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The scientific functions of the CBBSM are supervised by a team of nine senior investigators with aggregate experience of 182 years in the Center. All are involved in teaching or other duties of a similar kind in addition to their day-to-day responsibility for research. They represent a broad range of scientific expertise and have gained international recognition for their contributions. They also serve as a major resource for the Center by participating in its daily meetings and providing training and direction for the many research fellows and students they oversee. Dr. James F. Riordan, Professor of Biochemistry in the CBBSM. After receiving a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Fordham University, Dr. Riordan joined the laboratory in September, 1961, as a research fellow supported by the National Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He was appointed to the HMS faculty in 1965 as an Associate in Biological Chemistry and was later promoted to Assistant then Associate Professor in that department before receiving his present appointment in 1987. Initially trained in enzymology and protein chemistry, he developed an interest in the metallobiochemistry of zinc enzymes while pursuing novel chemical approaches to the mechanism of enzyme action. For more than 20 years he has studied the structure/function relationships of angiotensin converting enzyme, while devoting increasing effort to elucidation of the biological activity of angiogenin, his current major interest. From 1965-95, Dr. Riordan directed the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory of the Peter Bent Brigham/Brigham and Women¡¯s Hospital. He has served on numerous review committees for the NIH starting in 1969, chairing both the Metallobiochemistry and SBIR Special Emphasis study sections. He has had extensive editorial experience, including being Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, for almost 20 years. He currently serves on the board of the European Journal of Biochemistry and is Associate Editor of Biochemistry. His teaching experience, which began when he was a graduate student, ranges from courses and lectures on proteins and enzymes for both graduate and medical students to being a tutor for Harvard undergraduates and, for the last eleven years, for first-year HMS students. He has been a consultant for several chemical and biotechnology companies and is a member of the board and treasurer of the Endowment for Research in Human Biology. Dr. David S. Auld, Associate Professor of Pathology. Dr. Auld obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cornell in 1966 and came to HMS as a research fellow sponsored by the American Cancer Society and the NIH. He became a member of the faculty of the Department of Biological Chemistry, HMS, in 1969 and moved to his current appointment in 1983. He was originally trained in bioorganic chemistry and kinetics and, subsequently, developed an interest in the role of zinc in zinc metalloproteases and the identification of intermediates in enzyme catalysis. His areas of expertise include synthetic organic chemistry, peptide synthesis, rapid kinetics, XAFS analysis, protein purification and expression, all of which are being used to study the mechanism of action of matrix metalloproteases. He pioneered the analysis of zinc binding sites in proteins and proposed the present standard classification system for such sites. Long a member of the board of biochemical tutors in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, he has supervised many undergraduate honor theses in addition to teaching graduate courses at HMS. He is much in demand as a reviewer and is on the editorial board of Biochemistry and Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Dr. Kenneth H. Falchuk, Associate Professor of Medicine. Dr. Falchuk became associated with the laboratory in 1971 after serving as Chief Resident Physician at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and has been a member of the Department of Medicine since that time. His major research interests have long been centered on the role of zinc in developmental biology and more recently on the role of retinoids in cellular differentiation. He established the biochemical basis for growth arrest induced by zinc deficiency in eukaryotes and has defined the distribution of zinc during amphibian development. His current research has identified the major lipid that is used by X. laevis embryos for organogenesis and is investigating its potential as a terminal differentiation agent for cancer therapy. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Falchuk has major teaching, clinical and administrative responsibilities in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women¡¯s Hospital where he is Director of the Principal Medicine Clerkship and Chair of the Education Council. Dr. Falchuk is on the Vice Chair Advisory Board for the Department of Medicine, Chair of the Education Committee of the Brigham and Women¡¯s Hospital and the Co-Chair of the Education Committee of the Partners Health Care System. He is also a member of the HST faculty, and is on the Advisory Committee of the Pan-American Federation of Association of Medical Schools. Dr. Robert Shapiro, Associate Professor of Pathology. Dr. Shapiro joined the CBBSM in 1980 as a graduate student in the Department of Biological Chemistry, HMS. He received his Ph.D. in 1984, and became a faculty member in the Department of Pathology in 1991. Since 1996, he has also held an appointment as Visiting Professor in the School of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, U.K. From his doctoral training in the kinetics and mechanism of zinc metalloenzymes, Dr. Shapiro has extended his research interests