Biography

Dr Arm is a Principal Investigator in the Inflammation and Allergic Disease Research Section of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is Associate Director of the Brigham and Women's Hospital clinical training program in allergy and immunology. His clinical interests are in asthma and allergic disease. His research focuses on the regulation of lipid mediator generation and on a family of molecules that regulate immune responses, the leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptors. His work on lipid mediator generation has two themes: the role of different phospholipase A2 enzymes and the modulation of lipid mediator generation by dietary fatty acids.

Dr Arm trained in Internal Medicine and in Allergy in the United Kingdom where he began his research on the role of a class of lipid mediators, the leukotrienes, in bronchial asthma. His work provided evidence that this class of mediators, in particular leukotriene E4, contributes to bronchial asthma and also provided evidence that dietary supplementation with fish oil modified leukotriene generation in asthmatic individuals. He received a prestigious Medical Research Council traveling fellowship to further his research training at the Brigham and Women's Hospital where he cloned the first member of the leukocyte immunoglobulin like receptors. He returned to the Brigham and Women's Hospital and to the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1993 where he continued his work on the leukocyte immunoglobulin like receptors with particular focus on their potential role in modifying the inflammatory response in bronchial asthma. His work on lipid mediators led him to studies of phospholipase A2, which is the first enzyme involved in lipid mediator generation. His work is providing new insight into novel functions of this class of enzyme in inflammation and innate immunity. His interest in the capacity of dietary fatty acids to modulate lipid mediator generation was recently rekindled, and his laboratory is studying the potential of botanical fatty acids to modulate leukotriene generation and as a treatment for bronchial asthma.

Dr Arm is Associate Director of the allergy and immunology training program of the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He serves on the Program Directors subcommittee of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology in which he holds several other committee appointments. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and of Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids. He is author of more than 100 journal articles and book chapters. His work is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Biography

Dr. Chilton is widely recognized in academia and industry for his work on the role of fatty acid metabolism in human diseases. He has extensive experience in leading organizations in both of these areas. Dr. Chilton is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and Director of the Wake Forest and Brigham and Women's Center for Botanical Lipids at Wake Forest University Health Sciences. Dr. Chilton also founded the Program in Molecular Medicine at Wake Forest University Health Sciences and helped build it into one of the most successful Programs of its kind in the United States. During his time in academia, Dr. Chilton has served as Director of Molecular Medicine, Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology, Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry at the Wake Forest University as well as Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He also served as Associate Director of the Asthma and Airways Diseases Center and Associate Director of Programs in Clinical Research at Wake Forest University Health Sciences. Dr. Chilton has served as Chairman and has organized several international meetings on dietary regulation of human disease and lipid metabolism.

In 1999, Dr. Chilton founded a biotechnology company, Pilot Therapeutics, and served as the President, CEO and Chief Technology Officer from late 2000 to early 2003. At Pilot Therapeutics, Dr Chilton developed a medical food called Airozin™ that blocks lipid mediators that cause asthma and arthritis. In 2003, Dr Chilton was named as an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist for the Carolinas (1 of 3 finalists from over 400 CEOs in North and South Carolina in the Biotechnology/Life Sciences category).

Dr Chilton has authored or co-authored over 110 scientific articles and book chapters. He holds 32 issued and 17 pending patents. In 2005, Dr. Chilton wrote a book, Inflammation Nation, which was published by Simon and Schuster. In 2006, he wrote Win the War Within, which was published by Rodale.

Dr. Chilton obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University in 1984. He served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Pharmacology at the University of Colorado until 1986. He has received numerous awards in his career including the Cowgill Scholar Award at Wake Forest, the Sigma Xi Research Award at Wake Forest, the 1999 Distinguished Academic and Achievement Award from Western Carolina University and The Distinguished Service and Teaching Award from the Italian Congress on Allergy and Immunology.

Biography

Lawrence L. Rudel, is a Professor of Pathology, Section on Comparative Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC. He has served on the faculty since 1973 and has served on many internal advisory committees for the Dean and Executive Vice President. In 2001, he was awarded the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Established Investigator Award in Basic Sciences. He currently serves on the Nutrition Committee of AHA and was the chair of the 2006 spring ATVB Council meeting. In 2004, he was the the recipient of an AHA Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Special Recognition Award in Arteriosclerosis. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the ATVB Council.

