Speakers

Jay Bhattacharya
R. Alta Charo
Mildred K. Cho
Marcy Darnovsky
David Ewing Duncan
Dean Christopher Edley, Jr
Michael Eisen
Rebecca Eisenberg ’79
Sergio Garcia ’86
Richard J. Gilbert
Michael D. Goldberg
David Gollaher
Merrill Goozner
Elizabeth A. Howard
Rosario M. Isasi
Perry Israel
Bernard Lo
Theodore R. Marmor
Stephen M. Maurer
Robert P. Merges
David C. Mowery
Roger Noll
Sean O’Connor
Senator Deborah Ortiz
Pilar Ossorio ’97
Ed Penhoet
Robert Price
Arti Rai
Jesse Reynolds
Radhika Rao
Jean M. Ross
Joan Samuelson ’77
Christopher Thomas Scott
Marge Shultz ’76
Jeff Sheehy
Michael Shelanski
Robert Sloss
Ken Taymor
Charis Thompson
Joanna Weinberg
John R. Wetherell
David E. Winickoff

 

  

Lori Andrews is an internationally-recognized expert on biotechnology. Her path-breaking litigation about reproductive and genetic technologies and the disposition of frozen embryos caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” Today, Professor Andrews is a distinguished professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law and Director of IIT’s Institute for Science, Law and Technology. She received her BA summa cum laude from Yale College and her JD from Yale Law School. Professor Andrews is the author of ten books and more than 100 articles on genetics, alternative modes of reproduction, and biotechnology. Her media appearances include “Nightline” and “The Oprah Show” and virtually every major program in between.

 

 

Jay Bhattacharya is an assistant professor of medicine and a CHP/PCOR core faculty member. His research focuses on the constraints that vulnerable populations face in making decisions that affect their health status, as well as the effects of government policies and programs designed to benefit vulnerable populations. He has published empirical economics and health services research on the elderly, adolescents, HIV/AIDS and managed care. Most recently, he has researched the regulation of the viatical-settlements market (a secondary life-insurance market that often targets HIV patients) and summer/winter differences in nutritional outcomes for low-income American families. He is also working on a project examining the labor-market conditions that help determine why some U.S. employers do not provide health insurance. He worked for three years as an economist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., where he also taught health economics as a visiting assistant professor at the University of California-Los Angeles. He received a BA in economics, an MD and a PhD from Stanford University.

 

 

R. Alta Charo is the Elizabeth S. Wilson – Bascom Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison Law School and is on the faculty of theDepartment of Medical History and Bioethics. Professor Charo is the author of over 75 articles, book chapters and government reports on topics including voting rights, environmental law, family planning and abortion law, medical genetics law, reproductive technology policy, and science policy and ethics. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, Cloning: Science and Policy, Public Library of Science & Medicine, and the Monash Bioethics Review. Professor Charo holds a BA from Harvard and a JD from Columbia University School of Law.

 

 

Mildred K. Cho is Associate Director at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Genetics). She received her BS in Biology in 1984 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her PhD in 1992 from the Stanford University Department of Pharmacology. Her post-doctoral training was in Health Policy as a Pew Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco and at the Palo Alto VA Center for Health Care Evaluation. Before coming to Stanford, Dr. Cho was Assistant Professor of Bioethics in the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She is a member of national advisory boards for the National Human Genome Research Institute and for the American Association for the Advancement of Science Public Policy Directorate.

 

 

Marcy Darnovsky is Associate Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society. Marcy speaks and writes widely on the politics of human biotechnology, has more than 40 publications to her credit, and has worked as an organizer and advocate in a range of environmental and progressive political movements. She has taught courses in the politics of science, technology, and the environment in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University, and in the sociology of gender at California State University Hayward. Her Ph.D. is from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

 

 

David Ewing Duncan is an award-winning, best-selling author of six books and numerous essays, articles and short stories, and a television and film producer and correspondent.  He is the Executive Producer and Founder of BioAgenda, an independent, non-profit program of events and educational initiatives that discusses and analyzes crucial issues in life sciences. His current book about the leaders of biotech, The Geneticist Who Played Hoops with My DNA: and Other Masterminds from the Frontiers of Biotech (Harper-Collins), was released in May 2005. Mr. Duncan has been a special correspondent and producer for ABC’s Nightline and 20/20 , and a producer for Discovery Television. He is a correspondent for NOVA on PBS, and has written for WIRED, Discover, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, and Life, among others.

