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The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research (2008)

Chapter: Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

« Previous: Appendix A: Statement of Task
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
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Page 188
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
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Page 189
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
×
Page 190
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
×
Page 191
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
×
Page 192
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
×
Page 193
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
×
Page 194
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2008. The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12026.
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Page 195

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Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members David J. Galas (Chair) is the vice president and chief scientific officer of biological and life sciences at Battelle Memorial Institute and a professor at the Institute for Systems Biology. Prior to joining Battelle, he held a number of key positions, including chancellor, chief scientific officer, and Norris Professor of Applied Life Sciences, Keck Graduate Institute of Life Sciences (Claremont, California); president and chief scientific officer of Darwin Molecular and Chiroscience R&D, Inc.; director for health and environ- mental research, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE); professor of molecular biology, University of Southern California; senior staff scientist, Biomedical Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and scientific adviser to the Defense Science Board. Dr. Galas was among the early leaders in the U.S. Human Genome Program, and from 1990 to 1993 he led the DOE component of this project. In recent years his focus has included the appli- cation of a variety of scientific disciplines to addressing challenging biologi- cal and medical problems, including Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, and improving diagnostic technologies. Dr. Galas received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Davis-Livermore, and his undergradu- ate degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Smithsonian Institution Computer World Pioneer Award in 1999. He has served on many federal, university, and corporate boards and advisory committees, including a number of N ­ ational Research Council committees and the Board on Life Science. He is a lifetime national associate of the National Academy of Sciences. 188

APPENDIX B 189 Carl T. Bergstrom is an associate professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. As an evolutionary biologist, Dr. Bergstrom­ studies the role of information in biological systems at scales from intra- cellular control of gene expression to population-wide linguistic commu- nication. Working in close collaboration with empirical and experimental r ­ esearchers, Dr. Bergstrom’s group approaches these problems using math- ematical models and computer simulations. His recent projects include contributions to the game theory of communication, models of intra­cellular information processing, and work on how immune systems avoid subver- sion by pathogens. In a set of more applied endeavors, Dr. Bergstrom uses ecological and evolutionary theory to understand and control emerg- ing infectious diseases, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospi- tals and novel emerging pathogens such as SARS and avian influenza. A n ­ ational leader in promoting public education about evolutionary biology, Dr. Bergstrom­ received his Ph.D. in theoretical population genetics from Stanford University in 1998. After a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University, where he studied the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, Dr. Bergstrom­ joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 2001. Vicki L. Chandler holds the Carl E. and Patricia Weiler Endowed Chair for Excellence in Agriculture and Life Sciences, regents’ professor in the Department of Plant Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology, and the director of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Chandler has conducted pio- neering research on the control of gene expression in plants and animals. She has received numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Searle Scholar Award, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers, and the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. She has served extensively on national advisory boards and panels for NSF, DOE, NIH, and HHMI, including the NSF Biological Directorate Advisory Committee from 2001 to 2004. She has chaired or cochaired national conferences for Keystone, FASEB, and the Gordon Research Conferences, serving on the GRC board of trustees and in 2001 as chair of the board. Dr. Chandler was elected to the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology Board of Directors for 1999-2003 and president of the American Society of Plant Biologists for 2001-2002. In 2007 she was elected to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, to which she was elected a member in 2002. Paul G. Falkowski is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University. Some of his

