Abstract
Robert L. Nussbaum, MD
The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) has selected Robert L. Nussbaum, MD, of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to serve as the group's president in 2004. Dr. Nussbaum is chief of both the Genetic Disease Research Branch and the Inherited Disease Research Branch in NHGRI's Division of Intramural Research. Dr. Nussbaum has made numerous contributions to identifying the genetic abnormalities and destructive mechanisms involved in Parkinson's disease and Lowe syndrome.
Dr. Nussbaum said that he and ASHG 2003 President David Valle, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute of Genetic Medicine, plan to work closely together during the span of their tenures to strengthen ties with the genomic and gene therapy research communities.
As president-elect and president, Dr. Nussbaum also will provide leadership to ASHG and serve on its Board of Directors, which is responsible for managing the policies of the society. He also will serve on the ASHG's standing committees, such as the program committee, which plans the annual meeting. Dr. Nussbaum earned his MD in 1975 from the Harvard University/ Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program in Health Sciences and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1975 to 1978, he completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Louis's Washington University and at Barnes Hospital, also in St. Louis. He was a fellow in genetics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston from 1978 to 1981. From 1981 to 1984, he was an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and an associate with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
From 1984 to 1993, Dr. Nussbaum was an associate investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the Department of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During this period, he was also a physician in the Division of Human Genetics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Nussbaum came to NHGRI in 1993. In addition to his other roles at the institute, he is director of the Clinical Molecular Genetics Training Program, an executive faculty member of the Joint National Institutes of Health-Johns Hopkins University Genetic Counseling Training Program, and the project officer for the Center for Inherited Disease Research in Baltimore, a research center that analyzes common disorders caused by the actions of multiple genes and interactions with the environment.
Dr. Nussbaum served on the ASHG Program Committee from 1989 to 1992 (chair of the 1992 meeting), the Board of Directors from 1992 to 1996, and the Awards Committee from 1998 to 2003.