 

 

Christopher Edley, Jr joined Boalt Hall as dean and professor of law in 2004 after 23 years as a professor at Harvard Law School. He earned a law degree and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, where he served as an editor and officer of the Harvard Law Review. Edley’s academic work is primarily in the areas of civil rights and administrative law. He has also taught federalism, budget policy, Defense Department procurement law, national security law, and environmental law. Edley was co-founder of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a renowned multidisciplinary research and policy think tank focused on issues of racial justice. From 1999-2005, Edley served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 2001, he was a member of the Carter-Ford National Commission on Federal Election Reform. He is currently a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and The Century Foundation, and a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the executive committee of the advisory board for the Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Academies of Sciences.

 

 

Michael Eisen is a computational and evolutionary biologist at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics (with extensive side studies in ecology and evolutionary biology) from Harvard College in 1989. He received his PhD in biophysics from Harvard University in 1996 for his doctoral research on influenza virus proteins structure and function. In 2000, he moved to Berkeley, where he runs his own lab studying how regulatory information is encoded in genome sequences and the role that variation in regulatory sequences has played in evolution. Dr. Eisen is an ardent advocate for the free flow of scientific methods, data, and knowledge. He was awarded the 2002 Benjamin Franklin Award in Bioinformatics, given annually to “an individual who has in his or her practice promoted freedom and openness in the field of bioinformatics,” for his work on the Public Library of Science and for his freely available microarray analysis software.

 

 

Rebecca Eisenberg ’79 is a graduate of Stanford University and Boalt Hall School of Law. She is the Robert and Barbara Luciano Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She has written and lectured extensively about patent law as applied to biotechnology and the role of intellectual property at the public-private divide in research science, publishing in scientific journals as well as law reviews. Professor Eisenberg has played an active role in public policy debates concerning the role of intellectual property in biomedical research. She is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the Panel on Science, Technology and Law of the National Academies, and the Board of Directors of the Stem Cell Genomics and Therapeutics Network in Canada.

 

 

Sergio Garcia ’86 is a partner in the Corporate Group and Intellectual Property Group, and is co-chair of the Life Sciences Group of Fenwick & West LLP , a law firm specializing in high technology and life sciences matters. Mr. Garcia’s practice focuses on the representation of life sciences and high technology companies at various stages of development � from early start-up through venture funding and entry into the public marketplace. He advises clients on a variety of business and legal issues, with an emphasis on structuring and negotiating international and domestic strategic partnering agreements and joint ventures, and other transactions involving sponsored research, distribution, supply and manufacturing arrangements. His practice also includes corporate and securities matters, including advice concerning public disclosure issues and SEC reporting and compliance.

 

 

Richard J. Gilbert is Professor in the Economics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an affiliated Professor of Economics at the Haas School of Business. Professor Gilbert holds degrees in engineering from Cornell University and graduate degrees in economics and engineering from Stanford University. He has written wideley on intellectual property, antitrust, and telecommunications, among other topics. In 1996, Professor Gilbert was the recipient of the 1st Annual Berkeley Center for Law and Technology Award for Contributions to the Development of Law and Public Policy.

 

 

Michael D. Goldberg is a general partner at MDV and has more than 25 years of work in the Life Science industry including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, health services and healthcare information technology. Prior to joining MDV, Michael was Managing Director of Jasper Capital and Co-chair of the California Research and Cures Coalition ($3 billion Prop 71 stem cell campaign). Michael is a member of the executive committee of the board of trustees of the National Childhood Cancer Foundation, serves as a Board Member of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and is on the Harvard Center for Genetics and Genomics Advisory Council, the Personalized Medicine Coalition, and the Advisory Council of the Stanford Neuroscience Institute. Michael is involved as a board member with a number of privately held companies, including Genomic Health, BidShift and eHealth.

