Tomorrow's Medicines: Will Translational Science Lead the Way?

Moderator

Rea Blakey

Discovery Health Channel
website

Rea Blakey is host of "Discovery Channel CME." This national TV program provides cutting-edge information about clinical medical issues for physicians, other health professionals, and the general public. Blakey is a former CNN Medical Correspondent and is also a media consultant to countless nationally known brands and public figures. She also works as a professional media consultant specializing in creatively, strategically, and successfully developing and implementing media-based messaging and programming.

Blakey has worked as a journalist, media coach or consultant. While at CNN's Washington bureau, Blakey was an award winning Medical Correspondent. And prior to joining CNN, Blakey spent 13 years in Washington, DC as an award-winning health producer, reporter and news anchor. As a member of the media, Blakey has testified before a healthcare subcommittee of the US House of Representatives, served on numerous journalistic panels to improve public understanding of a variety of issues, including of a wide array of health and medical concerns.

Blakey has served as a speaker, host, or panelist for several Fortune 500 companies, the Pan American Health Organization, US Department of Agriculture, American Association for World Health Organizations, US Administration on Aging and Alliance for Aging Research, among others.

Panelists

Barbara M. Alving, MD

National Institutes of Health
e-mail | website | publications

Barbara M. Alving is the Director of the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) at the National Institutes of Health. NCRR oversees the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, which funds a consortium of up to 60 academic health centers to work together to develop increased efficiency and speed for translating basic discoveries into treatments and prevention strategies for patients and for the population.

Alving earned her medical degree cum laude from Georgetown University School of Medicine, where she also completed an internship in internal medicine. She received her residency training in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, followed by a fellowship in hematology. Alving then became a research investigator in the Division of Blood and Blood Products at the Food and Drug Administration. After a longer career as a doctor in the Army and then as a leader in various government health agencies, she became the Acting Director of NCRR and was named Director in 2007. Alving is also a Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda and a Master in the American College of Physicians.

ShaAvhrée Buckman, MD, PhD, FAAP

FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
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ShaAvhrée Buckman is the Director of the Office of Translational Sciences (OTS), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), US Food and Drug Administration. OTS is comprised of the Office of Biostatistics, Office of Clinical Pharmacology, and provides oversight to CDER research involving human subjects as well as CDER regulatory science research. OTS is responsible for providing coordination for Critical Path initiatives across CDER in partnership with individual CDER offices.

Prior to serving as Director of OTS, Buckman served as Deputy Director for OTS and as medical team leader in the Division of Pediatric Drug Development, Office of Counter Terrorism and Pediatric Drug Development, CDER. Buckman received her MD and PhD degrees with an emphasis on molecular cell biology from Washington University School of Medicine. Then. Buckman completed Pediatric specialty training at Baylor College of Medicine. She is a board-certified Pediatrician, who has had a career-long interest in medications for children.

Garret A. FitzGerald, MD

University of Pennsylvania
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Garret A. FitzGerald is the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he chairs the Department of Pharmacology and directs the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT, www.itmat.upenn.edu). His work is focused on the translational therapeutics of the arachidonic acid cascade and the role of peripheral molecular clocks in metabolic and cardiovascular function. ITMAT has grown to over 800 members and supports research programs, faculty recruitment, education and infrastructural developments relevant to translational research. The Department of Pharmacology, of which FitzGerald is Chair, ranks #1 in NIH funding in the US and supports a Graduate group of approximately 90 students. FitzGerald serves on the Peer Review Advisory Committee of the NIH, the Science Board of the FDA, and the Drug Forum of the Institute of Medicine.

Ruth E. March, PhD

AstraZeneca
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Ruth March has led AstraZeneca's Personalized Healthcare Team since its formation in November 2007. She received her PhD in Immunology, specializing in the study of rheumatoid arthritis, and then spent over nine years in research into human genetics at the Universities of London and Oxford, specializing in the genetics of autoimmune disease. She was a University Lecturer in Genetics before joining AstraZeneca (formerly Zeneca) to work on pharmacogenetics in 1998. March was a co-founder of AstraZeneca's Pharmacogenetics Partnership and has authored or co-authored over 40 publications in the field of pharmacogenetics and personalized medicine. She has been a member of AstraZeneca's Personalized Healthcare Steering Committee since 2006, working with clinical teams to implement Personalized Healthcare in their drug development strategies. March is based at AstraZeneca's Alderley Park site in the UK.

Laura K. Richman, DVM, PhD

MedImmune
e-mail

Laura Richman was named Vice President, R&D–Translational Sciences in December, 2009 and has oversight over translational activities for programs in oncology, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmunity and infectious diseases. Prior to this appointment, she was Head Pathologist for the research department. In this role, she was responsible for directing the experimental pathology group, as well as for designing and interpreting research-based pathologic studies for safe drugs intended for human use.

Prior to joining MedImmune Richman was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where she was working in the viral oncology group. She has received the Mette Strand Award for outstanding research contributions to Medicine and Pharmacology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Richman, a board-certified veterinary pathologist, received her Veterinary Medical Degree from the University of Wisconsin, her PhD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and her BS in Zoology from University of California, Davis.

Orla Smith, PhD

Science Translational Medicine
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Orla Smith is the Managing Editor of Science's new journal Science Translational Medicine. She has a PhD in Biochemistry from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London, and she did her postdoctoral work on the cell and molecular biology of stem cells at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career in scientific publishing as News and Views Editor at the journal Nature Medicine. She then moved to Science as Biology Perspectives Editor, where she also reviewed and edited research manuscripts on neurodegenerative diseases. Smith then joined Cell as the founding Editor of the Leading Edge section with responsibility for all review and opinion content, the popular SnapShot format and the Cell podcast.