Elias Zerhouni
Dr. Zerhouni has spent much of his career providing clinical, scientific, and administrative leadership. Dr. Zerhouni was the 15th Director of the US National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical research and development agency in the world with more than 27,000 employees and a yearly budget of $29.5 billion. He led a series of reforms at the NIH that led to the successful passage of the NIH reform Act of 2006 by the US Congress. Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Zerhouni served as Vice Dean for Research and then Executive Vice-Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and chair of the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science from 1995 to 2002 His research focused on developing novel quantitative imaging methods for Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT scanning) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) used for diagnosing cancer, cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. He is the author of 212 publications and holds several patents and founded or co-founded 5 start up companies. Dr. Zerhouni has been elected to the boards of the Lasker Foundation, Research America, the Mayo Clinic, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and serves as chair of the Maryland Economic Development Commission. He is the Science and Technology Adviser for Sanofi-Aventis a global pharmaceutical company and Chief Scientific Advisor of Science-Translational Medicine a sister publication of the journal Science. Dr. Zerhouni was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2000.