People in the news

Ranganathan in new role at NIH

Dr. Rajesh Ranganathan has been appointed Senior Adviser for Translational Research to NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins. Ranganathan will “provide leadership and expertise in planning and establishment of NIH-wide program priorities that support and focus on accelerating the translation of scientific discoveries from the bench to the bedside,” Collins said. Ranganathan comes to NIH from Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research Inc., where he was global head of the Scientific Education Office.

Dr. Rajesh Ranganathan

Dexter Collins

Dexter Collins new Fogarty Executive Officer

Dexter Collins has been named Fogarty’s new Executive Officer. Collins was previously Deputy E.O. and Deputy Associate Director for Administration at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. A recent graduate of the NIH Executive Leadership Program, Collins has served in a variety of key financial and administrative management positions at NIH since his arrival in 1989. He has a master’s in public administration from American University and a bachelor’s in management from National-Louis University in Evanston, Ill.

Musgrove dies

Dr. Philip A. Musgrove, who worked at Fogarty from 2002 to 2005 as an editor on the Disease Control Priorities Project, died March 21 in a boating accident at Iguazu Falls in Argentina. He was 70 years old. An expert in global health, Musgrove was deputy editor of the journal Health Affairs.

Dr. Philip A. Musgrove

Dr. Tachi Yamada

Yamada departs Gates Foundation

Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is leaving in June. Yamada oversaw a tripling of the global health grant portfolio and has transformed the way the program tackles the diseases and health conditions of the poor, the foundation said in a statement. “Tachi has done a great job of focusing our ability to create and deliver vaccines and other interventions to the people who need them the most,” said foundation co-chair Bill Gates.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin honored

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D.- Ill.) is the recipient of Research!America’s 2011 Edwin C. Whitehead Award for Medical Research Advocacy. The three-term senator, who also served eight terms in the House of Representatives, was honored for his longstanding commitment to global and public health research. He fought for federal research funding and for legislation to address HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and globally and has been outspoken in his support for embryonic stem cell research.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin

Dr. Janis Weeks

Honor for Weeks

Biology professor Dr. Janis Weeks, a long-time reviewer for the Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award (FIRCA) program, has been awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. prize by the University of Oregon. Weeks has promoted neuroscience research and solutions to global health problems and was recognized for exemplifying the ideals of the late Dr. King in her teaching.