Dr. Rudel earned a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Biochemistry and a B.S. in Physical Sciences from Colorado State University. His postdoctoral training was at the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Toronto in the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research. Currently, Dr. Rudel is a member of several professional organizations which include the American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; and the American Society for Investigative Pathology. He is a Fellow in both the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology and the Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism Councils of the American Heart Association. He is a Professor of Biochemistry and Pathology and is Section Head of Lipid Sciences in Pathology. He serves as the Director of the Lipid Sciences Research Program, a multidisciplinary research group with faculty from 4 different departments in the medical school.

Dr. Rudel has published more than 250 abstracts, chapters, and journal articles. He currently serves on the editorial boards for the journals of Atherosclerosis and Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, Vascular Biology. His current research focuses on hepatic cholesterol and lipoprotein metabolism, intestinal cholesterol absorption, and the nutritional regulation of experimental atherosclerosis in mouse and nonhuman primate models. He has been invited to give lectures and presentations on his research to over 100 local, national, and international organizations over the past 10 years.

Biography

Dr. Parks is a Professor of Pathology in the Section on Lipid Sciences at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is also the Director of the Molecular and Cellular Pathobiology Graduate Program, which is an interdisciplinary PhD graduate program that focuses on the molecular mechanisms of complex diseases, such as heart disease and cancer. His lab has three National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded projects that focus on the interrelationships of lipoprotein metabolism, dietary fat type, inflammation, and atherosclerosis (i.e., hardening of the arteries). To accomplish the goals of these grant projects, Dr. Parks uses an interdisciplinary approach that includes transgenic/gene targeted mouse models, molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, mass spectrometry, and vascular wall biology.

Dr. Parks received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at North Carolina State University in 1973. He received his MS (1976) and PhD (1979) degrees from Wake Forest University, where he studied the impact of dietary polyunsaturated fat on lipoprotein metabolism in non-human primates. He then studied the influence of saturated and polyunsaturated fats on the physical chemical properties of plasma and lymph lipoproteins during a two year postdoctoral fellowship (1979-1981) at the Biophysics Institute at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Parks received additional training, on sabbaticals, in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy at the Swiss Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland (1986) and in gene targeting at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1999-2000).

Dr. Parks has served on study sections for the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program, University of California, Berkley. He also served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Academic Research Initiation Grants Program of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center from 1991-1993. He is currently a member of the Leadership Committee of the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Council of the American Heart Association. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed articles and 13 book chapters.

Biography

Professor Stevens began his college education in 1964 graduating from the Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. (1967) in Science. He worked a year at Norwich Pharmacal Company in Norwich, New York before continuing his graduate education at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. He completed a M.S. (1970) in Reproductive Physiology and Ph.D. (1972) in Pharmacology.

Dr. Stevens worked as an assistant professor at Hershey Medicine School in Hershey, Pennsylvania from 1972 to 1975 until taking a job as Section Chief in Inhalation Toxicology at the US Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park, NC. Dr. Stevens began a long career with industry in 1977, working for the same company under different names (CIBA-GEIGY, CIBA, Novartis, and Syngenta), until he retired as the Head of Global Human Risk Assessment at the end of 2002. Stevens had donated time to Wake Forest University School of Medicine for nearly two decades and 2000 brought nearly $200,000 grant funds. Stevens attained the rank of professor and faculty in 2003.

Professor Stevens has over thirty years of experience in academia, government and industry. He has a foundation in principles of experimental design, reproductive physiology, biochemical pharmacology, general toxicology, inhalation toxicology, regulatory toxicology, toxicology management, food safety, contract management, general management, facility management, and teaching. Despite a primarily industrial background, Stevens has more than 75 published chapters or papers (55 abstracts); he is a 30-year member of the Society of Toxicology and the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and has quadruple certification in Toxicology being Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology, Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, Certification, Swiss Professional Register of Toxicology and Eurotox Registered Toxicologist. He has led and served on several national and international government and industrial committees including, currently, the US Environmental Protection Agency's FACA, the Endocrine Disruptors Method Validation Advisory Committee.