Board of Directors

Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS
Chairman
Dr. Sommer is Dean Emeritus and Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Professor of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He was Dean from 1990-2005. Dr. Sommer received his MD from Harvard Medical School (1967) and his Master of Health Science in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (1973). He has published 5 books and over 300 scientific articles; has received numerous awards including the Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, and the Duke Elder International Gold Medal for Contributions to Ophthalmology; has delivered over 30 named lectureships, including the Jackson Memorial Lecture (American Academy of Ophthalmology), Duke Elder Oration (Royal College of Ophthalmologists), De Schweinitz Lecture (College of Physicians, Philadelphia), Dohlman Lecture (Harvard Medical School), Doyne Lecture (Oxford Ophthalmologic Congress), and the Kimura Lecture (University of California, San Francisco); and is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. His research interests currently include child survival, blindness prevention, and the interface between public health and clinical medicine. Dr. Sommer has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2004. He became Chairman in 2008.

Maria C. Freire, Ph.D.
President
Dr. Maria C. Freire became the President of The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 2008. Prior to her appointment at the Lasker Foundation, Dr. Freire was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. During her six-year tenure, Dr. Freire took the organization from a nascent operation to the world leader in TB drug development. An internationally recognized expert in technology commercialization, Dr. Freire directed the Office of Technology Transfer at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1995 to 2001. Prior to that, Dr. Freire established and headed the Office of Technology Development at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Dr. Freire obtained her B.S. degree at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Virginia and completed post-graduate work in immunology and virology at the University of Virginia and the University of Tennessee, respectively. She is active on national and international boards and committees, including appointments as a member of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director, the International Advisory Steering Committee of the Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud (Mexico) and the Association of American Medical Colleges Advisory Panel on Research. Dr. Freire was selected as one of ten Commissioners of the World Health Organization's Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) and a member of the International Advisory Panel to the Ministerial Working Group on Scaling up of Primary Health Systems. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the DHHS Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service, The Arthur S. Flemming Award and The Bayh-Dole Award. Dr. Freire is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and the Council on Foreign Relations.

John R. Considine
Secretary and Treasurer
John Considine is Vice Chairman of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company). In this role, he is responsible for Integrated Supply Chain; Information Technology; Environment, Health and Safety; Project Management and Engineering Services; and Security. Mr. Considine joined BD as Chief Financial Officer in June 2000 from Wyeth (formerly American Home Products), where he was Senior Vice President, Finance. He was elected to BD's Board of Directors as Vice Chairman in March 2008 and held the CFO position through November 2008. His continuing responsibilities include: BD's Global Supply Chain Operations; Environment, Health and Safety; Project Management & Engineering and Security. BD, which had approximately $7.2 billion in sales in FY2008, is a global medical technology company that manufactures and sells a broad range of medical devices, laboratory equipment and diagnostic products. During his 17 years at Wyeth, Mr. Considine served in various financial management positions, including leading the company's controllership, treasury, investor relations and internal audit groups. He was a member of the Wyeth finance, retirement and operations committees and a member of the Board of Directors of Immunex, Wyeth's then majority-owned biopharmaceutical subsidiary. Prior to joining Wyeth, Mr. Considine practiced for ten years as a Certified Public Accountant with Arthur Andersen & Company. Mr. Considine is a past member of the Board of Trustees of Fairfield Preparatory College, the Board of Directors of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey, and Caldwell College Board of Trustees. He is a founding member of the Animal Cancer Foundation, an honorary board member of St. Vincent's Services and a member of the Board of Governors of Woodway Country Club. Mr. Considine has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2008.

Christopher W. Brody
Christopher W. Brody is Chairman of Vantage Partners, LLC, a private investment partnership. From 1972 to 1998, Mr. Brody was a Partner of Warburg, Pincus, and, for over 15 years, served as a member of its Operating Committee which managed the private equity and venture capital activities of the firm. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Intuit, Inc., and several privately held companies. Mr. Brody is also a member of the Boards of: the United Nations Association of the USA, the Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received a B.A. in English Literature in 1966 from Harvard College and received an M.B.A. in 1968 from Harvard Business School. Mr. Brody has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 1975.

James W. Fordyce
Chairman Emeritus
Mr. James W. Fordyce is the Managing Partner of MEDNA Partners LLC, a private advisory firm located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm provides advisory services in the medical and life sciences fields. Mr. Fordyce has more than 25 years of experience as a private equity investor. He was a founding General Partner of Prince Ventures, where he created and developed investment opportunities in a number of private companies in the biotechnology, medical device and medical services sectors. Mr. Fordyce has served as a director on the boards of both private and public companies. He is an Honorary Life Trustee of the American Cancer Society and has served on the boards of a number of health care related not-for-profit organizations. Mr. Fordyce holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and degrees from both Oxford University and the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Fordyce has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 1975; he was Chairman of the Board from 1994 through 2008.

Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D.
Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D. is currently Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He is the Regental Professor of the University of Texas. He also holds the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine and the Julie and Louis A. Beecherl Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science. Dr. Goldstein and his colleague, Michael S. Brown, discovered the low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and worked out how these receptors control cholesterol homeostasis. At the basic level, this work opened the field of receptor-mediated endocytosis, and at the clinical level it helped lay the conceptual groundwork for development of drugs called statins that lower blood LDL-cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. Drs. Goldstein and Brown shared many awards for this work, including the Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research (1985), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1985), and National Medal of Science (1988). In recent work, Drs. Goldstein and Brown discovered the SREBP family of transcription factors and showed how these membrane-bound molecules control the synthesis of cholesterol and fatty acids through a newly described process of Regulated Intramembrane Proteolysis. For this work, Drs. Brown and Goldstein received the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2003). Dr. Goldstein is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Rockefeller University. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Welch Foundation, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Scripps Research Institute, and the Van Andel Institute. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Dr. Goldstein has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2007, and currently serves as Chairman of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury.

Jordan U. Gutterman M.D.

The Honorable Faith Hochberg
Faith Shapiro Hochberg is a United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey. From 1994 to 1999, Judge Hochberg served as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, the seventh largest U.S. Attorney's Office in the country. From 1990 to 1994 she served in the U.S. Department of Treasury, after working in private practice as a partner for the firm Cole, Schotz, Bernstein, Meisel & Forman. Judge Hochberg graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2005.

Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing is the founder and current chair of the Sherry Lansing Foundation, a philanthropic organization focusing on cancer research, health and education. Ms. Lansing was the chair of the Motion Picture Group of Paramount Pictures from 1992 to 2005, where she oversaw the release of more than 200 films including Academy Award® winners Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and highest grossing movie of all time, Titanic. A pioneering studio executive, Lansing is the first woman in the film industry to oversee all aspects of a studio's motion picture production. In December 2004, Lansing was appointed to the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Ms. Lansing serves as the patient advocate for Cancer, as well as the chair of the Governance Committee and co-chair of the Scientific and Medical Accountability Standards Working Group. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Friends of Cancer Research and as a Trustee of the American Association for Cancer Research. In addition, Ms. Lansing is a founder of the Stand Up To Cancer initiative and a member of such advisory boards and committees as Stop Cancer, the American Red Cross Board of Governors, and the Board of Trustees for the Carter Center. Ms. Lansing is also a Regent of the University of California and serves as chair of the University Health Services Committee. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree from Northwestern University. Ms. Lansing has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2006.

George P. Noon M.D.
George Noon, M.D., is Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery and Assist Devices in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He serves as Director, Executive Council for Transplant Services at The Methodist Hospital in Houston; and Co-Director of the Vascular Diagnostic Laboratory at The Methodist Hospital. Additionally, Dr. Noon is on the attending staff of The Methodist Hospital, the active staff of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, the consulting staff of Texas Children's Hospital, and the associate attending staff of Ben Taub General Hospital. He is also the President of the M.E. DeBakey Medical Foundation.

Willard J. "Mike" Overlock
Willard J. "Mike" Overlock joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1973 and was elected to the partnership in 1982. Mr. Overlock was head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Department from 1984 to 1996. He served as co-head of the Investment Banking Division from 1990 to 1996 and served as a member of the Management Committee and the International Executive Committee from 1990 to 1995. Mr. Overlock is a director of Becton, Dickinson & Co.; Simms Fishing Products, LLC; Flagler System, Inc.; and an adviser to the Parthenon Group in Boston. He serves on the Board of Overseers at the Columbia Graduate School of Business and is a member of the Board of Rockefeller University. Mr. Overlock is a member of the Investment Committee for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the Chairman of the Board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International and a member of its board from 1992 to 1998. He received a BA in economics from the University of North Carolina in 1968 and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1973. Mr. Overlock served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971. He and his wife, Trina, have three children.

George Roche

Russell W. Steenberg
Russell Steenberg is the global head of Private Equity Partners at BlackRock and is a member of BlackRock's Leadership Committee. Prior to joining BlackRock, he was a co-founder and Managing Director of Fenway Partners, a middle-market buyout group. From 1983 until joining Fenway in 1995, Mr. Steenberg was employed by AT&T Investment Management Company, where he was co-head of the AT&T Pension Fund's private equity portfolio. Mr. Steenberg currently serves on the advisory boards of the following funds or GPs: SKM Equity Fund III, Quadrangle Capital Partners, Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer, CCMP II, APAX US VII, Clayton Dubilier & Rice VII, Parallel Investment Partners, THLee VI and is on the Board of Advisor's for the Tuck Center of Private Equity and Entrepreneurship. Mr. Steenberg received his M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, an M.P.A. from American University, and a B.A. from St. Lawrence University.