 

 

David Gollaher is president and CEO of California Healthcare Institute (CHI), a private, non-profit public policy research and advocacy organization, representing California’s leading bioscience companies and academic institutions. Dr. Gollaher joined CHI when it was founded in 1993, and was named CEO in 1995. From 1991 to 1994, he served on the faculties of UCSD and SDSU’s Graduate School of Public Health. Between 1985-1991, Dr. Gollaher was a vice president of Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, responsible for managed care, business development and corporate communications. Earlier in his career, he held executive positions with Phillips-Ramsey and Young & Rubicam New York. Dr. Gollaher is the author of three books and dozens of articles in the history of science, medical ethics and health policy. He sits on several foundation and company boards, and since 1997 has served on the California State Legislature’s Advisory Commission on Human Cloning. A graduate of UCSB, he earned his MA and PhD from Harvard University.

 

 

Merrill Goozner is Director of the Integrity in Science project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and contributing editor to The American Prospect. Goozner is an accomplished journalist, author and researcher with over 20 years experience in the news business and three years teaching experience at the graduate level. He is author of The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs (University of California Press, 2004).

 

 

Elizabeth A. Howard, an intellectual property partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP’s Silicon Valley office, focuses her practice on patent infringement litigation, with an emphasis on the life sciences. Her practice also includes contract and licensing disputes and client counseling.  In addition to litigating in numerous Federal district courts, Dr. Howard has appeared before the U.S. PTO in interference proceedings, arbitrated before the International Chamber of Commerce, and tried numerous criminal cases as a deputy district attorney for the County of Santa Clara.

 

 

Rosario M. Isasi is an attorney specializing in health and human rights, particularly with regard to the new human genetic technologies. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow for the Centre de Recherche en Droit Public (CRDP), Université de Montréal. Her research interests focuses on the ethical, social and legal implications of reproductive and genetic technologies and public health. She has a particular interest in genetics and developing countries. Rosario Isasi is a member of the Advisory Board of Global Lawyers and Physicians, a transnational professional association of lawyers and physicians working together to promote human rights and health. Ms. Isasi had participated in NGO briefings to the UN Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention Against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings, and has been an invited speaker and writer throughout North and South America, notably on global policies on the new human genetic technologies.

 

 

Perry Israel concentrates his practice in tax exempt financing, low-income housing credits, and mortgage credit certificates at the firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has acted as tax counsel, bond counsel and underwriter’s counsel on financing for a wide range of projects including health care facilities, Indian tribal governments, sewer and water projects, municipal hotel projects, and single- and multi-family housing. He also acts as tax counsel for the State of California general obligation bonds. Mr. Israel is the co-chair of Orrick’s Indian Tribal Finance Group.  He is also a member of the inaugural IRS Tax Exempt Advisory Committee and has been active as a panelist for the Bond Attorney’s Workshop and the Arbitrage Seminars of the National Association of Bond Lawyers.  He co-authored An Introduction to Indian Tribal Finance (2004) and Hotel Projects: Borrowing with Tax Exempt Bonds (2002) and authored Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Arbitrage Rebate Manual (1990) and was the original Editor-in-Chief of Federal Income Taxation of Municipal State Bonds: Statutes, Regulations and Rulings (1993).

 

 

Dr. Bernard Lo is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at UCSF. He is National Program Director for the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics, a career development award for junior faculty members. He is co-chair of the Standards Working Group of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which will recommend regulations for stem cell research funded by the state of California under Proposition 71. He is also a member of the California Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee, which will recommend guidelines for stem cell research carried out in California funded from other sources. He chairs the UCSF committee on Gamete, Embryo, and Stem Cell Research, which oversees all such research. He also serves on the Data and Safety Monitoring Committees for diabetes prevention trials at NIDDK and a HIV vaccine trial at NIAID. He is a member of the Ethics Working Group of the NIH-sponsored HIV Prevention Trials Network, which carries out clinical trials in developing countries. He is co-Director of the Policy and Ethics Core of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at UCSF, which provides technical advice and consultation to researchers carrying out clinical research, including research in resource-poor nations. He is a member of the steering committee of the UCSF K-12 Roadmap program that provides training in interdisciplinary clinical research. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and serves on the IOM Council. He currently chaired a NAS/IOM Panel on Ethical Issues in Housing Research on Health Hazards for Children and a IOM panel on confidentiality in health services research. He previously served on the National Bioethics Advisory Committee during the Clinton Administration and served the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at NIH. He developed a course on Responsible Conduct of Research at UCSF that 120 postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty take each year. He also carries out research on ethical issues in human participants research and other topics in bioethics.

