Research@UIC > Institute of MedicineRegional Membership Meeting > Speakers

Speakers

Dr. Paula Allen-Meares joined the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) January 16, 2009 as Chancellor and John Corbally Presidential Professor. Chancellor Allen-Meares is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, the Royal Academy of Medicine, and is a trustee of the New York Academy of Medicine. She was appointed Chair of Section X of the IOM in July 2009 and is a member of the Sarnat Prize Selection Committee for two seasons, 2010 and 2011. At the University of Michigan she was principal investigator of the Global Program on Youth, an initiative supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and co-PI of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Center on Poverty, Risk and Mental Health.  She is currently the principal investigator of the Skillman Good Neighborhoods Grant.  Dr. Allen-Meares has over 120 publications and several books including the recently released Cross Cultural Research, Oxford Press. Since joining UIC, Allen-Meares has become active as a Board Member of the Civic Consulting Alliance, as a member of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Equity, and as a board member of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities.

Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, MD, is a professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine at The Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School, and an attending pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.  She received her BA in philosophy from Radcliffe College, her MD from Tufts University, and her MPH from Northwestern University.

The author of numerous papers, editorials, and chapters, Dr. Christoffel is a nationally respected researcher and the recipient of professional awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and other national groups. She has done research and advocacy work on varied topics, always at the border between clinical medicine and public health. The areas she has worked in include primary care practice, injury prevention (particularly pedestrian and firearm injuries), and obesity.

At Children’s Memorial Hospital and Research Center in Chicago, Dr. Christoffel serves as the Director for the Center for Obesity Management and Prevention (COMP) and Medical Director for the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC). She Directs the Community Engagement Research Center at the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD is President of the Institute of Medicine. He served as Provost of Harvard University from 1997 to 2001, following thirteen years as Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. He has devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision making. His past research has focused on the process of policy development and implementation, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations.

Dr. Fineberg helped found and served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and also served as consultant to the World Health Organization. At the Institute of Medicine, he has chaired and served on a number of panels dealing with health policy issues, ranging from AIDS to new medical technology. He also served as a member of the Public Health Council of Massachusetts (1976-1979), as chairman of the Health Care Technology Study Section of the National Center for Health Services Research (1982-1985), and as president of the Association of Schools of Public Health (1995-1996).

Dr. Fineberg is co-author of the books Clinical Decision Analysis, Innovators in Physician Education, and The Swine Flu Affair, an analysis of the controversial federal immunization program against swine flu in 1976. He has co-edited several books on such diverse topics as AIDS prevention, vaccine safety, and understanding risk in society. He has also authored numerous articles published in professional journals. Dr. Fineberg is the recipient of several honorary degrees and the Joseph W. Mountin Prize from the US Centers for Disease Control. He earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University.

Dr. Marian Fitzgibbon is a professor in the Department of Medicine and School of Public Health and Associate Director for Cancer Control and Population Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  She is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine and the Associate Director for the Center for Management of Complex Chronic Care at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.  Dr. Fitzgibbon’s work focuses predominantly on health risk reduction interventions in minority and underserved populations. She has received continuous grant funding for more than the last 15 years from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to conduct randomized clinical trials in both obesity prevention in children and obesity treatment in adults. 

Dr. Joseph Flaherty, MD, is dean of the College of Medicine, which includes all four sites.  He is supported by regional deans in Rockford, Peoria and Urbana-Champaign.  Dr. Flaherty has been dean of the largest college of medicine in the country since Oct. 1, 2004.  Before accepting the lead position at the college, Dr. Flaherty was head of the department of psychiatry at UIC, one of the most active research programs on campus.  A medical faculty member, clinician and researcher since 1975, he received his undergraduate degree at Urbana-Champaign and his medical degree from the College of Medicine’s Chicago campus, where he also served an internship in pediatrics and a residency in psychiatry.  He received additional research training in social psychology at UIC and in sociology at London University.

During his tenure, Dr. Flaherty has overseen the college’s tremendous growth.  A new, state-of-the-art research building was built in 2005; research funding has increased dramatically, including a $19.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, which is the largest in the school’s history; an NIH-funded Clinical Translational Science Center, a internationally recognized Institute for Patient Safety Excellence, and new curricular offerings for medical students such as the Urban Medicine Curriculum and a wide range of international exchange programs for students.

A professor of psychiatry before taking on the role of dean, Dr. Flaherty has more than 25 years of NIH funding in the areas of gender, depression and alcoholism.  He has been funded by many private foundations for a variety of work ranging from the psychobiology of depression to the mental health of immigrants in central and South America, Russia and Israel.  His clinical work has focused on major psychiatric disorders and impaired physicians. He has published more than 200 professional papers, books and chapters.  He is a distinguished fellow in the American Psychiatric Association and a fellow of the American College of Psychiatry and has served on a many national and international committees, including those of the World Health Organization, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and the NIH.  He has been selected for a number of “Best Doctor” lists including Castle Connolly’s "America's Top Doctors"

Dr. Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD, is Director of the MGH Weight Center and the Obesity Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  He is the Director of the Fellowship Program in Obesity Medicine and Nutrition at MGH, the first subspecialty training program of its kind; Associate Director of the NIH-sponsored Boston-area Obesity and Nutrition Research Center; a member of the NIH Clinical Obesity Research Panel; and Chairman of the Board of the Washington, DC-based Campaign to End Obesity. 

