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Media Advisory
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Dr. Maria Freire Delivers Inaugural Philip S. Chen, Jr. Lecture on January 20
What
The National Institutes of Health announces the inaugural Philip S. Chen, Jr. Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer. Maria Freire, Ph.D.,CEO, Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, will present a talk entitled, “Innovation and Collaboration: Revolutionizing TB Therapy.”
When
Friday, January 20, 2006, at 1:30 p.m., Lipsett Auditorium, NIH Building 10, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. The event is free and open to the public.
Why
This annual series honors Dr. Philip S. Chen, Jr. for his almost 50 years of service to the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Chen established NIH's Office of Technology Transfer in 1986 to implement the Federal Technology Transfer Act. The inventions in the Office of Technology Transfer’s intellectual property portfolio are crucial in advancing the NIH mission — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. Dr. Chen was a researcher in the National Heart Institute from 1956-1959, and has been an administrator in the Intramural Research Program since 1974. The IRP is the largest biomedical research organization in the world.
Maria C. Freire, Ph.D., was named Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development in September 2001. The TB Alliance is a not-for-profit, public-private partnership created to develop new, faster-acting anti-TB medicines that are affordable and accessible to patients world-wide. An internationally recognized expert in technology commercialization, Dr. Freire directed the NIH Office of Technology Transfer from 1995 to 2001. Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Freire established and headed the Office of Technology Development at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has written and spoken extensively about science in the public interest and how society’s most advanced technologies can be leveraged for global health priorities. Dr. Freire received a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Virginia and completed post-graduate work in immunology and virology at the University of Virginia and the University of Tennessee, respectively.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): 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. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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