Five elected to Institute of Medicine

The Institute of Medicine announced Oct. 12 that five members of the School of Medicine faculty are among the 65 newly elected members and five foreign associates: They are Russ Altman, MD, PhD; Patrick Brown, MD, PhD; Michael Cleary, MD; Allan Reiss, MD; and Lawrence Steinman, MD.

Russ Altman

With their selection, the medical school now has a total of 60 IOM members.

Altman is professor of genetics and of medicine, as well as chair of bioengineering. He also serves as director of the Program in Biomedical Informatics, and is a member of the Stanford Cancer Center. Altman, a past president of the International Society for Computational Biology, is interested in the application of computational technologies to problems in molecular biology that have relevance to the practice of medicine.

Patrick Brown

Brown is professor of biochemistry and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Center. Much of his research is directed at defining the gene expression scripts of the yeast and human genomes, as well as understanding the logic and the molecular mechanisms that control them. One of his most important contributions is the development of the basic experimental and computational methods and technologies for studying global gene expression patterns. Brown also co-founded the Public Library of Science, or PLoS, a nonprofit open-access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open-access journals and other sources of scientific literature under an open content license.

Michael Cleary

Cleary is the Lindhard Family Professor in Pediatric Cancer Biology and professor of pathology. His research focuses on developmental pathways that regulate hematopoietic cell growth and differentiation and how they can be disrupted in the course of neoplastic transformation, particularly in leukemias and lymphomas. Cleary helped establish the molecular diagnostics laboratory at Stanford. He serves as associate chair for experimental pathology, as well as director of pediatric cancer biology. He is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Center.

Allan Reiss

Reiss is the Howard C. Robbins Professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. He also directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, which focuses on both healthy (typical) brain structure and function and brain disorders. In particular, Reiss studies how genetic and environmental factors affect brain development and function and how this ultimately impacts the cognitive abilities and behavior of persons with neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric and neurogenetic disorders of childhood onset.  This research has contributed directly to the development of new treatments for these disorders.

Lawrence Steinman

Steinman is the George A. Zimmermann Professor and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and of pediatrics. He also serves as director of the Interdepartmental Program in Immunology.  Much of his work is dedicated to understanding the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, particularly multiple sclerosis. Steinman’s research has led to the development of several new therapies for autoimmunity.  One is approved for treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis, and others are now in Phase 2 clinical trials.

The IOM is an honorary society established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences. Members are elected through a highly selective process that recognizes contributions to the medical sciences, health care and public health.