Dr. Kaplan graduated with honors from Harvard University.  He received his MD and PhD in Molecular Biology, both with distinction, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  He completed an Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Gastroenterology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a Fellowship in Genetics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Dr. Kaplan’s clinical expertise is in the areas of obesity medicine, gastroenterology and liver disease.  The author of more than 125 medical and scientific papers, he has a special interest in the causes and complications of obesity and the development of new and more effective preventive strategies and therapies for this problem.  His clinical research is focused on identifying clinically relevant subtypes of obesity and exploring novel, combinatorial approaches to the treatment of obesity and its complications.  His basic research is focused on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of gastrointestinal regulation of body weight and metabolic function, and his group has pioneered the development and use of rodent models of weight loss surgery and gastrointestinal devices to explore these issues.  To promote the use of these animal models by the broader scientific community, he has recently established the NIH-sponsored Small Animal Metabolic Surgery Core Resource. 

Dr. Kaplan has participated in several obesity advisory panels, including as chair of the American Gastroenterology (AGA) obesity task force, member of the bariatric surgery clinical guidelines committees for the AGA and the Endocrine Society, and member of the Obesity Medicine certification steering committee.  Dr. Kaplan was a co-director of the Diabetes Surgery Summit in 2007 and is a founding member of the International Diabetes Surgery Task Force.   He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts with his wife, Elizabeth, and children, Katharine and Benjamin.

Dr. Francine Ratner Kaufman, MD has had a 30 year distinguished career in diabetes care, research and advocacy.  In 2009, she stepped down as director of the Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center, and head of the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to become Chief Medical Officer and VP of Global Clinical, Medical and Health affairs at Medtronic Diabetes (Northridge, CA).  Dr. Kaufman is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Pediatrics and Communications at the Keck School of Medicine and the Annenberg School of Communications of the University of Southern California, and an attending physician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.  Dr. Kaufman has published more than 200 peer-reviewed and invited publications. She is the author of more than 30 books or book chapters. In 2008, she edited the 5th edition of the ADA’s the Medical Management of Type 1 Diabetes.  In 2005 her book, Diabesity, was published by Bantam. Diabesity explores the ravages of the obesity and diabetes epidemics as they spread across the globe. Dr. Kaufman was chair of the National Institutes of Health funded Studies to Treat (the TODAY Trial) and Prevent (the HEALTHY Trial) Type 2 Diabetes in Youth (STOPP-T2). She was a principal investigator of TrialNet, a multinational consortium evaluating ways to prevent type 1 diabetes, funded by the NIH.  She has received many awards and honors, including from the State of California for her role in banning sodas from Los Angeles Unified School District (2003), the LA City Council for promoting youth physical fitness (2004), and from the ADA, JDRF, EASD, Partners in Care, Starbright Foundation, amongst others.

Dr. Kaufman was national president of the American Diabetes Association in 2002-03.  She was elected to AOA Medical Honorary Society. She was president of Shaping America’s Health, chair of the National Diabetes Education Program, and she served as chair of the Youth Consultative Section of the International Diabetes Federation. In 2007, she was Co-Chair of the Diabetes Work Group for the Department of Health Services of the State of California to recommend diabetes treatment and prevention strategies for the Medicaid population.  In 2005, she was elected Membership in the Institute of Medicine.  In 2007, Dr. Kaufman filmed a documentary for Discovery Health on the global diabetes epidemic which was aired around the world on World Diabetes Day, November 14, 2007.  In 2009, she was elected to membership in the Advisory Council of the Diabetes Branch of the NIH.

Dr. Theodore Mazzone, MD, received his M.D. degree with distinction from Northwestern University Medical School.  He was an Intern and Resident in Internal Medicine at UCLA Medical Center, and a Senior Fellow in Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition at the University of Washington. 

Dr. Mazzone has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the American Heart Association, and is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Endocrine Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association; where he has also served as Chairman of the Diabetes Committee.  He has served on the Steering Committee for the Complications Council of the American Diabetes Association, and on the Planning Committee for the annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association. He currently serves as a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. 

In 2007, Dr Mazzone became the founding Director of the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science.  The Center is based in the College of Medicine but includes faculty and leadership participation from 12 UIC colleges and Institutes and the UIC Medical Center.  The Center was funded through the NIH/NCRR CTSA grant mechanism in 2009.

