CSR Adds Five SRAs to Staff

Dr. Lawrence Baizer is the new scientific review administrator for the neurogenesis and cell fate study section at the Center for Scientific Review. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. After postdoctoral work in molecular neurobiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Baizer moved to the Neurological Sciences Institute of the Oregon Health Sciences University, where he was a principal investigator from 1989 to 2000. His laboratory investigated the molecular mechanisms of action of growth-associated protein (GAP)-43, a protein involved in axonal growth during neuronal development and regeneration. For the past 3 years, Baizer was a senior scientist at Bioject, Inc., where he explored new applications for the company's technology and was involved in several clinical vaccine trials.

Dr. Valerie Durrant recently joined the Center for Scientific Review as a scientific review administrator with the health of the population integrated review group. She will coordinate two of its special emphasis panels: one that will review all of the IRG's small business grant applications and another that will review non-R01 grant applications in the area of social sciences and population studies. Before coming to CSR, Durrant was a program officer for the Committee on Population at the National Academies of Science, where she directed studies on population issues in developing countries, including studies on transitions from childhood to adulthood, leveraging longitudinal data, and the economic benefits of investing in youth. Durrant holds a Ph.D. in sociology with an emphasis in demography from the University of Maryland. After earning her Ph.D., she was a Berelson postdoctoral fellow at the Population Council, conducting research on adolescents and on the influence of the status of women on infant and child mortality and children's schooling in Pakistan.

Dr. Richard Kostriken has joined the Center for Scientific Review as the scientific review administrator of the SSS-Z study section, which reviews small business and other grant applications involving the detection, characterization, and inactivation of viruses and parasites. He earned his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he studied the genetics and biochemistry of genomic rearrangements in bacteria and yeast. His postdoctoral work focused on understanding the genetic regulation of embryonic development in invertebrate organisms. As a faculty member at New York Medical College, he conducted NIH-funded research into the genetic regulation of chromosome structure. Before coming to CSR, he worked as a senior scientist at Biolog Inc., in Hayward, Calif.

Dr. Jerome Wujek recently joined the Center for Scientific Review as a scientific review administrator, coordinating the review of small business research grant applications related to vision research for the brain disorders and clinical neuroscience integrated review group. He earned his Ph.D. from the department of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University. His work there focused on the role of axonal transport in regulating axonal regeneration. In subsequent postdoctoral positions at the University of Maryland and Cincinnati Children's Hospital, he investigated the relationship of astrocytes to axonal regeneration in spinal cord injury. At Gliatech, Inc., a start-up biotech company in Cleveland, he was part of a research and development team working on therapies for surgical adhesions and for Alzheimer's disease. He comes to CSR from the department of neurosciences of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. As a staff scientist there, he studied the role of microglia, inflammation and axonal pathology in multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Ai-Ping Zou has joined the Center for Scientific Review as scientific review administrator for the hypertension and microcirculation study section, a new panel that reviews grant applications involving basic and applied aspects of blood pressure regulation and microcirculation control. He completed training as a physician at Tongji Medical University in China and received his Ph.D. in physiology at Heidelberg University in Germany. He previously served as associate dean for academic affairs at TMU and was an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Before coming to CSR, he was an NIH grantee, studying transcriptional mechanisms mediating renal regulation of arterial blood pressure and homocysteine-induced end-stage renal damage associated with hypertension.