Faculty Honored by the Institute of Medicine

(May 2015) Two School of Medicine faculty members have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and another faculty member was recognized for distinguished leadership.

Dan Theodorescu, MD, PhD, director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, and James O. Hill, PhD, executive director of the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, were elected in October 2014.

Richard B. Johnston Jr., MD, associate dean for research development and professor of pediatrics, received the David Rall Medal honoring his leadership in vaccine safety activities on the Board of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

Election to the IOM is one of the highest honors in health and medicine and recognizes individuals for their outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service. New IOM members are elected by current active members through a selective process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.

Theodorescu was recently the senior author on a paper in the journal Nature that identified Ral protein activation as a new target in the growth and spread of cancer and developed drug can-didates to block its activation. This new class of drugs could have applications in lung, colon and pancreatic cancers.

Theodorescu is also the Paul Bunn Professor at the CU Cancer Center and professor of surgery and pharmacology and attending urologic oncologist at the School of Medicine.

Hill is the author of more than 500 scientific articles and book chapters in the area of obesity. Hill and Holly Wyatt, MD, were recently the authors of “State of Slim: Fix Your Metabolism and Drop 20 Pounds in 8 Weeks on the Colorado Diet,” and have been conducting State of Slim group classes at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

Hill is also Anschutz Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the School of Medicine, and Director of the Colorado Nutrition Obesity Research Center.