John I. Gallin | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | October 10, 2024 81) | (aged
Alma mater | Amherst College, BA, cum laude (1965) Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, MD, 1969 |
Known for | Scientific contributions clarifying the basis of, and developing new treatments for, disorders of innate immunity (inflammation) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Infectious Diseases Inflammation/Immunology |
Institutions | National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH Clinical Center |
Uniformed service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service | U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps |
Rank | Rear Admiral |
John I. Gallin (born March 25, 1943) was an American medical researcher who has contributed to the understanding of innate immunity but especially chronic granulomatous disease, a phagocyte disorder. [1] Gallin was appointed director of the NIH Clinical Center on May 1, 1994, [2] and served until January 8, 2017. He serves as the chief scientific officer for the Clinical Center and associate director for clinical research at the National Institutes of Health. [3] He died Oct. 10, 2024.
Gallin was born on March 25, 1943, in New York City, His father was an attorney, and his mother was trained as a social worker, but then became a stay-at-home mom. [4] He graduated from New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, NY, in 1961. He graduated cum laude from Amherst College in 1965. He earned his M.D. from Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in 1969. [4]
After a medical internship and residency at New York University’s Bellevue Hospital, in 1971 he began postdoctoral training in basic and clinical research in infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. [4] [1] Gallin returned to New York University's Bellevue Hospital as senior chief medical resident from 1974 to 1975, then came back to NIH. [4]
In 1985, he was appointed scientific director for intramural research activities at the NIAID, a position he held for the next nine years. [1] Gallin was the founding chief of NIAID's Laboratory of Host Defenses in 1991 and served as chief of the laboratory for 12 years. [2] He continues as chief of the lab's clinical pathophysiology section in a new version of the lab called the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology.
Gallin was the 10th director of the NIH Clinical Center, a position he held for 22 years, the longest serving director. [4] The Clinical Center is the largest hospital focused solely on clinical research and serves the scientific and medical needs of 17 NIH institutes. In 2011, under Gallin's leadership, the Clinical Center was the only hospital to receive the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award. [5]
In August 2016, Gallin was appointed to the newly created positions of NIH associate director for clinical research and chief scientific officer for the Clinical Center. [6] These posts report directly to the NIH Director and oversee independent research programs, clinical research training and the scientific review process for all clinical protocols conducted at the NIH. On January 8, 2017, Gallin stepped down as the director of the NIH Clinical Center to focus full-time as the chief scientific officer of the Clinical Center and NIH associate director for clinical research. [6]
Gallin served as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service and retired from the USPHS as a rear admiral. [7]
Gallin has published or co-authored more than 355 articles in scientific journals and has edited two textbooks: Inflammation, Basic Principles and Clinical Correlates (Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins, 1999) and Principles and Practices of Clinical Research (Academic Press, 2002, 4th edition (2018). [8]
Gallin's primary research interests are on the role of phagocytes, the body's scavenger cells in host defense. [9] His research has focused on rare hereditary immune disorders, and he identified the genetic basis of several diseases of the phagocytes (neutrophils and macrophages). [9]
The laboratory has focused on neutrophil-specific granule deficiency, actin interacting protein deficiency and chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). [10] When phagocytes fail to produce hydrogen peroxide and bleach, CGD results. The laboratory described the genetic basis for several forms of CGD and the research has reduced life-threatening bacterial and fungal infections in CGD patients. [10] The laboratory discovered that when CGD patients get older they are protected from atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries), suggesting the abnormal enzyme in this disease might be a drugable target for normal people with disorders of inflammation such as atherosclerosis. [10]
During his tenure as director of the NIH Clinical Center, Gallin oversaw the design and construction of the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center (CRC), an 870,000-square-foot research hospital added to the original structure. The CRC opened to patients in 2005. [8]
Gallin also established a new curriculum for clinical research training that is now offered globally reaching over 20,000 students annually throughout the United States and in over 150 countries, and he supported development of new information systems for sharing biomedical translational and clinical research. [8]
Gallin was key to establishing a Patient Advisory Group at the Clinical Center in 1998, one of the first for patients participating in clinical research. [11] He, along with Clinical Center nurses, conceived and championed identifying resources from the NIH Foundation to construct the NIH Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge which opened in 2005.
Gallin stressed the importance of collaboration and helped open the Clinical Center and its depth of resources to the research community outside NIH. [8]
Gallin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American College of Physicians (Master). He is an elected member of the Royal College of Physicians-London. [8]
In 1966, Gallin married Elaine Klimerman Gallin, a scientist with whom he has collaborated. They have two children: Alice Jennifer Gallin-Dwyer, trained as a lawyer and now working as the deputy director at the Washington Monthly [12] and raising three children, and Michael Louis Gallin, an architect practicing outside New York City who has two children.[ citation needed ]
Books
Journal articles
Immunodeficiency, also known as immunocompromisation, is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious diseases and cancer is compromised or entirely absent. Most cases are acquired ("secondary") due to extrinsic factors that affect the patient's immune system. Examples of these extrinsic factors include HIV infection and environmental factors, such as nutrition. Immunocompromisation may also be due to genetic diseases/flaws such as SCID.
Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD), also known as Bridges–Good syndrome, chronic granulomatous disorder, and Quie syndrome, is a diverse group of hereditary diseases in which certain cells of the immune system have difficulty forming the reactive oxygen compounds used to kill certain ingested pathogens. This leads to the formation of granulomas in many organs. CGD affects about 1 in 200,000 people in the United States, with about 20 new cases diagnosed each year.
NADPH oxidase is a membrane-bound enzyme complex that faces the extracellular space. It can be found in the plasma membrane as well as in the membranes of phagosomes used by neutrophil white blood cells to engulf microorganisms. Human isoforms of the catalytic component of the complex include NOX1, NOX2, NOX3, NOX4, NOX5, DUOX1, and DUOX2.
NADPH oxidase 2 (Nox2), also known as cytochrome b(558) subunit beta or Cytochrome b-245 heavy chain, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NOX2 gene. The protein is a superoxide generating enzyme which forms reactive oxygen species (ROS).
Anthony Segal FRS FMedSci is a British physician/scientist.
Hyperimmunoglobulinemia E syndrome (HIES), of which the autosomal dominant form is called Job's syndrome or Buckley syndrome, is a heterogeneous group of immune disorders. Job's is also very rare at about 300 cases currently in the literature.
Harvey James Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called "non-A, non-B hepatitis" caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice.
Neutrophil cytosol factor 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NCF2 gene.
Neutrophil cytosol factor 1, also known as p47phox, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NCF1 gene.
Cytochrome b-245 light chain is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CYBA gene involved in superoxide production and phagocytosis.
Victor Nizet is an American physician-scientist and microbiologist. He is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Basic Research at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. He is also a Distinguished Professor at UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in La Jolla, California. He is known for his research in the areas of molecular microbiology and the innate immune system, with a particular focus on infectious diseases caused by common Gram-positive bacterial pathogens such as Group A Streptococcus, Group B Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus.
The NIH Clinical Center is a hospital solely dedicated to clinical research at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Clinical Center, known as Building 10, consists of the original part of the hospital, the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center, and the newest addition, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. The two parts are connected to form one large building.
Lloyd Mayer was an American gastroenterologist and immunologist. He was Professor and Co-Director of the Immunology institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, now known as the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute.
Neutrophil oxidative burst test is a measure of neutrophil oxidation and is a useful assay in the diagnosis of chronic granulomatous disease and is also a useful means to determine the overall metabolic integrity of phagocytosing neutrophils. The NADPH oxidase enzyme is missing in CGD. From total blood, neutrophils can be purified and the NADPH oxidase activity can be measured with different methods in these cells after activation. Phagocytosis by polymorphonuclear neutrophils and monocytes constitutes an essential arm of host defense against bacterial or fungal infections. The phagocytic process can be separated into several major stages: chemotaxis, attachment of particles to the cell surface of phagocytes, ingestion (phagocytosis) and intracellular killing by oxygen-dependent and oxygen-independent mechanisms.
Granulibacter bethesdensis is a Gram-negative, aerobic coccobacillus to rod-shaped, non-motile, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative bacteria first described in 2006 by Dr. Steve Holland's team, which included Dr. David E. Greenberg and Dr. Patrick R. Murray at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Granulibacter is a Gram-negative and non-motile bacterial genus from the family of Acetobacteraceae. Up to now there is only one species of this genus known.
Stephen E. Straus was an American physician, immunologist, virologist and science administrator. He is particularly known for his research into human herpesviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome, and for his discovery of the autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome genetic disorder. He headed the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and served as the founding director of the NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Gerald T. Keusch is an American physician-scientist and academic administrator. Keusch is the associate provost for global health at Boston University Medical Campus and a professor of international health and medicine at Boston University School of Public Health. He was the director of John E. Fogarty International Center and the associate director of international research at the National Institutes of Health from 1998 to 2003.
Dr. Michael J. Lenardo, is the chief of the Molecular Development and Immune System Section and the founder and co-Director of the Clinical Genomics Program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Trained as a geneticist, molecular biologist, and immunologist, his research examines how cells of the immune system defend themselves against various pathogens, including viruses and bacteria. His research has investigated genetic abnormalities in the immune system, mechanisms of cell death, genetic diseases of immune homeostasis and autoimmunity, and development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for diseases of the immune system. Lenardo's contributions to science and medicine have shown the possibilities of genomic research in developing precision medicine diagnoses and treatments for disease in humans. In 2006 he was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2019 he was inducted into the National Academies of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, considered among the highest honors awarded to a U.S scientist and medical researcher respectively.
John R. Mascola is an American physician-scientist, immunologist and infectious disease specialist. He was the director of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). He also served as a principal advisor to Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, on vaccines and biomedical research affairs. Mascola is the current Chief Scientific Officer for ModeX Therapeutics.