Appendix A
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
James M. Anderson is professor of pathology, macromolecular science, and biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Anderson's research interests focus on mechanistic studies of biological interactions with biomaterials, prostheses, and medical devices. His interests include mechanisms of monocyte, macrophage, and foreign-body giant cell adhesion and activation; bacteria-blood-biomaterial interactions; biology-based design criteria for the development of new medical devices and biomaterials; and the biocompatibility of biosensors and tissue-engineered devices. Clinically, Dr. Anderson's interests include human implant retrieval and evaluation from both the materials and the pathobiology perspectives. Dr. Anderson also works with the International Standards Organization to develop safety standards for medical devices and prostheses. He received his Ph.D. at Oregon State University and his M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. In 2003, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine.
Gary W. Cleary is cofounder, president, and chief technology officer of Corium International, Inc. He is also the founder and served as president, chairman, and chief technical officer of Cygnus, Inc. His research and technology interests are all associated with the development of controlled drug delivery systems. During his career he has served as investigator with the U.S. Public Health Service and the Food and Drug Administration and has held research and management positions at various companies. Dr. Cleary received a Pharm.D. in pharmacy from the University of California, San Francisco; an M.B.A. in health sciences from the University of Miami; and a Ph.D. in pharmaceutics from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Dr. Cleary holds 25 issued U.S. patents related to transdermal, mucosal, polymer, and other drug delivery technologies. His professional affiliations include the Controlled Release Society, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Rho Chi, and Sigma Xi. He is a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Cleary is also chairman of the advisory board for the Purdue University Biomedical Engineering Program on Therapeutic and Diagnostic Devices and a member of the University of California, San Francisco, and University of Pacific pharmacy and chemistry programs. He is a former president and board member of the Controlled Release Society of the International Scientific Organization. Dr. Cleary has been a board member of several corporations in the past and is currently on the Corium and Anterion boards of directors.
Erik A. Henchal is commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. Colonel Henchal joined the institute in 1992 and has served as principal investigator and deputy division chief in the Virology Division, division chief of the Diagnostics Systems Division, and coordinator for a joint service research program in medical diagnostics for infectious diseases and biological warfare threats. Prior to this, Colonel Henchal served the command in a broad variety of positions of increasing responsibility. He also served as a deployment team leader for a special pathogens field laboratory, 7th Medical Command, during Operation Desert Shield and Storm (1990 to 1991). He received his B.S. in microbiology from the University of Maine. After receiving his Ph.D. in microbiology from Pennsylvania State University, Colonel Henchal entered active duty in the Medical Service Corps as a first lieutenant. Colonel Henchal has served on national panels and research review committees for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He
has appeared as a speaker and consultant at numerous medical, professional, and government conferences and has published extensively on the development of diagnostic approaches for agents of military concern. He is also an adjunct assistant professor in pathology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Colonel Henchal is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. His military awards include the Meritorious Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Overseas Ribbon. He is also a recipient of the Surgeon General’s “A” Proficiency Designation in microbiology and the Order of Military Medical Merit.
John B. Holcomb is commander of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research and chief of the Trauma Division at Brooke Army Medical Center. He is also an associate professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Additionally, Colonel Holcomb is the trauma adviser to the U.S. Army Surgeon General and to the U.S. Special Operations Command Biomedical Initiatives Steering Committee. He is also actively involved in the care of trauma patients and the teaching of surgical residents and students. His research interests include developing novel methods of hemorrhage control, optimal resuscitation techniques, and medical informatics. Colonel Holcomb earned his M.D. from the University of Arkansas Medical School and has held positions at the Womack Army Medical Center, Joint Special Operations Command, and Ben Taub General Hospital. Colonel Holcomb also completed a surgical critical care fellowship at the University of Texas at Houston. His military awards include the Combat Medical Badge, the Bronze Star, and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. He has also received the “A” Designation for general surgery and the Order of Military Medical Merit. Colonel Holcomb is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
Jeffrey O. Hollinger is the director of the Bone Tissue Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University and is a tenured professor of biomedical engineering and biological sciences. In 1993, Dr. Hollinger retired as a colonel after 20 years of active military duty in the United States Army. He received several military commendations, including the Army Commendation Medal, the Order of Military Medical Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, and the National Defense Ribbon. For most of his career, he was assigned to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Dr. Hollinger’s research focus is on bone tissue engineering and includes polymers, gene therapy, cells, signaling molecules and surgical models to test bone regenerative therapies. Dr. Hollinger has several patents and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, chapters in texts, and books, including an in-press textbook on bone tissue engineering fundamentals. He has a D.D.S. and a Ph.D. degree in physiology from the University of Maryland and a B.A. in biology from Hofstra University.
