University Times

Members of the Pitt family were recognized recently with prestigious awards, including appointments to a national academy and to distinguished professorships, and a major medical prize.
Pitt faculty members Susan G. Amara, Thomas Detre Professor, chair of the Department of Neurobiology in the School of Medicine and codirector of the Center for Neuroscience, and Robert D. Drennan, a professor in the Department of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, were named members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Amara and Drennan are two of 72 new academy active members nationwide.
Also, Lap-Chee Tsui, vice chancellor of the University of Hong Kong who earned the Ph.D. in biological sciences at Pitt in 1979, was named a foreign associate of the academy, one of 18 named in that category. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the academy with citizenship outside the United States.
Last week’s election was held during the NAS’s 141st annual meeting. Election to membership is considered to be one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.
Amara concentrates her research on the molecular and cellular biology of neurotransmitter transporters, especially those that target addictive drugs, such as cocaine and amphetamines, and therapeutic drugs such as antidepressants.
Amara came to the University in 2003 from Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, where she was a senior scientist at the Vollum Institute and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, among other professional associations. In addition, she is on the editorial boards of Reviews in Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology, and the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Amara received her B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology from the University of California, San Diego.
At Pitt since 1977, Drennan is an archaeologist whose interests focus on the origins and development of complex societies – especially chiefdoms, regional settlement pattern studies and household archaeology. His principal methodological specialty is quantitative data analysis and computer applications. He does fieldwork in Mesoamerica, northern South America, and China.
Drennan received an A. B. degree in art and archaeology from Princeton University in 1969 and the Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1970 and 1975, respectively.
Prior to joining the University, Drennan was curator at the R. S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology in Andover, Mass.; an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Anthropology; adjunct professor in the anthropology department at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia; a research associate in the anthropology section of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and a visiting professor in the anthropology department at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. He served as chair of Pitt’s anthropology department from 1996 to 1999.
Tsui received international acclaim in 1989 when he identified the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis. His research on cystic fibrosis continues, and he also is active in other genetic and disease gene analysis.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which calls on the academy to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.
John T. Yates Jr., R.K. Mellon Professor of Chemistry and Physics in the Department of Chemistry and director of Pitt’s Surface Science Center, and Mary Edmonds, professor emerita in the Department of Biological Sciences, both previously elected to the academy, also are active members.
Pitt faculty members Rory Cooper and Rolf Loeber have been appointed as distinguished professors, the highest honor the University confers on a member of the professorate, acknowledging extraordinary, internationally recognized scholarly achievement in an individual discipline or field.
Cooper, now Distinguished Professor of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, was recruited to Pitt in 1994 to help establish the first department of rehabilitation science and technology in the United States, which he now chairs at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Over the past 10 years, the department and its faculty and staff has become a widely recognized leader in the field.
Over the course of his career, Cooper has come to be considered one of the pre-eminent international experts in wheelchair design and has made remarkable contributions to the field of mobility research. He founded and directs the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a joint venture among UPMC, Pitt and the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System, and he is the author or co-author of more than 200 papers, expanded abstracts and book chapters, and the author of two books, “Rehabilitation Engineering Applied to Mobility and Manipulation” and “Wheelchair Selection and Configuration.”
Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry Loeber, a professor at the School of Medicine, came to Pitt in 1984 with his wife, Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, to cofound and codirect the Department of Psychiatry’s Life History Studies Program, which encompasses three longitudinal studies – the Pittsburgh Youth Study, the Development Trends Study and the Pittsburgh Girls Study.
Also a professor of epidemiology in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health and a professor in Pitt’s Department of Psychology, Loeber is a professor of juvenile delinquency and social development at the Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
In 2003, Loeber was awarded the Distinguished Contribution Award by the American Psychological Association (APA). He has been recognized as a fellow by the American Society of Criminology, APA, and Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He earned a Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada, in 1972.
Pitt alumnus Herbert W. Boyer, cofounder of Genentech and professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, will share the 2004 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research with Stanley Cohen of Stanford University for their pioneering work in genetic engineering.
The $500,000 award is the largest prize in medicine in the United States and second worldwide only to the $1.4 million Nobel Prize.
Boyer and Cohen, Distinguished Professor of Genetics and professor of medicine at Stanford, are being recognized for the development of recombinant DNA technology, or gene cloning, which involves the transfer of genes from one organism to another. Their research has served as the foundation for genetic engineering and the creation of the biotechnology industry.
Boyer earned Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in applied statistics at Pitt in 1960 and 1963, respectively, after receiving a B.S. in biology and chemistry from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.
Prior to Boyer and Cohen’s research, scientists believed that the DNA of organisms could survive only within species that were closely related. Boyer and Cohen discovered that animal cell genes could be cloned and become functional in bacteria.
In 2000, Pitt awarded Boyer an honorary Doctor of Science degree. Boyer and Cohen were awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1980 and the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 1996.
In 1976, Boyer cofounded one of the world’s first biotechnology companies, Genentech, which uses recombinant DNA technology to produce commercial pharmaceutical products. Two years later, Genentech synthesized human insulin, which has enhanced the lives of millions of diabetics. In 1985, Genentech received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the growth hormone protropin, which became the first recombinant pharmaceutical product to be manufactured and marketed by a biotechnology company.
Genentech has recently released the cancer drug Avastin.
The Albany Medical Center Prize award was established in November 2000 with a $50 million gift to Albany Medical Center from Albany Law School graduate and philanthropist Morris Silverman. This is the fourth year the Albany Medical Center award has been given.