Sue Desmond-Hellmann

Last updated
Sue Desmond-Hellmann
Sue Desmond-Hellmann, PCAST Member (cropped).jpg
Born1958 (age 65–66)
Napa, California, U.S.
Education University of Nevada, Reno (BS, MD)
University of California, Berkeley (MPH)
External audio
Nuvola apps arts.svg “Pandemic Perspectives: Interview with Sue Desmond-Hellmann”, May 14, 2020, Science History Institute.

Sue Desmond-Hellmann is an American oncologist and biotechnology leader who served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014 to 2020. In March 2024 she was elected as a board member of OpenAI. She was previously Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the first woman to hold the position, and Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor, and before that president of product development at Genentech, where she played a role in the development of the first gene-targeted cancer drugs, Avastin and Herceptin. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Desmond-Hellmann grew up in Reno, Nevada, as one of seven children. Her father worked as a pharmacist and her mother was an English teacher. [2] She earned a bachelor of science degree in pre-medicine and an M.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno and received her residency training at UCSF, where she served as chief resident. She is board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology, and also holds a master's degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. [3]

Career

Beginnings

Desmond-Hellmann served as an associate adjunct professor of epidemiology and biostatistics At UCSF. She joined the UCSF medical faculty during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, and worked on Kaposi's sarcoma. Beginning in 1989 both she and her husband, an infectious disease doctor, spent two years as visiting faculty at the Uganda Cancer Institute, studying and treating patients with infectious diseases and Kaposi's sarcoma in a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. [3] [2] She then spent two years in private practice.

Returning to clinical research, Desmond-Hellmann became associate director of clinical cancer research at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. While there, she was the project team leader for Taxol.

In 1995, Desmond-Hellmann joined Genentech as a clinical scientist. She was named chief medical officer the following year, and in 1999 became executive vice president of development and product operations. From March 2004 through April 2009 she was president of product development, playing a role in the development of two of the first gene-targeted therapies for cancer, Avastin and Herceptin. [2] [3] [4] She left after the company was acquired by Roche Pharmaceuticals. [2] [5] At that point her compensation was $8 million a year. [2]

From 2005 to 2008, Desmond-Hellmann served a three-year term as a member of the American Association for Cancer Research board of directors, and from 2001 to 2009, she served on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. She also served a three-year term on the Economic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco beginning in January 2009. [3] She served on the corporate board of Affymetrix from 2004 to 2009 [3] and on the board of Procter & Gamble in 2012–2013. [6]

Chancellor of UCSF, 2009–2013

After being invited to apply, on August 3, 2009, Desmond-Hellmann became the ninth Chancellor of UCSF, and the first woman to hold the position. [7] Desmond-Hellmann became the first Chancellor drawn from outside academia. Her starting salary was $450,000 a year. [2]

In June 2010, one day after being questioned by The New York Times , Desmond-Hellmann sold her stock in the Altria Group, which owns Phillip Morris USA and other tobacco companies, and subsequently donated $134,000 to the tobacco control center at UCSF. She said that many of her holdings had been purchased on her behalf by her stockbroker and that she was too busy to oversee all her investments, although she had included the stock on her financial disclosure statement. [8] [9]

In January 2012, Desmond-Hellmann proposed changing the relationship between UCSF, a health sciences university, and the University of California. [10] She proposed creating partnerships between UCSF and private pharmaceutical corporations and other sources of funding, in order to increase its revenues and resolve its projected financial instability. [2] [5] [11] [12]

Desmond-Hellmann served as UCSF Chancellor until March 2014, holding the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professorship during her tenure. [3]

Precision medicine network

In 2011, Desmond-Hellmann co-chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee that recommended creating a Google Maps-like data network aimed at developing more diagnostics and treatments tailored to individual patients — a concept known as precision medicine. [13] The so-called "knowledge network" would integrate the wealth of data emerging on the molecular basis of disease with information on environmental factors and patients’ electronic medical records and would allow scientists to share emerging research findings faster, thereby accelerating the development of tailored treatments. It also would allow clinicians to make more informed decisions about treatments, reduce health care costs and ultimately improve care. [14] The NAS report, titled "Toward Precision Medicine: Building a Knowledge Network for Biomedical Research and a New Taxonomy of Disease", was described by Keith Yamamoto, Vice Chancellor for Research at UCSF, as "the most important National Academy of Sciences Framework Analysis since that advisory body recommended that the United States go forward with the Human Genome Project". [15]

CEO of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014–2020

On December 17, 2013, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it had selected Desmond-Hellmann as its next chief executive officer. [13] [4] She assumed her role on May 1, 2014, the first head of the foundation to be neither a former Microsoft executive nor a personal friend of the Gates', and the first physician. [16]

In 2017, Desmond-Hellmann became a member of the Prix Galien USA Committee, [17] succeeding Roy Vagelos as Chair of that Committee in 2018. She is also Chair of the Prix Galien International and Member of the Prix Galien Africa Committee.

