MITRE Corporation for work related to electronic health record data and is also a consultant for a medical device startup, CrainiUS, focused on the intracranial delivery of drugs for gliomas.
John Quackenbush, Ph.D., is professor of computational biology and bioinformatics and chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in the Department of Data Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Quackenbush’s Ph.D. was in theoretical physics, but in 1992 he received a fellowship to work on the Human Genome Project. This led him through the Salk Institute, Stanford University, and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), before moving to Harvard in 2005. Dr. Quackenbush’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and uses massive data to probe how many small effects combine to influence our health and risk of disease. He has published more than 320 scientific papers that have collectively been cited more than 85,000 times; among his honors is recognition in 2013 as a White House Open Science Champion of Change. In 2012, Dr. Quackenbush founded Genospace, a precision medicine software company providing data platforms to hospitals, diagnostic testing labs, and other groups. In 2017, Genospace was purchased by the Hospital Corporation of America. He currently serves on the scientific advisory boards for Caris Life Sciences, Olema Pharmaceuticals, 3x Genomics, Stitch Bio, and RenalytixAI.
Peter L. Strick, Ph.D. (NAS), is Thomas Detre Professor and chair, Department of Neurobiology; scientific director, University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute; director, Systems Neuroscience Center; and codirector, Center for Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Strick cofounded the Neural Control of Movement Society (1990) and served as its conference cochair, program chair (1990–2007), and president (2007–2010). Dr. Strick has served on many national and international committees. He was elected scientific councilor (1996–2000) and treasurer (1998–2000) of the Society for Neuroscience. He was selected as section editor (1986–1995) and then editor in chief (1995–2002) of the Journal of Neurophysiology, and he currently serves as senior editor (since 2003) of Cerebral Cortex and on the editorial board (since 2016) of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Strick’s major awards include the C. J. Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists (1979); Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (1986); Established Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (1995–1996); President’s Award for Excellence and Leadership in Research, State University of New York Upstate Medical Center (1996); Senior Research Career Scientist Award from the Veterans Administration (1987–2015); University Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology (2011); Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award, Senior Scholar (2013); Linne Lecture, Uppsala University, Sweden (2017); Paul D. MacLean Award, American Psychosomatic Society (2018); Carnegie Science Award in the Life Sciences (2018); NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award (2018); Krieg Cortical Kudos Discover Award, Cajal Club (2019); and Goldman-Rakic Prize, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (2022). Dr. Strick was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004) and to the National Academy of Sciences (2012). His research focuses on four major areas: the generation and control of voluntary movement by the motor areas of the cerebral cortex; the motor and cognitive functions of the basal ganglia
and cerebellum; the neural basis for the mind-body connection; and unraveling the complex neural networks that comprise the central nervous system.
Jerrold Tannenbaum, J.D., is an established animal ethicist and lawyer and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, where he taught required courses in veterinary ethics and law from 1999 to 2013. Prior to this he taught at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, where he helped found that school’s signature program in ethics and values and its M.S. program in animals and public policy. Professor Tannenbaum completed graduate work in philosophy at Rockefeller University and Cornell University, and obtained his J.D. from Harvard Law School. His current primary areas of interest are animal research ethics and animal research law. Professor Tannenbaum has numerous publications in this area, including “Russell and Burch’s 3Rs Then and Now: The Need for Clarity in Definition and Purpose” (with B. Taylor Bennett), which appeared in 2015 in the Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, and “The Pursuit and Advancement of Knowledge as a Justification for the Use of Animals in Research,” which appeared in 2019 in the ILAR Journal. He is also author of Veterinary Ethics, the first comprehensive book on veterinary ethics. Professor Tannenbaum has spoken widely on ethical and legal issues relating to animals to a variety of audiences ranging from veterinary students to humane societies. He is a member of the National Academies Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Standing Committee for the Care and Use of Animals in Research.
