LEADERSHIP
David I. Scheer, (Creator and Event Chair) is President of Scheer & Company, Inc., a firm founded in 1981, with activities in venture capital, corporate strategy, and transactional advisory services focused on the life sciences. Mr. Scheer was involved in the founding and had been a member of the Boards of Directors of ViroPharma, Inc.(NASDAQ, “VPHM”), OraPharma, Inc. (acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2003), and Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (of which he was Chairman, acquired by Pfizer in 2004). His current board relationships include Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (of which he is Chairman, NASDAQ, “ACHN”), Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (of which he is Chairman), Tengion, Inc. (of which he is Chairman, OTC BB, “TNGN”) and Axerion Therapeutics, Inc. (of which he is Chairman), and Optherion, Inc. (of which he is Chairman), From 1991 through 1999, he was affiliated with the health care investing team at Oak Investment Partners. Mr. Scheer has also led or played a significant role in a series of transactions involving corporate alliances, licensing arrangements, divestments, acquisitions and mergers in the life sciences. He has served as a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Harvard Malaria Initiative. He has helped to launch, and served as Chair of the Executive Committee for “The Unfinished Agenda in Infectious Diseases”, an initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health focusing on the neglected diseases. He has also been a member of the Global Advisory Council for AIDS@30, an initiative at Harvard, and the Chair of the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Global Task Force for Expanding Cancer Care and Control in the Developing World, another Harvard-affiliated initiative. He also serves as an advisor to the Rett Syndrome Research Trust. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees, and Vice-Chair for the Long Wharf Theatre, in New Haven, CT. In 2007, he was awarded the Atlas Award for Venture Capital from the Connecticut Union for Research Excellence (CURE, of which he also serves as a member of the Board), and in 2009, he received the Venture Capital Leadership Award from the Connecticut Venture Group. He received his A.B. cum laude from Harvard College, and an M.S. from Yale University.
Gordon Edelstein (LWT Artistic Director) is in his eleventh season as Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Director. In addition to his work on the world premiere of Athol Fugard’s Have You Seen Us? starring Sam Waterston, Mr. Edelstein directed Long Wharf Theatre’s productions of Coming Home at Berkeley Rep and The Glass Menagerie starring Judith Ivey at Roundabout Theatre Company, which received six 2010 Lucille Lortel Award nominations, including Outstanding Director, and wins for Outstanding Revival and Outstanding Lead Actress. As a director, he has garnered three Connecticut Critics Circle Awards and during his tenure at Long Wharf Theatre, the theatre has produced world premieres by Paula Vogel, Athol Fugard, Craig Lucas, Julia Cho, Noah Haidle, Dael Orlandersmith, and Anna Deavere Smith. Over the course of his career, he has also directed and/or produced premieres by Philip Glass, Arthur Miller, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies, James Lapine, Charles Mee, Mac Wellman, and Martin McDonagh, among many others, and has directed an extremely diverse body of work from Sophocles to Pinter, and from Shakespeare to Beckett. Under his artistic leadership, Long Wharf Theatre has received 14 additional Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including six best actor or actress awards in plays that he directed. Mr. Edelstein received an Emmy-nomination for his direction of “Abby My Love” for CBS. Other television credits include “Street Smarts” (HBO) and “Notes For My Daughter” (CBS).
Click here to read Gordon Edelstein's remarks from past Global Health Events
Dr. Kelly Brownell (Event Co-Chair, 2013 OBESITY event) is the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology at Yale University, where he also serves as Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and as Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. In 2006 Time magazine listed Kelly Brownell among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” in its special Time 100 issue featuring those “.. whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.”
Dr. Brownell was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 2006 and has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, Graduate Mentoring Award from Yale, the James McKeen Cattell Award from the New York Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Purdue University, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Rutgers University, and the Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology from the American Psychological Association. He has served in a number of leadership roles at Yale including Master of Silliman College and Chair of the Department of Psychology.
He has published 15 books and more than 350 scientific articles and chapters. One book received the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Book from the American Library Association, and his paper on "Understanding and Preventing Relapse" published in the American Psychologist was listed as one of the most frequently cited papers in psychology.
Dr. Brownell served as President of several national organizations, including the Society of Behavioral Medicine, Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, and the Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association.
Dr. Brownell has advised the White House, members of congress, governors, world health and nutrition organizations, and media leaders on issues of nutrition, obesity, and public policy. He was cited as a “moral entrepreneur” with special influence on public discourse in a history of the obesity field and was cited by Time magazine as a leading “warrior” in the area of nutrition and public policy.
PAST CO-CHAIRS
John Krystal, MD (Co-Chair, 2012 MENTAL ILLNESS event), Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale Medical School as this year’s Co-Chair. Dr. Krystal is a leading expert in the areas of alcoholism, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorders. His work links psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, and molecular genetics to study the neurobiology and to develop novel treatments for these disorders. He serves on the National Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Advisory Council (NIAAA), the Department of Defense Psychological Health Advisory Committee, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and he is president-elect of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Thomas J. Lynch, Jr. MD, (Co-Chair, 2011CANCER event), the inaugural Richard Sackler and Jonathan Sackler Professor of Internal Medicine and Yale Cancer Center Director, is an expert on lung cancer. He also serves as the physician-in-chief of the new Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Lynch joined the Yale faculty in April 2009 after serving as professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of hematology/oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center. He also was director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers at MGH and director of medical oncology at the MGH Thoracic Oncology Center. A graduate of Yale College in 1982, he earned his M.D. degree from the Yale School of Medicine in 1986. He joined the medical staff at MGH in 1993. In 1996, he helped found the Boston-based Kenneth B. Schwartz Center for the Promotion of Caregiver/Patient Relations and became vice chair of its board of directors in 2006. Lynch has made contributions in developmental therapeutics and in defining the optimal treatment for patients with lung cancer. He pioneered the use of molecular testing for mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor gene to select patients who can benefit from targeted lung cancer therapies. At Yale he will also oversee a new institute for cancer biology at the University's West Campus, where scientists will investigate such areas as cell signaling, cancer immunology and drug development, and target acquisition. The Smilow Cancer Hospital, a collaborative venture between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale-New Haven Hospital, is also committed to research and care that allows patients to receive personalized cancer therapy using molecular profiling. The author of numerous publications, Lynch is also pursuing his own research on the causes and treatment of lung cancer.
Stephen Strittmatter (co-chair, 2010 event on ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE) is the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology and a Professor of Neurobiology at the Yale School of Medicine. His laboratory seeks to explain how axons are guided to the correct sites during development and to describe the extent to which axonal connectivity is fixed or malleable in the adult. His previous work has identified the myelin-derived inhibitory protein, Nogo, and an axonal Nogo-66 Receptor (NgR) as inhibitors of axonal regeneration after adult brain or spinal injury. The natural function of this system is to limit adult brain plasticity. He is developing blockers of this system using structural biology, mutagenesis, and high-throughput screening methods. Such antagonists are now shown to exhibit dramatic regenerative efficacy in the treatment of CNS injury, including spinal cord trauma and stroke. Beyond asonal development and repair, he has initiated studies of the role of axons in neuronal degeneration of Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Dr. Strittmatter received his B.A. at Harvard College and his M.D. and Ph.D at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.