Biomedical Imaging and the Future of Medicine

Date: Thursday, April 12, 2007

Presented by

Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D.

Speaker Biography

Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., NIH Director, leads the nations medical research agency and oversees the NIHs 27 Institutes and Centers with more than 18,000 employees and a fiscal year 2006 budget of $28.6 billion.

Dr. Zerhouni, a well-respected leader in the field of radiology and medicine, has spent his career providing clinical, scientific, and administrative leadership. He was named by President George W. Bush to serve as the 15th Director of the National Institutes of Health, beginning in May 2002.

Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Zerhouni served as executive vice-dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, chair of the Russell H. Morgan department of radiology and radiological science, and Martin Donner professor of radiology, and professor of biomedical engineering. Before that, he was vice dean for research at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Zerhouni was born in Nedroma, Algeria and came to the United States at age 24, having earned his medical degree at the University of Algiers School of Medicine in 1975. After completing his residency in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins in 1978 as chief resident, he served as assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1985. Between 1981 and 1985 he was in the department of radiology at Eastern Virginia Medical School and its affiliated DePaul Hospital. In 1988, Dr. Zerhouni returned to Johns Hopkins where he was appointed director of the MRI division, and then was appointed full professor in 1992 becoming the chairman of the radiology department in January 1996.

Since 2000, he has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. He served on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors from 1998-2002. In 1988, he was a consultant to the World Health Organization, and in 1985 he was a consultant to the White House under President Ronald Reagan.

A resident of Baltimore, he has won several awards for his research including a Gold Medal from the American Roentgen Ray Society for CT research and two Paul Lauterbur Awards for MRI research. His research in imaging led to advances in Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT scanning) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that resulted in 157 peer reviewed publications and 8 patents.