 

 

Theodore R. Marmor is a Professor with the Yale School of Management. His scholarship primarily concerns the politics of welfare state policy disputes in North America and Western Europe. The author or co-author of eleven books, Professor Marmor has published over a hundred articles in a wide range of scholarly journals, as well as being a frequent op-ed contributor to US and Canadian newspapers. Professor Marmor began his public career as a special assistant to Wilbur Cohen (Secretary of HEW) in the mid-1960s. He was previously a member of President Carter’s Commission and a senior social policy advisor to Walter Mondale in the Presidential campaign of 1984. He has testified before Congress about medical care reform, social security, and welfare issues, as well as being a consultant to government and non-profit agencies. Professor Marmor lectures frequently on health policy, management issues, and law to both management and law students, and has also been a commentator on a variety of television and radio programs.

 

 

Stephen M. Maurer is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy and Acting Director of the Goldman School Project on Information Technology and Homeland Security (ITHS) at UC Berkeley. ITHS serves as a focal point for the School’s science, innovation, and technology initiatives.  From 1982 to 2000, he practiced high technology and intellectual property litigation at leading law firms in Arizona and California. Mr. Maurer has been associated with the Goldman School since 1999. During that time he has written extensively on a variety of topics including scientific database policy, academic/industry collaboration, patent law, antitrust, and open source biology. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Nature, Science, and Economica. Mr. Maurer’s current research interests include open source biology and designing new funding mechanisms for pharmaceutical R&D in cases where conventional patent incentives are ineffective. He holds a BA from Yale University and a JD from Harvard Law School.

 

 

Robert P. Merges is the Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law, as well as Co-Founder and a Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. He has written numerous articles on the economics of intellectual property, with an emphasis on patent law and the biotechnology industries. In addition to teaching and research projects, He also serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, and is a member of the Department’s Task Force on Intellectual Property. Professor Merges received his undergraduate degree at Carnegie-Mellon University, his JD from Yale Law School, and an LLM and JSD from Columbia Law School.

 

 

David C. Mowery is the William A. & Betty H. Hasler Professor of New Enterprise Development at the Haas School of Business and a member of the Business and Public Policy Group, where he is Deputy Director of the Institute for Management, Innovation, and Organization. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Mowery’s research focuses on international trade policy, US technology policy, and the management of technological change and its impact on economic growth and employment. Professor Mowery holds a BA, MA, and PhD in economics from Stanford University.

 
 Susan Nicholson is counsel to the Health Care Group of Ropes & Gray LLP. Most recently, Susan has been involved in the intersection of stem cell research and informed consent issues for fertility clinics.  She has drafted guidance for use by an IRB reviewing the procurement of cells and embryos utilized in the derivation of human embryonic stem cells, and is co-author of a review of state laws and pending state legislation addressing embryonic stem cell research, funding and IRB/Ethical Review that was prepared for the Massachusetts Biomedical Research Advisory Council. Susan has been recognized in “Best Lawyers in America” for her experience and contributions to the health care field and is a frequent speaker on health care topics at various professional associations.

 

 

Roger Noll is the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. He is also Director of the Public Policy Program, and Professor by Courtesy of the Department of Political Science and Graduate School of Business. He received his undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology and holds a PhD from Harvard. His current research focuses on, among other topics, the economics of judicial review, utility regulation, sports, and telecommunications reform in developing countries.

