Election to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is one of the most prestigious awards a person working in the healthcare field can receive. So when 5 of 65 newly elected IOM members hail from the same medical school — as has happened at Yale — that can make a dean very proud.
"Election of five faculty in one year attests to the outstanding quality of our faculty," said Dr. Robert J. Alpern, the Ensign Professor of Medicine and dean of the Yale School of Medicine.
The four faculty members and one adjunct professor elected to the IOM will receive more than just another honor — they will get another job. IOM was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1970, and its members are required to contribute their expertise to solve some the most vexing problems facing the nation's healthcare system.
For instance, in the last year IOM members completed a study on the cardiovascular effects of second-hand smoke, recommended new nutrition standards for the federal school meals program and reported on new strategies to reduce hypertension and salt retention.
With 1,817 members, this commitment gives the institute a lot of intellectual firepower. As the institute stated in its Oct. 12 announcement, the new members and five foreign associates "have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service."
The five new members with Yale affiliations elected in 2010 were:
Peter Cresswell
Eugene Higgins Professor of Immunobiology
Cresswell has spent most of his career unraveling some of the mysteries of the human immune system. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of antigen processing, in which fragments of proteins from viruses, bacteria and other disease-causing organisms bind to the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules on human cells during an infection.
Cresswell has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1991, when he joined the Yale faculty as a professor in the Department of Immunobiology. He is also affiliated with the medical school's Departments of Dermatology and Cell Biology.
Dr. Jack A Elias
Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine
A leading authority on the molecular basis of asthma and other lung disorders, Elias is chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, the medical school's largest department. Elias, who is board-certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, allergy and immunology and critical care medicine, came to Yale in 1990 as professor and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine. He is also affiliated with the Department of Immunobiology.
His research is focused on the cellular and molecular biology of the lung, and processes related to both injury and repair. He has studied asthma, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis and acute lung injury. His research group has developed and studied genetic models of these diseases and translated findings in these models to human disorders. This work has validated therapeutic targets for pharmaceutical companies seeking to develop new therapies for these conditions.
Dr. John H. Krystal
Robert L. McNeil Professor of Translational Research
Krystal is chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, chief of psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital and director of the clinical neurosciences division at the VA National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in West Haven, Connecticut.
He has published more than 300 papers on the neurobiology of alcoholism, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. His research approach combines psychopharmacology, genetics, and neuro-imaging and as led to the identification of potential new drug targets to treat alcoholism, schizophrenia and depression.
Dr. Charles J. Lockwood
Anita O'Keeffe Young Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
A specialist in high-risk pregnancies, with strong interest in uncovering the basic mechanisms of prematurity, pre-eclampsia and fetal growth restriction, Lockwood was named chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine in 2002.
His research and clinical interests include preventing recurrent pregnancy loss and prematurity, multi-fetal pregnancies, maternal thrombophilias and thrombosis, and prenatal diagnosis. Some of his research involves uncovering genetic predispositions to prematurity and fetal growth restriction.
He is editor of four text books and of UpToDate - Obstetrics and Contemporary Ob/Gyn, the nation's most widely read journal in the field. He is a former president of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation.
Dr. Robert S. Galvin
Adjunct professor of medicine and health policy at Yale
Galvin is the CEO of Equity Healthcare and executive director of Equity Healthcare, part of the Blackstone Group. The company oversees management of healthcare for firms owned by private equity companies.
Galvin is a nationally recognized leader in the areas of market-based health policy His work has received awards from the National Business Group on Health, the Healthcare Financial Management Association and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.