Alan Letton is vice president for research for the Polymerix Corporation. He has held positions at Avon Products, Allied Signal, Dow Chemical, and Sandia National Laboratories. In addition, Dr. Letton was dean of engineering, architecture, and physical sciences and a full professor in chemistry and chemical engineering at Tuskegee University. Prior to that, he was a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Polymer Technology Consortium at Texas A&M University. During his career, Dr. Letton has managed a consulting company that specializes in expert witness consulting, K-12 education strategic planning, and technology-based business development. He has also served on the National Research Council's Graduate Panel on Engineering. Dr. Letton has published more than 100 articles, contributed to 10 books, and made hundreds of presentations throughout the world. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering and polymer science from the University of Cincinnati.
Aruna Nathan is a principal scientist at the Center for Biomaterials and Advanced Technologies, Medical Devices Group, of Ethicon, Inc. Dr. Nathan works on development of new materials for medical devices, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. Her research includes development of controlled release formulations for small-molecule drugs and proteins with applications including oral, parenteral, and local drug delivery. She previously worked for ConvaTec–Bristol Myers Squibb and performed postdoctoral
work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Nathan received her B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Madras, India, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She received the Johnson and Johnson Corporate Biomaterials Center Silver Award in 2001 for outstanding teamwork, contributions, and continuous achievement of project goals. During her training, she received the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine summer fellowship in 1991 and was a University of Madras Gold Medalist in 1987.
Jaques Reifman is a senior research scientist in the Department of the Army. He serves in the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center. He is also director of the command’s bioinformatics cell, which he was instrumental in creating. Dr. Reifman advises, consults, and conducts research in a broad range of disciplines, including bioinformatics, medical informatics, artificial intelligence, data mining, databases, computer modeling and simulation, computer-based decision support systems, robotics, and computer science technologies for medical applications. Dr. Reifman interacts with senior military leaders, scientists, and investigators throughout the command and the Department of Defense and with scientists and executives from other government agencies, academia, and the private sector. Recently, he was appointed to chair the Armed Services Biomedical Research Evaluation and Management Committee, Joint Technical Coordinating Group on Bio and Medical Informatics. He previously served as section manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Reifman received his Ph.D. and M.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan, his B.S. in business administration from the Rio de Janeiro Federal University, and his B.S. in engineering from the Rio de Janeiro State University. Dr. Reifman has authored more than 55 peer-reviewed technical publications and book chapters and is the inventor of five U.S. patents. He is the recipient of the 1998 R&D 100 Award, presented annually by R&D Magazine for the “most significant technical products of the year,” and Argonne National Laboratory’s Productivity Award in 1995, 1997, and 1999 “in recognition of performance significantly beyond job expectations in areas of importance to the Laboratory.”
James Scheirer is associate dean for clinical research at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He also holds appointments as associate professor of medicine and associate professor of surgery. Dr. Scheirer had a 20-year career at the National Institutes of Health, most of it with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. There, Dr. Scheirer was chief of the Review Branch, directing peer review operations for the institute, and was concurrently deputy director of the Division of Extramural Affairs. Prior to the National Institutes of Health, he was a tenured associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Dr. Scheirer received his B.S. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and statistics from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Scheirer has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in the areas of cognitive psychology and statistics and has edited several books. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association and a fellow of the American Psychological Society.
Peter P. Tolias is worldwide vice president of the Department of Advanced Research and Technology Assessment at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, a Johnson and Johnson company. He is a member of the Global Management Board that oversees all functions of the corporation's activities. Dr. Tolias' work includes defining and driving the scientific long-term strategic direction of the company and striving to performing cutting-edge research in genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics, and micro- and nanoengineering. He also identifies diagnostic opportunities for therapies developed by Johnson and Johnson companies and others. Dr. Tolias is adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology, and Immunology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Prior to Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Dr. Tolias was on the board of directors for the Public Health Research Institute and was founder and executive director of the Center for Applied Genomics. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from McGill University in microbiology and immunology. His postdoctoral training was at Harvard University, and he spent two summers as a visiting postdoctoral
research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation of Research and Technology in Crete, Greece.
Robert H. Vandre serves as research area director for combat casualty care research at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. He is also chairman of the Armed Services Biomedical Research Evaluation and Management Committee’s Joint Technical Coordinating Group on combat casualty care, which manages and coordinates all Defense Department combat casualty care research. He also serves as the U.S. representative to the Technical Cooperation Program technical panel and chairman of the American Dental Association’s working group 12.2 on digital radiographic systems. He has served in the Army since 1977, serving the first 5 years as a clinician and subsequent years in research. He also managed the Army’s telemedicine program in Bosnia for 2 years. Colonel Vandre graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a D.D.S. and a B.S. and M.S. in physics. He has published on subjects varying from electromagnetic pulse and radiation effects on semiconductors to, more recently, digital dental radiography and telemedicine. He has a patent on a dental endoscope and also consults on digital dental radiology.