In December 2019, Desmond-Hellmann announced plans to step down from her role as BMGF CEO "for health and family reasons". Mark Suzman will leave his role of BMGF president of Global Policy & Advocacy and chief strategy officer to become the new BMGF CEO on February 1, 2020. [18]

Later career

In 2021, Desmond-Hellmann was appointed by President Joe Biden to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), co-chaired by Frances Arnold, Eric Lander and Maria Zuber. [19] In March 2024, Desmond-Hellman was appointed to OpenAI's Board of Directors. [20]

Other activities

Corporate boards

Non-profit organizations

Personal life

Desmond-Hellmann married Nicholas Hellmann in 1987. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, San Francisco</span> Public university in California, US

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It conducts research and teaching in medical and biological sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard C. Blum</span> American investor (1935–2022)

Richard Charles Blum was an American investor and the husband of United States Senator Dianne Feinstein. He was the chairman and president of Blum Capital, an equity investment management firm. Blum was on the boards of directors of several companies, including CB Richard Ellis, where until May 2009 he served as the chairman of that board. He was a regent of the University of California from 2002 until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Boyer</span> American researcher and businessman

Herbert Wayne "Herb" Boyer is an American biotechnologist, researcher and entrepreneur in biotechnology. Along with Stanley N. Cohen and Paul Berg, he discovered a method to coax bacteria into producing foreign proteins, which aided in jump-starting the field of genetic engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brook Byers</span>

Brook Byers is a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the brother of Stanford University Professor Tom Byers and Atlanta, Georgia engineering entrepreneur Ken Byers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Blackburn</span> Australian-born American biological researcher

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1984, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, with Carol W. Greider. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, becoming the first Australian woman Nobel laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Michael Bishop</span> American immunologist and microbiologist

John Michael Bishop is an American immunologist and microbiologist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Harold E. Varmus. He serves as an active faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he also served as chancellor from 1998 to 2009.

Arthur D. Levinson is an American businessman and is the chairman of Apple Inc. (2011–present) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Calico. He is the former CEO (1995–2009) and chairman (1999–2014) of Genentech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UC Berkeley School of Public Health</span> School of the University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, also called Berkeley Public Health, is one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The School of Public Health is consistently rated alongside the best in the nation, with recent rankings placing its doctoral programs in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Environmental Health Sciences, and Health Policy among the top in their fields, The school is ranked 8th in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Established in 1943, it was the first school of public health west of the Mississippi River. The school is currently accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health.

Axel Ullrich is a German cancer researcher and has been the director of the molecular biology department at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany since 1988. This department's research has primarily focused on signal transduction. Ullrich has received Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence, awarded by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2008 and Ullrich and his team received the Wolf Prize in 2010.

Haile Debas ) is an Eritrean physician and academic administrator at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dennis Joseph Slamon, is an American oncologist and chief of the division of Hematology-Oncology at UCLA. He is best known for his work identifying the HER2/neu oncogene that is amplified in 25–33% of breast cancer patients and the resulting treatment trastuzumab.

June Lee is an adjunct professor in the UCSF School of Medicine, biotech executive, and medical doctor with expertise in pulmonary, critical care medicine and translational research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Buchbinder</span> American physician

Susan Buchbinder is an American physician who is best known for her work in HIV prevention and as a researcher in the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. In 2011, she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is Clinical Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Scheller</span> American neuroscientist

Richard H. Scheller is the former Chief Science Officer and Head of Therapeutics at 23andMe and the former Executive Vice President of Research and Early Development at Genentech. He was a professor at Stanford University from 1982 to 2001 before joining Genentech. He has been awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1989, the W. Alden Spencer Award in 1993 and the NAS Award in Molecular Biology in 1997, won the 2010 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience with Thomas C. Südhof and James E. Rothman, and won the 2013 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Thomas Südhof. He was also given the Life Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award from University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Chater</span> American nurse and government official

Shirley Sears Chater is an American nurse, educational administrator and government official. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chater held faculty appointments in nursing and education at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. She worked as an administrator at UCSF and then worked for two national education councils.

