Elena Fuentes-Afflick, MD, MPH Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)
This lecture has been postponed as a result of the lapse in federal funding and will be rescheduled for later this year.
Dr. Fuentes-Afflick, Chief Scientific Officer for the AAMC, Association of Medical Schools, will present information about historical trends in the U.S. biomedical research workforce. She will highlight the unique characteristics of specific subgroups of biomedical researchers and will lead a discussion of strategies to support the biomedical research workforce.
Andrew Hyland, PhD Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Andrew Hyland from the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York will describe cigarette use patterns over time, present research identifying cigarette smoking as a major contributor to chronic disease and describe factors increase our understanding why people smoke and what reduces cigarette smoking in the population. He will also highlight the PATH Study, a key component of the national data collection infrastructure, that has made significant scientific advances to understand the nature of tobacco use and its impacts.
Tissue engineering began with the premise that biomaterial environments could be designed to instruct cell behavior and rebuild tissues. Early work in my laboratory focused on designing biomaterial scaffolds that controlled stem cell survival, differentiation, and tissue formation. It established how physical, chemical, and mechanical cues regulate cell fate. The desire to translate to the clinic, shifted our tissue engineering strategy from building replacement tissues toward engineering endogenous repair.
How did we move from a world in which discrimination against women was not recognized as an issue, in which women were routinely and legally fired when they were married or when they became pregnant, and in which they could not always get a credit card in their name or pick their own name legally, to the world we now live in, however imperfect?
Erol Fikrig, MD Yale University School of Medicine
Erol Fikrig, MD, is chief of Infectious Diseases and specializes in treating patients with vector-borne diseases including Dengue fever, West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and malaria.
Vector-borne diseases are caused by infections transmitted to humans and other animals by mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and other blood-feeding invertebrates.
Sue Bodine, Ph.D. OKLAHOMA MEDICAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Sue Bodine is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Her current research is focused on the study of the neuromuscular system and its response and adaptation to various stressors, including exercise, disuse and aging. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has held positions in both academia and the biotechnology industry.
Dean Sheppard, MD University of California, San Francisco
Dean Sheppard is a Professor of Medicine. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying pulmonary (and other organ) fibrosis, acute lung injury and immune responses to solid tumors. One aim of the research is to identify new therapeutic targets to ultimately improve the treatment of each of these common diseases. The work began with basic investigation of how cells use members of the integrin family to detect, modify and respond to spatially restricted extracellular clues and how these responses contribute to the development of common lung diseases.
Dr. Gack is the Arthur and Marylin Levitt Endowed Chair and Scientific Director of the Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center. She did her PhD training in virology at Harvard Medical School as part of a collaborative graduate program between Harvard and the Friedrich Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Before joining Cleveland Clinic in 2020, she held faculty positions at Harvard University and The University of Chicago.
My work aims to improve research methods and practices and to enhance approaches to integrating information and generating reliable evidence. Science is the best thing that can happen to humans, but doing research is like swimming in an ocean at night. Science thrives in darkness. Born in New York City (1965), raised in Athens. Valedictorian (1984), Athens College; National Award, Greek Mathematical Society (1984); MD (top rank of medical school class) from National University of Athens (1990); also received DSc in biopathology from same institution.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, September 2, 2025