 

 

Sean O’Connor is on the faculty of the University of Washington Law School, and teaches courses on intellectual property, biotechnology, business and securities law. His research focuses on the legal issues involved in commercializing science and technology. He also studies the social and cultural context of scientific and technological innovation. Before entering academia, Professor O’Connor was in private practice with Hale and Dorr in Boston where he specialized in technology transactions and licensing as well as corporate and securities law representation of emerging and established biotechnology and information technology companies. Professor O’Connor holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he was Executive Editor of the Stanford Law Review and Brown & Bain Fellow in Law & High Technology.

 

 

Deborah Ortiz was elected to the 6th State Senate District in November 1998. She is the Chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and is also a member of the Banking, Finance, and Insurance and Appropriations committees. Her district includes the cities of Sacramento, Citrus Heights and parts Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove, as well as the communities of Antelope, Rio Linda, Elverta, North Highlands, East Sacramento, Arden-Arcade, Rosemont. Senator Ortiz is the author of the nationally recognized law protecting stem cell research in California and is also responsible for the state’s landmark program guaranteeing college scholarships, Cal Grants, for students with good grades and financial need. And while her 2002 legislation to prevent the sale of soda in grade schools was initially met with antagonism, her work on childhood obesity prevention has served as the model for the rest of the nation. An outspoken advocate for those facing catastrophic illness – as well as their families and caregivers – Senator Ortiz wrote legislation directing millions of dollars into ovarian, breast and prostate cancer research and awareness programs.

 

 

Pilar Ossorio ’97 is Assistant Professor of Law and Medical Ethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School and Associate Director for Programming at the UW Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine (now the Center for the Study of Cultural Diversity in Healthcare). Professor Ossorio is widely published in the areas of genetic research and race and gender issues in medicine. She serves on the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, and is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Microbial and Comparative Genomics.

Click here to watch Professor Ossorio’s tutorial (Requires RealPlayer)

 
 Ed Penhoet is the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s President. Previously, Ed worked as the organization’s Chief Program Officer for Science. Prior to coming to the Foundation, Ed served as Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1981, he co-founded Chiron Corporation and served as its Chief Executive Officer until 1998. For 10 years prior to founding Chiron, Ed was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department of U.C. Berkeley. He has received numerous awards, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Outstanding Philanthropist award, the first Distinguished Faculty Award in the Life Sciences from the department of Molecular and Cell Biology at U.C. Berkeley, the Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year Award presented by Ernst & Young and Inc. Magazine, and the Harvard Business School Northern California Alumni Chapter award as Entrepreneur of the Year. Ed earned his AB in biology from Stanford University and his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Washington. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego.

 
 Robert Price is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. His research and teaching fields include comparative politics and African affairs, with a special emphasis on South Africa. He is author of Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), U.S. Foreign Policy toward Sub-Saharan Africa: National Interest and Global Strategy (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1979), The Apartheid Regime: Political Power and Racial Domination (co-editor, Berkeley: Institute of International Studies Publications, 1980), and The Apartheid State in Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), as well as a variety of journal articles and book chapters dealing with the new African state, U.S. foreign policy towards Africa, and political change in South Africa.

 

 

Arti Rai is an expert in patent law, law and the biopharmaceutical industry, and health care regulation at Duke University School of Law. She has also been a faculty fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University; a MacLean fellow at the University of Chicago Center for Clinical Medical Ethics; and a trial attorney focused on health law at the United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch. Rai graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a B. in biochemistry and history, attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. While in law school, she served as executive editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

 

 

Radhika Rao was born in India and moved to the United States when she was one year old. She grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University, where she studied Physics and Chemistry while anchoring for WHRB news and acting in various plays. After spending a year working for a securities firm in Tokyo, she decided to abandon science for a career in the law. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and served as Supreme Court Editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Richard Cudahy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Justices Harry Blackmun and Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. She also spent a year teaching at Boalt and practicing litigation at Heller, Ehrman in San Francisco. Professor Rao teaches at UC Hastings in the areas of constitutional law, family law, and property. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, who teaches engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

 

Jesse Reynolds is Project Director on Biotechnology Accountability at the Center for Genetics and Society and has been on its staff since its creation in 2001. Since the 2004 campaign of California’s Proposition 71, he has been a public interest advocate concerning the funding and regulation of stem cell research. In this role, he has spoken and written widely on the social and policy implications of human biotechnologies, and has been cited by media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle and the American Medical News. He holds an MS in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied as a US EPA Fellow. While there, he was a co-founder of Students for Responsible Research, which monitored the impact of large-scale corporate funding for research on genetically modified crops.

