Features

Basic biomedical research, with its careful, tightly controlled experiments on cells and laboratory animals, is painstaking work. But some of the challenges of basic science pale next to the hurdles faced by clinical and translational researchers, who test laboratory discoveries in human subjects with the ultimate goal of getting safe and effective new drugs to patients who need them.

In addition to the inherent difficulties of studying people—unlike mice, humans vary widely in genetics and life...

Jack A. Elias, M.D., the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine and chief of the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, has been named chair of the medical school’s Department of Internal Medicine.

Elias, a leading authority on the molecular basis of asthma and other lung disorders, will lead the school’s largest department, with 351 full-time faculty and $83 million in research funding.

“Jack Elias is...