Five Vanderbilt University faculty members have been elected to membership in the Association of American Physicians (AAP), one of the nation’s most respected medical honor societies.
They are E. Wesley Ely, M.D., James Goldenring, M.D., Ph.D., Marie Griffin, M.D., MPH, Mark Magnuson, M.D., and Richard Peek, M.D.
They were formally inducted April 27 with 59 other new members during the joint annual meeting of the AAP and American Society for Clinical Investigation in Chicago. They join 34 other current and emeritus Vanderbilt faculty members who are members of the AAP.
“This election to AAP is a great honor for each of these individuals, and a great honor for Vanderbilt,” said Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., vice chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine.
“Each of them are leaders and trailblazers, and it is gratifying that AAP recognizes their contributions to science and medicine,” Balser said.
Ely, professor of Medicine, is nationally known for his studies of delirium and cognitive impairment in patients in the intensive care unit. He serves as associate director of aging research at Tennessee Valley VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center.
He and his colleagues at Vanderbilt and the VA have developed methods that, by reducing the risk of delirium and dementia, can reduce the length of stay in the ICU and the risk of mortality.
Goldenring, the Paul W. Sanger Chair in Experimental Surgery and professor of Surgery and of Cell & Developmental Biology, is vice chair of Research in the Section of Surgical Sciences, co-director of the Vanderbilt Epithelial Biology Center, and staff physician at the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System.
A leader in the fields of epithelial cell biology and gastric cancer research, Goldenring last year received the Takeda Distinguished Research Scientist Award from the American Physiological Society.
Griffin, professor of Preventive Medicine and Medicine, is principal investigator in the national DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness) Research Network, which conducts “accelerated practical studies about the outcomes, comparative clinical effectiveness, safety and appropriateness of health care items and services.”
In addition to outstanding research contributions, which range from studies of adverse drug reactions to the effectiveness of influenza vaccination, Griffin leads the epidemiology track in the Vanderbilt Masters of Public Health Program.
Magnuson, Louise B. McGavock Chair and professor of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Cell & Developmental Biology, and Medicine, is director of the Vanderbilt Center for Stem Cell Biology and senior scientific co-director of the Transgenic Mouse/Embryonic Stem Cell Shared Resource.
He chairs both the steering and executive committees, and directs the coordinating center, of the Beta Cell Biology Consortium, an international, National Institutes of Health-supported effort to convert stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells to treat diabetes.
Richard Peek, Jr., M.D., Mina Cobb Wallace Chair in Immunology and professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology, is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine, and director of the Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Research Center.
His studies have advanced understanding of the role that the stomach-infecting bacterium Helicobacter pylori plays in pathogenesis and gastric cancer. In 2011, Peek was elected chair of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute Council.