to the structure and function of angiogenin and other ribonucleases, and the interactions of these proteins with human ribonuclease inhibitor. He has long-standing collaborations with structural biologists to explore the catalytic mechanism of angiogenin as well as to assist in the computer-aided design of angiogenin inhibitors. He also directs the laboratory's atomic absorption spectrometry facility, which performs trace metal analysis for the general scientific community, and has collaborated on many joint projects in this area. Dr. James W. Fett, Associate Professor of Pathology. Dr. Fett obtained his Ph.D. in Physiological Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974. His work there on immunoglobulin structure led him to the Medical University of South Carolina and the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. He moved to the CBBSM in 1978 as Assistant Professor of Pathology and was made an Associate Professor in 1987. His work on angiogenesis led to the discovery of angiogenin and subsequently to the development of anti-angiogenin monoclonal antibodies. Together with Dr. Karen Olson, he has established animal models for testing the efficacy of these antibodies and a number of other anti-angiogenin agents in preventing tumor growth and metastases. He has industrial and governmental collaborations, and his research is sponsored by the Department of the Army. Dr. Karen A. Olson, Instructor in Pathology. Dr. Olson received a Ph.D. in Immunology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1981. After a research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined the laboratory in 1984. She has been instrumental in the development of numerous animal systems and statistical models for determining the efficacy of anti-angiogenin molecules for the treatment of cancer. She has also developed immunological assays for angiogenin and shown that it is an acute phase protein. She plays a major role in the training of students and research assistants and has administrative responsibilities important to the maintenance of the laboratory. Dr. Guo-fu Hu, Assistant Professor of Radiology. Dr. Hu received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry in 1988 and after a fellowship at the Tsukuba Life Science Center in Japan he joined the CBBSM in 1990 as a research fellow. He was appointed Instructor in 1993, and Assistant Professor in 1999. In 1997 he was also given a non-resident professorship at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Dr. Hu is currently interested in endothelial cell biology and the mode of action of angiogenin, in particular, the nuclear function of angiogenin as a transcription factor for rRNA. He recently discovered that the antibiotic neomycin inhibits the angiogenic activity of angiogenin and is now studying the mechanisms by which neomycin inhibits tumor growth. In addition, Dr. Hu has developed sensitive methods for the analysis of glycoproteins and has been studying the relationship between serum glycoproteins and alcohol consumption. Dr. Wolfgang Maret, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, received both his M.Sc. (1977) in chemistry and his Ph.D. (1980) in the natural sciences from the University of the Saarland (Germany). After postdoctoral research in the Department of Biophysics and Theoretical Biology at the University of Chicago, he came to the Harvard Medical School in 1986 to investigate the structure and function of metalloenzymes. His present principal research interests are the molecular mechanisms of cellular zinc distribution and homeostasis, including the mechanisms of metal ion incorporation into metalloproteins. He held a teaching appointment as a lecturer and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern University, and is on the editorial boards of BioMetals and The Journal of Trace Elements in Experimental Medicine and on the advisory board of the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology Dr. Wing Ming Keung, Associate Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Keung received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in 1979 and joined the CBBSM as a research fellow. In 1992, he was appointed Lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he worked on human liver alcohol dehydrogenase isozymes. In 1987 he returned to the CBBSM as a Visiting Assistant Professor to pursue a project initiated in Hong Kong to identify the active principle(s) in Chinese herbal medicines that have been used for centuries to treat problems related to alcohol abuse. He isolated one such compound, an isoflavone, from radix puerariae, demonstrated its capacity to inhibit alcohol consumption in laboratory animals, and is currently investigating the pharmacological basis for its mechanism of action. His work has become widely known in the alcohol addiction field. He is a frequent speaker and an ad hoc member of an alcohol abuse study section of the NIH. Dr. S. James Adelstein, Daniel C. Tosteson University Professor and Professor of Pathology, serves as senior consultant. In 1950, while a medical student at HMS, Dr. Adelstein worked in the MIT Spectroscopy Laboratory under Dr. Vallee. During 1954-1957, he wrote his Ph.D. dissertation in the Biophysics Research Laboratory (see Director¡¯s memoir). Following his residency at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Dr. Adelstein established a radiation biology laboratory in the then HMS Anatomy Department. In 1968, he was called to the directorship of Nuclear Medicine at PBBH and, subsequently, founded and still directs the school-wide Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine. In 1978, he was named HMS Dean for Academic Programs, remaining there until 1997. During that time, he kept in close touch with the activities in the CBBSM. ¡¡ |