190 APPENDIX B research interests include biogeochemical cycles, photosynthesis, biologi- cal oceanography, molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics, physi- ological adaptation, plant physiology, evolution, mathematical modeling, and symbiosis. Dr. Falkowski is also the lead principal investigator in the Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology program. That program focuses on molecular biology and biophysics to address key questions in biological oceanography and marine biology. The program also provides a laboratory in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers Uni- versity that addresses the application of similar techniques to primary pro- duction, nitrogen fixation, and other rate-determining processes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Dr. Falkowski has received many awards; his most recent include the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, Rutgers University (2000); the Vernadsky Medal, European Geosciences Union (2005); and the Board of Governors Professor, Rutgers University (2005). He has also received numerous grants, some from NASA, NSF, DOD, DOE, and the Moore Foundation. Dr. Falkowski received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of British Columbia. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. Douglas J. Futuyma is a distinguished professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research interests in evolution focus primarily on speciation and the evolution of ecological interactions among species. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and a Fulbright fellow, president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the American ­Society of Naturalists, and editor of Evolution. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. He is the author of the successful textbook Evolutionary Biology (Sinauer Associates, 1986). Most of his work has centered on the population biology of herbivorous insects and the evolution of their affiliation with host plants. Recent work has focused on the evolu- tion of host specificity, on whether or not constraints on genetic variation are likely to have influenced the phylogenetic history of host associations in a group of leaf beetles, and on the pattern of speciation in this group. Dr. Futuyma’s students have worked on diverse evolutionary and ecological studies of insect-plant interactions and of speciation in insects. James Griesemer is a professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, and a member of the UC Davis Center for Population Biology, the Science and Technology Studies Program, and the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Austria. He received his A.B. in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.S. in biology and Ph.D. in conceptual foundations of science from the University of Chicago. His research interests include the history,

APPENDIX B 191 conceptual foundations, and social organization of genetics, ecology, devel­ opmental biology, and evolutionary biology. Dr. Griesemer is president of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. Leroy E. Hood is president of the Institute of Systems Biology. He received his M.D. from the John’s Hopkins University School of Medicine and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. His research has focused on the study of molecular immunology, biotechnol- ogy, and genomics. His professional career began at Caltech, where he and his colleagues pioneered four instruments—the DNA gene sequencer and synthesizer and the protein synthesizer and sequencer—which comprise the technological foundation for contemporary molecular biology. In particu- lar, the DNA sequencer has revolutionized genomics by allowing the rapid automated sequencing of DNA, which played a crucial role in contribut- ing to the successful mapping of the human genome during the 1990s. In 1992, Dr. Hood moved to the University of Washington as founder and chairman of the first cross-disciplinary biology department, the Depart- ment of ­Molecular Biotechnology. In 2000 he co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington, to pioneer systems approaches to biology and medicine. Most recently, Dr. Hood’s lifelong contributions to biotechnology earned him the prestigious 2004 Association for Molecular Pathology Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics. He was also awarded the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Innovation and Invention, the 2002 Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology, and the 1987 Lasker Prize for his studies on the mechanism of immune diversity. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers; received 14 patents; and coauthored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and genetics; and he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Hood has also played a role in founding numerous biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Systemix, Darwin, and Rosetta. David Julius is a professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco. He is interested in the molecular biology of sensory transduction and neurotransmitter action in the mammalian nervous system. Dr. Julius is a leading neuro­pharmacologist whose group has cloned and characterized a number of neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels from the mammalian nervous system. These include temperature-activated channels that also serve as receptors for capsaicin, the pungent ingredient in chili peppers, or for menthol. One of his goals is to understand the molecular basis of somato­sensation—the