Dr. Mazzone has been a member of multiple peer review panels over the years for the National Institutes of Health, and the American Heart Association.  He is a reviewer for numerous biomedical research journals, and serves or has served on the Editorial Boards of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Journal of Lipid Research.  His longstanding research interests include the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, the macrovascular complications of diabetes mellitus and the metabolic and vascular complications of obesity.  He has directed an ongoing research program in basic and clinical research aspects in these areas with virtually uninterrupted support from the National Institutes of Health for over twenty-five years. 

Dr. Mazzone has published over 100 scientific articles (in journals such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry; Journal of Clinical Investigation; Proceedings of the National Academy of Science; Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology; Diabetes Care; Biochemistry; Circulation; Diabetes; JAMA and the Journal of Lipid Research) and over 75 book chapters and abstracts.  He has been consistently named in “America’s Top Doctors” and as one of “Chicago’s Top Doctors”.  His clinical interests include inpatient and outpatient consultation Endocrinology with emphasis on multiple risk factor diabetes, metabolic syndrome/insulin resistance and refractory lipid disorders.  Dr. Mazzone is currently Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pharmacology, Professor of Kinesiology and Human Nutrition, Chief of the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, and Director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Dr. Jose Oberholzer, MD, is a professor of surgery, endocrinology and diabetes, and bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the director of the islet and pancreas transplant program and the chief of the division of transplantation.  He has extensive experience in clinical and experimental islet transplantation, abdominal organ transplantation, as well as advanced hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery.  He trained at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), as well as at the University of Alberta in Edmonton (Canada), where he completed a fellowship in hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery and transplantation.  Dr. Oberholzer was the head of the islet transplant program at the University of Geneva and the GRAGIL islet consortium from 1998 to 2002, completing a significant number of islet transplants.  He has been heading UIC's islet transplant program since 2003 and is the chief of the transplant division at UIC since summer 2007.  UIC has a comprehensive multi-organ transplant program with emphasis on transplantation for diabetes, as well as on robotic surgery in living donors for kidney, liver, pancreas and small bowel.

Dr. Oberholzer is also an expert in advance minimally invasive and robotic surgery of abdominal organs.  To date the UIC islet transplant program has performed over 250 human islet isolations for both transplant and research.  UIC is a federally-funded islet cell resource center and provides islet preparation for researchers around the world.  Dr. Oberholzer at UIC has successfully completed a phase 1/2 trial with 10 patients investigating the effect of anti-inflammatory treatment in combination with exenatide on islet transplantation outcomes.  UIC has a comprehensive islet transplant research program with emphasis on improving clinical outcomes, expanding the available human islets and avoiding long-term immunosuppression.

Dr. Jerrold Olefsky, MD is Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Associate Dean of Scientific Affairs for the UCSD School of Medicine; he is also a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. One of his seminal contributions to the field of Medicine has been the identification of the role of insulin resistance as a primary cause of Type II (non-insulin dependent, adult-onset) diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and other human diseases. His work has also helped develop insulin sensitizing drugs that are now standard therapies for Type II diabetes.

For over 30 years, Dr. Olefsky's research has focused on basic research studies examining the molecular mechanisms of insulin and growth factor action in a variety of cell types, with particular emphasis on the insulin signaling pathway leading to stimulation of glucose transport.

José Luis Rodríguez,

Dr. Alan R. Saltiel, PhD received his AB in Zoology from Duke University in 1975 with Magna Cum Laude distinction, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1980.  From 1981-1984 he did postdoctoral training with Pedro Cuatrecasas at the Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, NC, studying mechanisms of insulin action.  In 1984 he moved to the Rockefeller University as Assistant Professor, continuing work on the molecular and cellular biology of the actions of insulin and growth factors.  In 1990 he joined Parke Davis Pharmaceutical Research as Director of the Department of Signal Transduction, and was later promoted to Distinguished Research Fellow and Senior Director of Cell Biology at Parke Davis.  At Parke Davis he reported to president of R&D Pedro Cuatrecasas, was responsible for drug discovery activities in diabetes, obesity and cancer, and sat on the senior management team and research committee overseeing all R&D activities.  In 2001, Dr. Saltiel moved to the newly created Life Sciences Institute of the University of Michigan as Professor of Medicine and Physiology.  In 2002, he was named Director of the Institute, and John Jacob Abel Professor in the Life Sciences.  He has received numerous awards, including the Rosalyn Yalow Research and Development Award from the American Diabetes Association, the Hirschl Award, the John Jacob Abel and the Goodman and Gilman Awards from ASPET, was elected to honorary membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He has given many named lectures and organized numerous meetings and conferences, and served on a number of advisory panels, scientific boards and editorial boards, including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Endocrinology, Diabetes, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Cell Metabolism and others.  He has seventeen issued patents, and has published over 250 original papers.  He was ranked number 18 among most highly cited authors in biology and biochemistry over the past ten years. 

Last updated: Wednesday, August 25, 2010.