Paul B. Rothman has been named president of the Association of American Physicians, a professional organization started in 1885 by seven doctors, one of whom was William Osler, who later was one of the four founding physicians of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Rothman, a rheumatologist and molecular immunologist, is the Frances Watt Baker, M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D., Dean of the Medical Faculty, vice president for medicine of the Johns Hopkins University, and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Election to the Association of American Physicians is an honor extended to individuals with outstanding credentials in biomedical science and/or translational biomedical research and is limited to 60 people per year. Five of this year's new physician members—Lisa A. Cooper, Jeremy Nathans, William Nelson, Hamid Rabb, and Jeffrey Rothstein—are from Johns Hopkins.
Lisa Cooper is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, director of the Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Disparities, and a core faculty member of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research. She holds joint appointments in the schools of Nursing and Public Health and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Cooper's research program focuses on patient-centered strategies for improving outcomes and overcoming racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
Jeremy Nathans is a professor of molecular biology and genetics, ophthalmology, and neuroscience. He identified the genes that code for the three kinds of light-sensing pigment molecules, which are critical for color vision and present in the cone cells of the retina. He also discovered some of the ways in which genes control eye development, especially the development of the retina, and contribute to inherited eye dysfunctions, such as color blindness and macular degeneration.
William Nelson is the Marion I. Knott Director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and a professor of oncology, urology, pharmacology, medicine, pathology, and radiation oncology, who specializes in the treatment and research of prostate cancer. Along with Johns Hopkins colleagues, he discovered the most-common genome alteration in prostate cancer, a finding that led to new diagnostic tests and has fueled interest in new drug discovery and other treatment options, now ongoing at Johns Hopkins. Nelson also acts in a leadership role for the National Cancer Institute–funded Howard University Cancer Center–Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center Partnership Program, dedicated to building cancer research capabilities at Howard and to enhancing minority subject recruitment to cancer-research programs at Johns Hopkins.
Hamid Rabb is a professor and vice chairman for research in the Department of Medicine and medical director of the Johns Hopkins Kidney Transplant Program. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Association of Professors, a permanent member of an NIH study section, and past chair of Scientific Studies for the American Society of Transplantation. His current research focuses on kidney renal ischemic reperfusion injury.
Jeffrey Rothstein is a professor of neurology, director of the Brain Science Institute, and director of the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research. His clinical specialization is neuromuscular disease, with a particular focus on ALS. His group generated and runs the largest national ALS iPS cell bank. Also, his team has identified the major pathway responsible for ALS and frontotemporal dementia and now is developing new drugs for personal brain therapy for both ALS and FTD.
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