The UCSF School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco and is located at the base of Mount Sutro on the Parnassus Heights campus in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1864 by Hugh Toland, it is the oldest medical school in California and in the western United States. U.S. News & World Report ranked the school fifth in research training and fifth in primary care training. Six members of the UCSF faculty have received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and five have received the National Medal of Science.

Jeffrey A. Bluestone is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Metabolism and Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, and was, for a number of years, an earlier executive vice chancellor and provost of that university. He began the UCSF affiliation in 2000, after earlier extended positions at the NCI-NIH, and at The University of Chicago. Bluestone earned his undergraduate and masters degrees in microbiology from Rutgers State University, and his doctoral degree in immunology from Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science. His current research is focused on understanding T cell activation and immune tolerance in autoimmunity and organ transplantation. In April 2016, he co-founded and served as the president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy,. In 2019, he co-founded and is Chief Executive Officer and President of Sonoma Biotherapeutics.

Jennifer Rubin Grandis is an American otolaryngologist, focusing in general otolaryngology and clinical and translational research. Her research interests include diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer. She is a Full professor at the University of California, San Francisco having previously worked as the UPMC Endowed Chair at University of Pittsburgh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. Eugene Washington</span> American physician

A. Eugene Washington is an American physician, clinical investigator, and administrator. He served as the chancellor for health affairs at Duke University, and the president and chief executive officer of the Duke University Health System, from 2015 to 2023. His research considers gynaecology, health disparities, and public health policy. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1997 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Michelle R. Arkin is an American chemical biologist who is the Thomas William and Frederick John MacWilliam Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

References

  1. ↑ Garde, Damian (17 December 2013). "Genentech's ex-R&D boss takes the reins at the Gates Foundation". Questex LLC. Fierce Biotech.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Grady, Denise (October 10, 2011). "Profiles in Science: An Innovator Shapes an Empire". The New York Times .
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "UCSF profiles: Susan Desmond-Hellmann". University of California, San Francisco . Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Ravelo, Jenny Lei (December 23, 2013). "Susan Desmond-Hellmann: A passionate innovator to lead the Gates Foundation" . Devex.
  5. 1 2 "Susan Desmond-Hellmann - The 25 most influential people in biopharma today". FierceBiotech. February 8, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  6. ↑ Lambert, Diana; Koseff, Alexei (March 4, 2016). "UC Davis chancellor apologizes, will donate textbook stock to student scholarships". Sacramento Bee .
  7. ↑ "Susan Desmond-Hellmann, M.D., M.P.H | Pfizer". www.pfizer.com. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  8. ↑ Wilson, Duff (June 30, 2010). "Chancellor's Slip Benefits Tobacco Research". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  9. ↑ Wilson, Duff (June 29, 2010). "University Chief Is Selling Tobacco Holdings". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  10. ↑ Asimov, Nanette (January 20, 2012). "UCSF seeks to ease ties with UC". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  11. ↑ Cisneros, Lisa (19 January 2012). "Chancellor Proposes New Approach to Secure UCSF's Financial Future". University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  12. ↑ Krasny, Michael. "UCSF May Step Away From UC System". KQED Radio . Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  13. 1 2 O'Brien, Jennifer (December 17, 2013). "UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann to Step Down". University of California, San Francisco.
  14. ↑ O'Brien, Jennifer (November 18, 2011). "NAS Report Calls for Building Biomedical Knowledge Network to Drive Precision Medicine". University of California, San Francisco.
  15. ↑ O'Brien, Jennifer (April 11, 2012). "UCSF Chancellor Issues Call-To-Arms to Patient Advocates". University of California, San Francisco.
  16. ↑ Doughton, Sandi (June 29, 2014). "Tough bosses no problem for Gates Foundation's new CEO". Seattle Times .
  17. ↑ "United States of America – Galien Foundation" . Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  18. ↑ McKay, Betsy (5 December 2019). "Gates Foundation CEO to Step Down". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  19. ↑ President Biden Announces Members of President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology White House, press release of September 22, 2021.
  20. 1 2 "OpenAI announces new members to board of directors". openai.com. Retrieved 2024-03-09.
  21. ↑ Taylor, Colleen (March 6, 2013). "UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann Joins Facebook's Board, Adding Another Woman Alongside Sandberg". TechCrunch .
  22. ↑ "Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann Departs Facebook Board of Directors". October 30, 2019.
  23. ↑ "SUSAN DESMOND-HELLMANN ELECTED TO PFIZER'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS". www.pfizer.com. Archived from the original on 2020-04-29. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  24. ↑ About Us Global He@lth 2030 Innovation Task Force.
  25. ↑ "Susan Desmond-Hellmann Elected as Trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute". Howard Hughes Medical Institute. November 7, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.