 

 

Jean M. Ross is the founding executive director of the California Budget Project. Her prior professional experience includes serving as principal consultant to the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee; senior consultant to the Assembly Human Services Committee, where she staffed the California Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on the Changing Family; and assistant research director of the Service Employees International Union in Washington, DC, where she was responsible for coordinating the union’s research on tax, budget, and employment policy issues. Jean serves on the Board of the Washington, DC-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the Advisory Committee of California’s Franchise Tax Board, and the Board of the California Tax Reform Association. Jean is a frequent speaker on workforce and fiscal policy issues and has published numerous reports and articles on fiscal and economic policy issues. Jean graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz and has a master’s degree in city and regional planning with a concentration in regional economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Jean was selected as a senior fellow of the UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research in 2000-01.

 

 

Joan Samuelson ’77 was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1987 and left the practice of law to found the Parkinson’s Action Network in 1991. She continues to serve as President and a member of the executive committee of the Board of Directors. PAN is credited with many successes in increasing federal research spending, including the 1997 Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Research Act. Samuelson played an active role in the campaign resulting in the 2004 passage of California’s Proposition 71 Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. Samuelson has been appointed to a variety of advisory panels on biomedical research and health policy. She served as an Independent Report Reviewer for the 2004 Report of the National Academies’ of Science’s Institute of Medicine on NIH Extramural Centers Programs, and sits on the Advisory Committee to the Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. In 2004 she was appointed Patient Advocate to the Medicare Consumer Advisory Committee. She serves on the NIEHS Collaborative Center for Parkinson’s Disease Environmental Research and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Samuelson was honored by the American Society for Neural Transplantation in 1997 for “outstanding efforts and support for research,” and received Research!America’s 2000 advocacy award for “Exceptional Contributions as a Volunteer Advocate for Medical Research.” She holds a BA in Public Service from UCLA and a JD from Boalt Hall. Before founding PAN, her law practice specialized in litigation and alternative dispute resolution.

 

 

Christopher Thomas Scott is a lecturer at Stanford University and Executive Director of the Stanford Program on Stem Cells and Society. He is also a life sciences author, journalist, and entrepreneur. His most recent book, The Stem Now: From the experiment that shook the world to the new politics of life (Penguin/Dutton) clearly explains the science, ethics and politics of stem cells for the lay reader. Scott was the scientific founder of Acumen Sciences, a life sciences research company based in San Francisco and the executive editor of the award-winning Acumen Journal of Sciences, a magazine focused on the business, economics and policy of life sciences.

 

 

Marge Shultz ’76 is a Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law. After graduating from Boalt Hall, Shultz joined the law school’s faculty in 1976. She has authored numerous articles on medical research, informed consent, and health care law, as well as commentaries on the intersection of contracts, feminism and family issues. Shultz is author of �Conflict of Interest and the Law’s Role in Medical Research Ethics,� published as part of a collection by the University of Lausanne, and an essay review of Margaret Radin’s book Contested Commodities in the California Law Review . Shultz served as a member of the Legal Advisory Group for the Clinton Health Security Act in 1993. She speaks and consults on legal issues in health care law and ethics for hospitals, medical groups, health industry organizations, and such national policy agencies as the Centers for Disease Control, the National Cancer Institute, and the Department of Public Health Statistics, as well as serving on a number of other health and research boards and committees.

