Life Science: Session 5
Scientist at Work
Dr. Georgia Dunston is professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology at Howard University College of Medicine, and founding director of the newly formed National Human Genome Center (NHGC) at Howard University. Her research on human genome variation in disease susceptibility has been at the vanguard of current efforts at Howard University to build national and international research collaborations focusing on the genetics of diseases common in African Americans and other African Diaspora populations. Dr. Dunston is program director of the coordinating center for the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus Study, an international collaboration to study the genetics of type 2 diabetes in ancestral populations of African Americans, and the coordinating center for the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study Network, a national cooperative formed to map and characterize genes for prostate cancer in African Americans. The NHGC is instrumental in bringing multicultural perspectives and resources to an understanding of knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and research on human genome variation.
Dr. Robert Murray serves as professor of pediatrics
and medicine and chief of the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department
of Pediatrics and Child Health in the College of Medicine at Howard Medical
School. In addition, he is graduate professor and chairman of the Graduate
Department of Genetics and Human Genetics, which offers both M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, also
at Howard University. He has authored or co-authored more than 80 publications
including four books — most recently, The Human Genome Project
and the Future of Health Care. Dr. Murray is a fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow and member of the
board of directors of the Hastings Center, a fellow of the Institute
of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and a former member of its
governing council. He has been a member of the Mammalian Genetics Study
Section of the Division of Research Grants, NIH, the National Advisory
General Medical Sciences Council of NIGMS, NIH, and the Bioethics Advisory
Committee to the Secretary of DHEW 1979-81. He is a member of the American
Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Medical Genetics.
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