192 APPENDIX B process whereby we experience touch and temperature—with an emphasis on identifying molecules that detect noxious (pain-producing) stimuli. He is also interested in understanding how somatosensation is altered in response to tissue or nerve injury. Dr. Julius received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and his bachelor’s at MIT. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Junhyong Kim is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Endowed profes- sor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Department of Computer and Information Science and the Penn Center for Bioinformatics. He is also co-director of the Penn Genomics Institute. He received his B.S. from Seoul National University and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York. His current focus is on genomics, computa- tional biology and evolution, and biotechnology. Current projects include neurogenomics, RNA measurement technology, phylogenetics, and yeast comparative genomics. His work includes analyzing the macroevolution and mutational dynamics of the transcriptome in Drosophila. He has devel- oped computational tools to study and visualize the timing of transcription in yeast in order to learn about how various transcripts are coordinated to drive the cell cycle. He works on improving the underlying mathematics used for phylogenetic prediction and how to mine the haphazard phyloge- netic information from GenBank. He has 20 years of experience in com- putational biology. He is an associate editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, a member of the editorial board of Molecular Development Evolution, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Center for Evolutionary Synthesis. He also received the Sloan Foundation Young Investigator Award. Karla A. Kirkegaard is professor and chair of the Department of Micro- biology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard University and has been investigating the genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology of poliovirus and other positive-strand RNA viruses since her postdoctoral work with David Baltimore from 1983-1986 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Kirkegaard was a faculty member in the “RNA World” of the Univer- sity of Colorado, Boulder, from 1986 to 1996, where she was an assistant investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Searle and a Packard scholar. Upon moving to Stanford in 1996, her laboratory’s inter- ests have included the biochemistry of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases and immune evasion mechanisms used by positive-strand RNA viruses. In 2006 she was a recipient of a NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for her studies of drug resistance in RNA viruses.

APPENDIX B 193 Jane Maienschein is regents’ professor, president’s professor, and parents asso­ciation professor in the School of Life Sciences and director of the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Dr. Maienschein specializes in the his- tory and philosophy of biology and the way that biology, bioethics, and biopolicy play out in society. Focusing on research in embryology, genetics, and cytology, she combines detailed analysis of the epistemological stan- dards, theories, laboratory practices, and experimental approaches with the study of the people, institutions, and changing social, political, and legal contexts in which science thrives. She enjoys teaching and is committed to public education about biology and its human dimensions. Dr. Maienschein has received numerous faculty and teaching awards and has coedited a dozen books and written three books, including most recently Whose View of Life? Embryos, Cloning, and Stem Cells (Harvard University Press, 2003). Eve E. Marder is the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuro- science in the Biology Department and Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University. She received her Ph.D. in 1974 from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Marder has studied the dynamics of small neuronal networks using the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system. Her work was instrumental in demonstrating that neuronal circuits are not “hard-wired” but can be reconfigured by neuromodulatory neurons and substances to produce a variety of outputs. Together with Larry Ab- bott, her laboratory pioneered the “dynamic clamp.” Dr. Marder was one of the first experimentalists to forge long-standing collaborations with theorists and has for almost 15 years combined experimental work with insights from modeling and theoretical studies. Her work today focuses on understanding how stability in networks arises despite ongoing channel and receptor turnover and modulation, both in developing and adult animals. Dr. Marder is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a trustee of the Grass Foundation. She was the Forbes Lecturer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in 2000 and the Einer Hille Lecturer at the Univer- sity of Washington in 2002. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. Carlos Martinez del Rio is a professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming. He received his B.Sc. from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México and his Ph.D. from the Uni- versity of Florida. He is a functional ecologist who tries hard to establish connections across disciplines. He studies mutualisms like pollination and seed dispersal and approaches research problems from a variety of perspec-

