Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD
Chair
Betsy Nabel currently serves as Advisory Board Chair at OPKO HEALTH, and was the former Executive Vice President for Strategy at ModeX Therapeutics (now an OPKO HEALTH company), a leading developer of multispecific antibodies and vaccines to fight complex diseases. Prior to ModeX, Nabel served as President of Brigham Health and its Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2010 to 2021. From 2005 to 2009, she directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, where one of her signature advocacy efforts was the Red Dress Heart Truth campaign, which aims to raise awareness in women through unprecedented industry partnerships. An accomplished physician-scientist, Nabel’s work on the molecular genetics of cardiovascular diseases produced 17 patents, over 250 scientific publications and two start-up companies. Her honors include the Distinguished Bostonian Award, the Kober Medal from the Association of American Physicians, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the American Heart Association, and eleven honorary doctorates, among others. She is a member of the American Academy of the Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. Nabel serves on the boards of Medtronic, Moderna, Lyell Immunopharma, Accolade, and South Florida PBS. She joined the Board of the Lasker Foundation in 2020 and became Chair of its Board in 2024.
Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA
President
Claire Pomeroy is president and CEO of the Foundation since 2013. She received her medical degree from the University of Michigan and completed her residency (internal medicine) and fellowship (infectious disease) at the University of Minnesota. She earned an MBA from the University of Kentucky. She serves on the boards of Research!America; Morehouse SOM; Science Philanthropy Alliance; Science Communication Lab; Center for Women in Academic Medicine and Science; Sierra Health Foundation; Haemonetics; and Embecta Corporation. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and received honorary degrees from University of Massachusetts SOM (2016) and the University of South Florida Morsani SOM (2022). Previous positions include chief of infectious diseases and associate dean for research at the University of Kentucky. She was vice-chancellor and dean of the University of California, Davis SOM from 2005 to 2013.
Christopher W. Brody
Chris Brody is Chair of Vantage Partners, LLC, a private investment partnership. From 1972 to 1998, Brody was a partner of Warburg, Pincus, and, for over 15 years, served as a member of its Operating Committee which managed the private equity and venture capital activities of the firm. Brody has served on the boards of numerous not-for-profits, advisory boards, and corporations, and is currently a board member of the Safe Water Network, and Hypres Inc., Director Emeritus of Intuit, Inc., and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Brody has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 1975.
Anthony B. Evnin, PhD
Past Chair
Tony Evnin joined Venrock in 1974 and built the firm’s healthcare franchise, helping to shape the modern biotechnology industry until his retirement in 2021. He serves as a member of the Boards of Overseers and Managers of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; as a Trustee Emeritus of The Rockefeller University, Princeton University, and The Jackson Laboratory; and as a director of the New York Genome Center. Evnin received his AB in Chemistry from Princeton University and his PhD in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2013, and served as Chair of its Board from 2018-2024.
Marshall W. Fordyce, MD
Secretary & Treasurer
Marshall Fordyce is the founder, president, and CEO of Vera Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing transformative treatments for patients with serious immunological diseases. He has over 15 years of experience leading teams in clinical translation, development, and commercialization of new treatments. Earlier in his career, Fordyce served as Gilead’s senior director of clinical research where he contributed to seven new drug approvals and served as project lead for Gilead’s tenofovir alafenamide development program that led to five antiviral products now part of the standard of care. He received his Bachelor’s degree and MD from Harvard University and completed training in Internal Medicine at New York University/Bellevue Hospital, where he served as Senior Chief Resident. His subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital focused on acute HIV infection and novel therapeutics. Fordyce serves as Medical Director and volunteer physician of the RotaCare Coastside Free Clinic in Half Moon Bay, California. He is a grand-nephew of Mary Lasker and became a member of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 2012.
Joseph L. Goldstein, MD
Joseph L. Goldstein is currently Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the Regental Professor at the University of Texas. Goldstein and his colleague, Michael S. Brown, discovered the low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and worked out how these receptors control cholesterol homeostasis. Goldstein and Brown shared many awards for this work, including the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research (1985), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1985), National Medal of Science (1988), and Albany Center Prize in Biomedical Science (2003). Goldstein is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Rockefeller University, and the Board of Directors of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Goldstein has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2007, and Chair of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury since 1996.
