Together with the Director, the Advisory Board strives to create the most fertile conditions for successful and innovative research in inflammatory bowel disease. The Advisory Board provides suggestions and advice on the program’s policies, procedures and directions. The board attends the annual BMRP investigator meetings and reviews funded grants, including their scientific reports and publications, in order to provide oversight of the progress being made in IBD research at the Foundation.

Theodore M. Bayless, M.D.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

Dr. Bayless is a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Clinical Director of The Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Digestive Disease-Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center. He is a past Chairman of the National Scientific Advisory Committee of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. He was Director and co-Director of the Immunology, Microbiology and Inflammatory Disorders Section of the American Gastroenterological Association. Dr. Bayless is the recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award from the American Gastroenterological Association, the Dr. Mary Betty Stevens Award for Excellence in Clinical Research from the American College of Physicians, Maryland Chapter, the Janssen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Gastroenterology and the Bolton L. Corson Medal from the Franklin Institute. Dr. Bayless received his M.D. at Chicago Medical School.

Claire V. Broome, M.D.
Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia

Dr. Broome is an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Emory University.  She is a national expert in epidemiology and public health. Dr. Broome was Deputy Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 1994-1999 (Acting Director 1998) and CDC's Associate Director for Science from 1990-1994. She was Chief of the Special Pathogens Branch in the National Center for Infectious Diseases from 1981-1990. From 2000-2006, she led the development and implementation of the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System, a web-based approach to transforming the CDC’s national disease monitoring systems.  Dr. Broome was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 1996.  She has extensive experience in developing and implementing research programs in bacterial disease epidemiology, observational vaccine evaluation, and public health surveillance methodology. She has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization, World Bank, Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization, Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, US Food and Drug Administration, US AID and National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Broome graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and in infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.

David R. Cave, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester, Massachusetts

Dr. Cave is Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Gastroenterology Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (prior chairman of the special interest group for video capsule endoscopy), the Gastroenterology Research Group, the Society for Intestinal Microbial Ecology and Disease and the American Society for Microbiology. Dr. Cave is also an elected Fellow of the American College of Physicians, an elected member of the British Society of Gastroenterology and was the Secretary/Treasurer of the New England Endoscopy Society from 1988-1997. He received his doctoral degrees at the University of London.

Victor W. Fazio, M.B., B.S.

The Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland, Ohio

Dr. Fazio is chairman of the Department of Colorectal Surgery and vice-chairman of the Division of Surgery at The Cleveland Clinic.  Dr. Fazio was awarded the Premier Physician Award from the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation in 1992.  In 2000, he was the first recipient of The Cleveland Clinic Master Clinician Award.  In 2002, he became the first awardee of the Al and Norma Lerner Humanitarian Award, which is the highest honor awarded by The Cleveland Clinic.  Dr. Fazio‘s appointments in professional societies include senior board member and past president of the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery, past president of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons and past President of The Society of Pelvic Surgeons.  Dr. Fazio received his medical degree from the University of Sydney in Australia.

Alice S. Huang, Ph.D.
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California

Dr. Huang is Senior Councilor for External Relations at the California Institute of Technology. Previously, she served as Dean for Science and Professor of Biology at New York University (NYU). Prior to NYU, she was Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Huang sits on the Boards of the Johns Hopkins University, the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, the Waksman Foundation for Microbiology, the Health Effects Institute and Public Agenda. She also is chair of the scientific board for the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Women in Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee for Education and Human Resources and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s Astrobiology Task Force. The American Society for Microbiology awarded Dr. Huang the Eli Lilly Award in Immunology and Microbiology (1977) and the Alice C. Evans Award (2001), as well as elected her as President in 1988-1989. She is a fellow of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, American Women in Science, the Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Huang received her training at Wellesley College and Johns Hopkins University.

Stephen P. James, M.D.
National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, Maryland

Dr. James is the Director, Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Disease (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health (NIH). He provides oversight for the NIDDK’s extramural research programs in Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, which is a major source of NIH funding for digestive disease-related research. From 1991 – 2001, Dr. James was the Head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland. He is the author or co-author on over 190 scientific publications related to gastroenterology, mucosal immunology and inflammatory bowel diseases. Dr. James has served as a section editor or on the editorial board of several scientific journals, including Gastroenterology, the American Journal of Physiology, the Journal of Immunology, and Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. He received his M.D. degree and his medical training at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. James is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and a member of numerous prestigious research and clinical associations. He serves on several national boards and committees, including the National Scientific Advisory Committee of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and the Research Policy Committee of the American Gastroenterological Association.

David A. Kessler, M.D.
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California

Dr. Kessler served for six years as the Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine and for four years as the Dean of the School of Medicine and the Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kessler, who served as Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration from November 1990 until March 1997, was appointed by President Bush and reappointed by President Clinton. As Commissioner of the FDA, he acted to speed approval of new drugs and placed high priority on getting promising therapies for serious and life-threatening diseases to patients as quickly as possible. He introduced changes in the device approval process to make it more efficient and ensure that it meets high standards. Under his direction, the FDA announced a number of new programs, including: the regulation of the marketing and sale of tobacco products to children; nutrition labeling for food; user fees for drugs and biologics; preventive controls to improve food safety; measures to strengthen the nation’s blood supply; and the MEDWatch program for reporting adverse events and product problems. Dr. Kessler, a graduate of Amherst College, received his J.D. degree from The University of Chicago Law School in 1978 and his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1979. He has published widely and is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.
The Broad Institute
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Whitehead Institute
Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dr. Lander is the Director of The Broad Institute, Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and a Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is a world leader in the international Human Genome Project, the effort to map the blueprint for a human being. Dr. Lander arrived at the Whitehead Institute as a Whitehead Fellow in 1986, while still an Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics at the Harvard Business School. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Oxford University in 1981. Dr. Lander's many honors and awards include the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship (1987), the Baker Memorial Award for Undergraduate Teaching at MIT (1992) and the Woodrow Wilson Prize from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

(photo of Dr. Lander by Sam Ogden)

Ernest M. Wright, D.Sc.
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine
Los Angeles, California

Dr. Wright holds the Sherman M. Mellinkoff Distinguished Chair in Medicine and is a Professor of Physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine. From 1987-2000, he was also chair of the Department of Physiology at UCLA. He is widely acknowledged for pioneering expression cloning of membrane proteins. In 1987, Dr. Wright cloned the intestinal sodium-glucose cotransporter providing a major breakthrough in cloning membrane transporters. His studies led the way for the cloning of transporters for sugars, amino acids, vitamins and others. Dr. Wright's work revolutionized our understanding of epithelial water transport. He is a recipient of the Smith, Kline and French Prize for Gastrointestinal Research from the American Physiological Society and the Senator Jacob K. Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award. In 2005, he was named a Fellow of the British Royal Society and also a Fellow of the Biophysical Society. Dr. Wright received a Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield and his D.Sc. at the University of London.

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As of April 28, 2008