194 APPENDIX B tives, from the molecular to the biospheric. He and members of his labora- tory investigate three broad areas: ecological and evolutionary physiology, stable isotopes as tracers in biological systems, and the spatial ecology of ecological interactions. He was the recipient of the NSF Young Investiga- tor Award in 1992, and he has been an Aldo Leopold fellow since 2004. He has served on review panels and advisory groups at National Science Foundation and several conservation organizations. He is the author of one book and over 100 publications. Joseph H. Nadeau received his Ph.D. in population biology from Boston University in 1978. He was a postdoctoral fellow with both Jan Klein in the Immunogenetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen (1978-1980) and Eva Eicher at the Jackson Laboratory (1980-1981). He was appointed associate staff scientist (1981-1985), staff scientist (1985- 1991), and senior staff scientist (1991-1994) at the Jackson Laboratory and then professor in the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University and medical scientist in the Department of Medicine at Montreal General Hospital (1994-1996). He is currently James H. Jewel Professor and chair of the genetics department at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Computational Genomics and Systems Biology. He has over 200 research publications. He was a founding member of the International Mammalian Genome Society and a found- ing editor of Mammalian Genome. He was founder and director of the Mouse Genome Informatics Project (1989-1994), founder of the Mouse Gene Expression Database Project (1992-1994), founding editor of Systems Biology Reviews, and founder and first director of the Ohio GI Cancer Consortium. He has served on review panels and advisory groups at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Human Genome Database. He has organized nearly 40 courses, workshops, and conferences. He has consulted for GlaxoSmithKline, Pharmacia, Celera Genomics, Exelixis, NineSigma, and CellTech Chiroscience and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Galileo Genomics. Joan Roughgarden is a professor in the Department of Biological Sci- ences at Stanford University where she has taught since 1972. She founded and directed the Earth Systems Program at Stanford and was awarded for service to under­graduate education. Dr. Roughgarden has studied co- evolutionary models that combine ecology with population genetics, and her current research focuses on the mathematical theory of reproductive social behavior and applying the cooperative game theory of bargaining and side payments to explain animal social dynamics, especially mating behavior. In addition to a seminal ecology textbook written with Paul R. Ehrlich, Dr. ­Roughgarden published a 2004 challenge to certain tenets of sexual selection titled Evolution’s Rainbow (University of California Press,

APPENDIX B 195 2005). She received a B.S. in biology and an A.B. in philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1968 and a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University in 1971. She is the author of five books and over 120 articles. Julie A. Theriot is an associate professor of biochemistry and microbi- ology and immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Theriot­ studies the transformation of chemical energy to mechanical energy in cell movement. Her work focuses on understanding the mecha- nisms of actin-based movement of the intracytoplasmic pathogenic bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Shigella flexneri. She is investigating these systems at the molecular level to yield insights into the mechanisms of whole-cell actin-based motility and bacterial pathogenesis. Other research interests include establishment and maintenance of bacterial polarity, quan- titative videomicroscopy, and image and motion analysis. Honors include a Whitehead fellowship and a Packard fellowship for science and engineering. Dr. Theriot recently received the School of Medicine Award for Graduate Teaching and was named a 2004 MacArthur fellow. She served on the National Research Council Committee on Bridges to Independence: Iden- tifying Opportunities for and Challenges to Fostering the Independence of Young Investigators in the Life Sciences and the Committee on Transform- ing Biological Information into New Therapies: A Strategy for Developing Antiviral Drugs for Smallpox. Gunter P. Wagner is the Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolu- tionary Biology at Yale University and a noted researcher and theorist of developmental genetics and evolution. He was chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 1997-2001 and 2005-2008. Prior to joining Yale, he was an associate professor at the University of Vienna. Dr. Wagner and other researchers in his laboratory use mathematical mod- eling to understand the complex adaptations of organisms, with a focus on the molecular evolution of Hox genes and their role in the origin and early evolution of tetrapod limbs. For example, he has compared the expression of Hox genes between the primitive limbs of salamander and the highly derived limbs of frogs to understand the morphological evolution of these organisms. In another project, his lab studies the evolutionary history of Hox genes in primitive vertebrates and their correlation with the emergence of the developmental body plan of higher vertebrates. He and his team have also developed new mathematical techniques in order to better understand gene interactions and evolutionary biology. Dr. Wagner received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. He was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1992 and the Alexander Von Humboldt Research Prize in 2005. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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Although its importance is not always recognized, theory is an integral part of all biological research. Biologists' theoretical and conceptual frameworks inform every step of their research, affecting what experiments they do, what techniques and technologies they develop and use, and how they interpret their data.

By examining how theory can help biologists answer questions like "What are the engineering principles of life?" or "How do cells really work?" the report shows how theory synthesizes biological knowledge from the molecular level to the level of whole ecosystems. The book concludes that theory is already an inextricable thread running throughout the practice of biology; but that explicitly giving theory equal status with other components of biological research could help catalyze transformative research that will lead to creative, dynamic, and innovative advances in our understanding of life.

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