Cathy J. Sulzberger
Cathy Sulzberger has served on the boards of various philanthropies and educational institutions throughout her professional life. Currently she serves on the board of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation where she is Chair of the Communications Committee and as Chair of the board of Martha's Table, a non-profit in Washington, DC. Presently, she is serving as the Chair of her family's Strategic Planning Committee, charged with assessing and changing their governance structure. She also serves on the Parents' Council of the University of Miami, on the board of the Columbia University Hillel and until recently on the Trinity Board of Duke University. She also serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution. In 2007 she stepped down from her service on the board of the New York Times Company as well as the Chair of the New York Times Foundation. She is a partner in a real estate development company in Maryland. Ms. Sulzberger has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2006.

Robert Tjian, Ph.D.
Dr. Robert Tjian is President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Director of the Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Tjian is a member of several distinguished scientific societies, including the Academia Sinica of China, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Tjian serves on Editorial Boards of numerous scientific journals, including Cell, Science, Nature and Genes and Development. Dr. Tjian is also on the Advisory Board for the Life Sciences Research Foundation, and is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He was on the Board of Trustees of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and was a member of the Advisory Board of Overseers at Harvard University. In 1991, Dr. Tjian was one of the founders Tularik, which was acquired by Amgen, Inc. in 2004. Tularik had developed a rich pipeline of products in various stages of pre-clinical and clinical studies including therapeutics for cancer, Type II diabetes, inflammation, and obesity. Dr. Robert Tjian received his Bachelor's Degree in Biochemistry, University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. Harvard University. Dr. Tjian has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2008.

Kern Wildenthal, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Kern Wildenthal is president of the Southwestern Medical Foundation. Prior to assuming this position in 2008, Dr. Wildenthal was President of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for 22 years, and had been the Dean of the Medical School at UT Southwestern for six years prior to that. He has been chairman of the Science Policy Committee of the Association of Academic Health Centers; chairman of the Basic Science Council and of the Science Advisory Committee, American Heart Association; Chairman of the Research Review Committee of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and editor of a number of scientific proceedings and publications. He is past-president of the American section of the International Society for Heart Research, and has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wildenthal has served as a visiting professor or consultant at over 60 medical schools, universities and research institutes around the world, and has been a visiting lecturer and organizer of conferences in 22 countries. The University of Cambridge in England named him to its American advisory board, and in 1994 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in the�University. In Dallas, Dr. Wildenthal has served on the boards of directors of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Dallas Citizens Council, Dallas Assembly, Science Place, Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony, Dallas Museum of Art, and Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, as well as several foundation and corporate boards. Dr. Wildenthal graduated from Sul Ross College in Alpine, received his M.D. from UT Southwestern Medical School, and earned a Ph.D. in cell physiology from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Wildenthal has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation since 2006.

Elias Zerhouni, M.D.
Dr. Zerhouni served as director the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's foremost biomedical research agency, from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, Dr. Zerhouni promoted many changes at NIH despite challenging budgetary times at the agency. He launched the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research in 2003 to enhance synergy between all 27 NIH Institutes and Centers and to fund compelling initiatives that no single institute could support in both basic and applied research. In addition, Zerhouni launched a series of new programs to encourage high-risk innovative research to enhance interdisciplinary research at the interface of the physical and biological sciences, and to increase support for the independence of early career scientists. During his tenure, NIH tripled its international funding for global health, and it launched comprehensive plans for health disparities, obesity research, and the neurosciences. In 2006, Congress passed the NIH Reform Act, only the third such congressional act since the creation of NIH thus institutionalizing many of his reforms.

Prior to joining the NIH, Zerhouni was the vice dean for research and executive vice-dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, chair of the Russell H. Morgan department of radiology and radiological science, and Martin Donner professor of radiology, and professor of biomedical engineering. Zerhouni, a native of Algeria, immigrated to the US in 1975 at age 24 after earning his medical degree from the University of Algiers School of Medicine. Dr. Zerhouni completed his residency in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins as chief resident in the department of Radiology, and joined its faculty to become full professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering. His research has focused on pioneering quantitative imaging methods based on CAT and MRI scanning to diagnose and treat cancer, pulmonary, and cardiovascular diseases. He served on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors from 1998 to 2002, and has been elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. He is also the author of 212 publications and holds 8 patents. Dr. Zerhouni joined the Lasker Foundation's Board of Directors in 2009.

Directors Emeritus
Mrs. William McCormick Blair, Jr.
Purnell W. Choppin, M.D.
Anne B. Fordyce

Directors Emeritus (in memoriam)
Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.
Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., Ph.D.