Department of Internal Medicine Davidson one of four UI faculty elected 2006 AAAS Fellows  Beverly L. Davidson, Ph.D. Roy J. Carver Professor of Medicine Professor of Neurology and Physiology & Biophysics Vice Chair for Research Director, Gene Transfer Vector Core Associate Director, Gene Therapy Center for Cystic Fibrosis and Ot
12/4/2006 Dr. Beverly Davidson, Roy J. Carver Biomedical Research Chair in Internal Medicine and UI professor of internal medicine, molecular physiology and biophysics, and neurology, was one of four UI faculty members to receive the distinction of 2006 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.
The other UI faculty members are Drs. Philip E. Kaaret, associate professor, CLAS Department of Physics and Astronomy; Arthur L. Smirl, Lowell Battershell Chair in Laser Engineering and professor, CLAS Department of Physics and Astronomy; and David F. Wiemer, UI Collegiate Fellow, professor and chair, CLAS Department of Chemistry.
The four UI recipients are among 449 individuals elected this year by peers. AAAS members are elevated to the rank of "Fellow" because their efforts to advance science or its applications are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. The new Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a rosette pin on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Beverly Davidson, who earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1987 and joined the UI faculty in 1994, was elected to the medical sciences section for her outstanding contributions to the field of neurogenetic diseases, particularly for developing novel methods of treating fatal inherited recessive and dominant brain diseases. Davidson, who also serves as director of the Gene Transfer Vector Core, associate director of the Iowa Center for Gene Therapy and vice chair for research in the Department of Internal Medicine, has focused her research on inherited genetic diseases that affect brain function. In particular, she studies RNA interference, also known as gene silencing, and its application in treating dominantly inherited disorders, like Huntington's disease, that are caused by abnormal sequence repeats within a gene. A second area of interest is gene therapy approaches to treat childhood onset neurodegenerative diseases caused by enzyme deficiencies.
To read about the other recipients, click here. |