 

 

Jeff Sheehy is director for communications at the AIDS Research Institute at UCSF. He is a longtime HIV/AIDS and gay civil rights activist and a person living with HIV. Sheehy most notably worked on Survive AIDS’ project advocating for organ transplants for people with HIV. Survive AIDS, in collaboration with Assemblywoman (now Senator) Carole Migden, obtained funds for organ transplants for people with HIV. This initiative has not only saved lives of Californians with HIV/AIDS who needed transplants, but also led to a NIH funded protocol that is performing solid organ transplants in people with HIV at sites across the country. Sheehy has been the recipient of the Cape Crusader Award from Equality California, the HRC Leadership Award from The Human Rights Campaign, the Tomas Fabregas AIDS Hero Award presented at San Francisco’s AIDS Candlelight March in 2001 and was featured in OUT Magazine’s OUT 100 list of the most influential members of the LGBT community in 1999.

 

 

Michael Shelanski is the Francis Delafield Professor of Pathology (in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and the Taub Institute) at Columbia University, where he serves as Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Co-Director of the Taub Institute and Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He is a member of the American Association of Neuropathologists, the Association of American Physicians and the Institue of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Shelanski received his MD and PhD from the University of Chicago.

Click here to watch Professor Shelanski’s tutorial (Requires RealPlayer)

 

 

Robert Sloss is a litigation partner at Farella Braun + Martel LLP with a diverse intellectual property practice.  He has litigated dozens of disputes involving technology and intellectual property rights in state and federal courts throughout the United States and before numerous arbitration panels.  In addition to representing clients in court and in arbitrations, Mr. Sloss counsels clients on the protection of their valuable intellectual property and on avoiding the misappropriation of the intellectual property of others.

 

 

Ken Taymor is an attorney at MBV Law LLP in San Francisco. Mr. Taymor assists private companies and their founders, particularly in the life sciences, in the full range of their start-up, organizational, operational and financial needs. His work with these businesses and individuals includes private investment structuring, intellectual property licensing, recapitalizations, mergers and acquisitions, leasing, equipment financing, advisory board structuring, industry partnering, business plan review and various day to day operational matters. Drawing on his two decades of experience in advising private and government enterprises, Mr. Taymor offers his clients cost efficient legal advice informed by a business and financial perspective that assures timely and practical solutions to issues they face.

 

 

Charis Thompson is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Women’s Studies in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Society Center. Professor Thompson’s primary areas of interest include reproductive and genetic technologies and transnational comparative studies of reproduction, population, biodiversity and environment. Her book, Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies, was published by MIT Press this year. Professor Thompson holds PhD in sociology from UCSD.

 

 
 

Joanna Weinberg is Associate Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Health & Aging and the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF, and Adjunct Professor at Hastings College of Law. She serves as curriculum coordinator of the UCSF Postdoctoral Program in Health Policy, and previously served on the Planning Committee for SAFER (Strategic Alliance for Error Reduction) California Healthcare (UCOP), coordinating the University of California health sciences campuses to improve patient safety and error reporting. Dr. Weinberg’s primary research involves patient safety, patient-providor communication, and patient complaints about quality of care. Her other research areas include older women and breast cancer, HIV and aging, and public benefit policies across the life course.

 

 
 

John R. Wetherell is a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and has over 18 years experience in intellectual property law. His counseling experience includes intellectual property acquisition, transactional due diligence, patent infringement and validity analyses, freedom-to-operate opinions, as well as licensing and strategic counseling. Dr. Wetherell’s patent prosecution experience includes obtaining U.S. and foreign protection in biotechnology areas such as molecular biology, immunology, nanotechnology, medical diagnostics, microbiology and pharmacology. He also evaluates intellectual property portfolios for both companies and investors.

 

 

David E. Winickoff is on the faculty of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) at the University of California, Berkeley. His research centers on the interaction of science, norms, and political structure in the governance of human health and the environment, with a particular focus on biotechnology and the law. He is especially interested in the processes and practices through which rules and rights are constructed, decisions exerted, and power exercised in regulatory domains involving the life sciences, e.g., intellectual property, environmental protection, food safety, human research subject protection, and public health. Through this work, he also aims to make theoretical contributions in the areas of bioethics, globalization, constitutional law, and the science-democracy relationship.