Jordan U. Gutterman, MD
Jordan U. Gutterman is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston Texas, where he has done clinical and laboratory cancer research since 1971. Gutterman received his BA from the University of Virginia and his MD from the Medical College of Virginia. He did his post-medical school training in medicine and hematology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Gutterman served as a member of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury between 1978 and 1989 and has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1983.
Margaret A. Hamburg, MD
Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. She is co-president of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), an international consortium of national academies of science, medicine and engineering. She also serves as vice-chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and on the Foreign Affairs Advisory Board to the Secretary of State. Prior to this Hamburg was the foreign secretary for the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the president/chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Before joining the FDA, Hamburg was founding vice president and senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing nuclear, chemical, and biological threats. Previous government positions include assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, health commissioner for New York City, and assistant director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Hamburg is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American College of Physicians, and an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. She sits on numerous boards, including the Commonwealth Fund (chair), the Nature Conservancy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Lasker Foundation, The Broad Institute, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, The Council on Foreign Relations, Resolve to Save Lives (chair), and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Hamburg graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, and completed her medical residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center. She is the recipient of multiple honorary degrees and numerous awards. Hamburg has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2020.
William H. Hammond
Bill Hammond retired as Vice President, Investment Management (Chief Investment Officer) at AT&T after 39 years. At the peak, he and his team managed more than $100 billion of employee benefit plan assets. Before working at AT&T, Hammond held managerial positions at Mobil Oil Corporation (now ExxonMobil) and the systems consulting division of Arthur Anderson & Co. (now Accenture). Hammond graduated from Princeton University, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. He received his MBA in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Hammond serves on the boards for the Turrell Fund, the Continuo Arts Foundation, and the Princeton Nassoons Alumni Association. He became a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation in 2020.
Katalin Karikó, PhD
Katalin Karikó is a professor at the University of Szeged and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2013 to 2022 she was a senior vice president at BioNTech. Prior to BioNTech, she worked for 24 years at the University of Pennsylvania. For decades, her research has been focusing on RNA-mediated mechanisms with the goal of developing in vitro-transcribed mRNA for therapy. She co-founded and served as CEO of RNARx. Her patents on nucleoside-modified uridines in mRNA were used to create the FDA-approved Covid-19 mRNA vaccines by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. For her achievement Karikó received 18 honorary doctorate degrees and many prestigious awards, including the Japan Prize, the Horwitz Prize, the Tang Prize, the Canada Gairdner Award, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the Breakthrough Prize, the Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Karikó became a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation in 2024.
Mary-Claire King, PhD
Mary-Claire King is American Cancer Society Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was the first to show that breast cancer is inherited in some families, as the result of mutations in the gene that she discovered and named BRCA1. Her other research interests include the genetic bases of severe mental illness, the genetic causes of birth disorders in children, and human genetic diversity and evolution. She pioneered the use of DNA sequencing for human rights investigations, applying mitochondrial DNA sequencing to the identification of kidnapped children in Argentina and subsequently to cases of human rights violations on six continents. King grew up in Chicago. She received her BA cum laude in Mathematics from Carleton College in Minnesota, her PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley, and her postdoctoral training at UC San Francisco. Her PhD dissertation was the demonstration that protein-coding sequences of humans and chimpanzees are 99% identical. She was professor at UC Berkeley from 1976-1995 and at UW since 1995. King has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and as a foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences. She was president of the American Society of Human Genetics (2012) and is presently a member of the Science Council of the Director General of WHO. Among her awards are the Lasker Foundation Special Achievement Award in Medical Science (2014) and the U.S. National Medal of Science (2016). King became a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation in 2024.
