Three faculty members named to the Institute of Medicine

In October, three School of Medicine faculty members were named to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a part of the National Academies that is charged with providing science-based advice on medicine and health to policymakers, professionals and the public at large. These latest additions bring the number of IOM members at Yale to 42.

Among the 65 new members inducted this year were Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine; Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology and public health and investigative medicine; and Mary E. Tinetti, M.D., the Gladys Phillips Crowfoot Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology and public health and of investigative medicine.

Alpern is a nephrologist whose research has focused on the regulation of kidney transport proteins. His early work helped to define the mechanisms by which kidney cells sense excess acid and initiate a signaling cascade that alters the expression, cellular location and function of many proteins in the cell, resulting in enhanced acid transport and urinary excretion. Before coming to Yale, Alpern was dean of the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine.

Krumholz, the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, is noted for research aimed at determining optimal clinical strategies and identifying opportunities for improvement in the prevention, treatment and outcome of cardiovascular disease.

His research group has pioneered innovative approaches to identifying key success strategies for top-performing health care organizations and translating the knowledge into practice.

Tinetti is the director of the Yale Program on Aging. Her recent work focuses on the effect of multiple diseases on health outcomes and on appropriate decision-making in the face of multiple competing diseases. She has been the director of the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at Yale since 1992.