HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt has appointed two new members to the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council.

The council, which meets three times a year, is composed of leaders in the biological and medical sciences, education, health care and public affairs. Its members, who are appointed to four-year terms, perform the second level of peer review for research and research training grant applications assigned to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), one of the National Institutes of Health. Council members also offer advice and recommendations on policy and program development, program implementation, evaluation and other matters of significance to the mission and goals of NIGMS.

The new members are:

Edwin S. Flores, Ph.D., Esq., managing partner at Chalker Flores, LLP, a law firm that focuses on intellectual property and patent prosecution in areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and pharmaceuticals. He earned a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Texas at Austin, a Ph.D. in molecular immunology from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. and a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

Paula E. Stephan, Ph.D., professor of economics and senior associate at the Georgia State University Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Her research interests include the careers of scientists and engineers, the role that immigrant scientists play in U.S. science and the process by which knowledge moves across institutional boundaries in the economy. Dr. Stephan earned a B.A. in economics from Grinnell College in Iowa and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

NIGMS (http://www.nigms.nih.gov), a component of the National Institutes of Health, supports basic biomedical research that is the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.