Sherry Lansing
During almost 30 years in the motion picture business, Sherry Lansing was involved in the production, marketing, and distribution of more than 200 films, including Academy Award winners Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Titanic. In 1980, she became the first woman to head a major film studio, when she was appointed President of 20th Century Fox. She was Chair and CEO of Paramount Pictures from 1992 to 2005. The Sherry Lansing Foundation, devoted to cancer research, public education, and encore career opportunities, was formed in 2005. Lansing is also a co-founder of the Stand Up To Cancer initiative and the EnCorps STEM Teachers Program. In addition, she serves on the boards of the Broad Museum, the Carter Center, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the WM Keck Foundation, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and Scripps Research. She previously served on the University of California Board of Regents from 1999 to 2002 and chaired the UC Health Services Committee for a decade. She graduated cum laude with a BS degree from Northwestern University in 1966. Lansing has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2013.
E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA
E. Albert Reece is the Former Dean of Medicine and the University of Maryland Executive Vice President; currently the Distinguished University and Endowed Professor, and Director of the Center for Advanced Research Training and Innovation (CARTI). He is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and served on its Governing Council, Executive Committee and as a visiting Scholar-in-Residence. He received his medical education from New York University (MD); Columbia University Medical Center (Internship and Residency, OB/Gyn); Yale University (Fellowship, Maternal-Fetal Medicine); the University of the West Indies, Jamaica (PhD, Biochemistry), and Temple University’s Fox School of Business & Management (MBA). Reece oversees an NIH-funded laboratory that studies the bio-molecular causes and consequences of diabetes-induced birth defects and made a number of discoveries for which he and his colleagues hold many patents. He has published extensively in the scientific literature – 12 books and more than 500 scientific publications. Reece has received numerous special awards and honorary degrees in recognition for his distinguished leadership and contributions to science and medicine. He joined the Board of the Lasker Foundation in 2021.
Russell Steenberg
Russell Steenberg was Managing Director and Chairman of BlackRock Private Equity Partners (PEP), within BlackRock Equity Private Markets (EPM) in 2023 and previously Global Co-Head of BlackRock Private Equity Partners from 1999 – 2022. Steenberg was a member of BlackRock’s Global Operating Committee, EPM Executive Committee, BlackRock’s Alternative Solutions Investment Committee and BlackRock Investment Council. Steenberg founded PEP in 1999 when he joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), which merged with BlackRock in 2006. Steenberg has over 40 years of private equity investment experience. Prior to joining MLIM, Steenberg was a Co-Founder and a Managing Director of Fenway Partners, a middle-market buyout group. From 1983 until joining Fenway in 1995, Steenberg was employed by AT&T Investment Management Corporation (“ATTIMCO”), where he was co-head of the AT&T Pension Fund’s private equity investment portfolio. Steenberg has and currently serves on many private equity fund advisory boards. In addition, he serves on the Board of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation and a member of the Lasker Investment Committee. Steenberg earned a BA from St. Lawrence University, an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and an MPA from American University. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2010.
Elias A. Zerhouni, MD
Elias Zerhouni is Professor Emeritus Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University. Zerhouni was most recently the President, Global Research & Development, and a member of the Executive Committee for Sanofi from 2011 to 2018. He was appointed Director of the National Institutes of Health from 2002 to 2008. In November 2009, President Obama appointed Zerhouni as one of the first presidential U.S. science envoys. He also served as senior fellow to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2009 to 2010. He has assumed positions on several Boards, including most recently Research!America and the NIH Foundation. He is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He received the prestigious Legion of Honor medal from the French National Order in 2008, and was elected in 2010 as a member of the French Academy of Medicine and appointed as Chair of Innovation at the College de France in 2010. Zerhouni has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Lasker Foundation since 2009.
Directors Emeriti:
Barbara Barrett
Mrs. William McCormick Blair, Jr.
W. Michael Brown
Christopher Jones
George P. Noon, MD
Willard J. Overlock, Jr.
George A. Roche
Solomon H. Snyder, MD
Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS
Robert T. Tjian, PhD
Chair Emeritus:
James W. Fordyce
Directors Emeriti (in memoriam):
Purnell W. Choppin, MD
Michael E. DeBakey, MD
Anne B. Fordyce
Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., PhD Read interviews with Daniel Koshland: 1998/1999 and 2012
