HWI Board of Scientific Advisors
by Eaton E. (Ed) Lattman
Summer 2009

The website of the Cold Spring Harbor (CSH) Laboratory, one of America’s most outstanding research institutes, reveals that its Board of Trustees is divided into two classes of members:  scientific members and individual members.  The scientific members are outstanding investigators from all around the US and abroad.  CSH is typical of most independent research institutions, which generally have some formalized process for obtaining objective, yet friendly, scientific advice.  These external scientific advisory units also play important roles in connecting their institution with venture capital or other funding sources, and in promoting their national visibility.

When I came on as CEO, one of the goals that Don Hess set for me was to increase the national visibility of the HWI.  It is a goal with which I wholeheartedly agree, and one path towards achieving it involves creating a group of scientific advisors like the one mentioned above.  New appointments to the HWI Board of Scientific Advisors (BSA) are recommended by the CEO or by members of the governing board, and are approved by the board.  Thus far we have made four appointments to the scientific board, and two or three more are in the works.

Dr. David Hohn, former President and CEO of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute will chair the Board of Scientific Advisors initially.  Dr. Hohn is also a former member of the HWI Governing Board.  He is a distinguished oncologist and surgeon, and as Principal Investigator of the National Cancer Institute Cancer’s Center Support Grant (CCSG), he led the successful renewal of Roswell Park’s designation as a comprehensive cancer center.

Another local member of the BSA is Walter Stafford, Ph.D.  Dr. Stafford is a distinguished researcher in the area of molecular biophysics, and works at the independent Boston Biomedical Research Institute, an enterprise similar to the HWI in size.  Dr. Stafford is connected to the Woodward family that has been so supportive of the HWI through the years.

One of our new national members of the BSA is Marvin Cassman, Ph.D.  Dr. Cassman was, for many years, the Director of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of NIH.  NIGMS is the division at NIH that provides the most support to HWI, and it is the unit that created the Protein Structure Initiative that funds our high-throughput crystallization laboratory.  More recently, Cassman has served as director of the Center for Quantitative Biology at the University of California.

Our other national member is F. Raymond Salemme, Ph.D.  Dr. Salemme left a distinguished academic trajectory for a career in the private sector.  One highlight has been his role as scientific founder, director, and executive officer of 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals. Inc.  3DP developed a number of exciting products, and was eventually acquired by Johnson and Johnson.  Salemme is currently CEO of Redpoint Bio, a public biotechnology company (RPBC:OB) using modern drug discovery technology to develop novel taste modifiers for the pharmaceutical and food industries.

The first full meeting of this group will take place in the fall of 2009.