NATIONAL ACADEMIES STAFF
Autumn S. Downey, Ph.D. (Study Director), is a senior program officer with the Board on Health Sciences Policy. She joined the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2012 and is currently directing a consensus study on nonhuman primate models in biomedical research, as well as a standing committee on personal protective equipment. She was formerly director of the Standing Committee on Medical and Epidemiological Aspects of Air Pollution on U.S. Government Employees and their Families. Other National Academies studies she has worked on include Frameworks for Protecting Workers and the Public from Inhalation Hazards; Meeting the Challenge of Caring for Persons Living with Dementia and Their Care Partners and Caregivers; Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response; Return of Individual-Specific Research Results Generated in Research Laboratories; Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia; A National Trauma Care System; Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters; Bio-Watch PCR Assays; and Advancing Workforce Health at the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Downey received her Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and immunology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the school’s National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response. Prior to joining the National Academies, she was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she worked on environmental sampling for biothreat agents and the indoor microbiome.
Olivia C. Yost, M.Sc., is a program officer with the Board on Health Sciences Policy. She has supported multiple consensus study and standing committees related to the topics of laboratory animal research, respiratory protection, and occupational health. Prior to joining the National Academies in 2015, Ms. Yost worked as a research officer for ARCHIVE Global, where she managed evaluation activities for disease control programs in the Caribbean, West
Africa, and South Asia. Ms. Yost received her M.Sc. in the control of infectious diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where her graduate research focused on developing rapid testing methodologies to identify failing wastewater infrastructure. She received her B.A. in history and communications from Franklin University Switzerland.
Susana Rodriguez, Ph.D., is a program officer with the Board on Animal Health Sciences, Conservation, and Research. She supports the Standing Committee for Care and Use of Animals in Research and the Roundtable on Science and Welfare in Laboratory Animal Use. Dr. Rodriguez received her Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM). Her doctoral research focused on developing chemical-genetic tools to control the spatial and temporal expression of metabolic enzymes involved in regulating lipid metabolism in mammalian cells. For her postdoctoral work, Dr. Rodriguez transferred to the Department of Physiology at JHUSOM to characterize the metabolic functions of a novel and highly conserved family of secreted proteins that are altered by nutritional, metabolic, and disease states.
Kyle Cavagnini, Ph.D., is an associate program officer with the Board on Health Sciences Policy. They currently staff the Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation. Dr. Cavagnini previously worked with the National Academies Board on Animal Health Sciences, Conservation, and Research, where they supported the Standing Committee for the Care and Use of Animals in Research and workshop committees engaged in the One Health field. Prior to joining the National Academies, Dr. Cavagnini completed a science policy fellowship with the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and was a Fulbright Research Fellow to Norway. They earned their Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where their doctoral research focused on genomic contributions to metabolic sensing in the liver and other tissues. They received undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Kelsey R. Babik, M.P.H., is an associate program officer with the Health and Medicine Division at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition to this study, she works on projects initiated by the Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. This is a standing committee at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine sponsored by the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that provides a forum for discussion of scientific and technical issues relevant to the development, certification, deployment, and use of personal protective equipment, standards, and related systems to ensure workplace safety and health. Previously, at the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Ms. Babik worked on occupational health risk assessments for first responders. She is currently a part-time doctor of public health student at the University of Illinois Chicago. Ms. Babik has a B.S. in molecular biology from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.P.H. from the University of Maryland.
Lydia Teferra is a research associate with the Board on Health Sciences at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, serving with the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health and the Forum on Regenerative Medicine. She graduated from Northwestern University in 2020 with a B.A. in psychology and global health and has been working at the National Academies for a little over 1 year. Prior to her time at the National Academies, Ms. Teferra has also interned and volunteered for local nonprofit organizations
addressing a number of public health issues. She hopes to pursue a master’s degree in public health in the near future.
Aparna Cheran is a senior program assistant with the Board on Health Sciences, where she is a staff member on the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health and the Forum on Regenerative Medicine. She graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a B.S. in microbiology, a B.A. in religion and culture, and a minor in medicine and society. She is currently working on her master’s in health administration from George Mason University, which she hopes to complete in the near future.
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