The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...

, along with the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Research Council (NRC). The National Academy of Medicine provides national and international advice on issues relating to health, medicine, health policy, and biomedical science. It aims to provide unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large. Operating outside the framework of the U.S. federal government, it relies on a volunteer workforce of scientists and other experts, operating under a formal peer-review system. As a national academy, the organization annually elects new members with the help of its current members; the election is based on the members' distinguished and continuing achievements in a relevant field as well as for their willingness to participate actively.

History

The institute was founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the

as the Institute of Medicine. On April 28, 2015, NAS membership voted in favor of reconstituting the membership of the IOM as a new National Academy of Medicine and establishing a new division on health and medicine within the NRC that has the program activities of the IOM at its core. These changes took effect on July 1, 2015.

Overview

The National Academies attempt to obtain authoritative, objective, and scientifically balanced answers to difficult questions of national importance. The work is conducted by committees of volunteer scientists—leading national and international experts—who serve without compensation. Committees are chosen to assure the requisite expertise and avoid bias or conflict of interest. Every report produced by committee undergoes extensive review and evaluation by a group of external experts who are anonymous to the committee, and whose names are revealed only once the study is published.

Victor Dzau Victor Joseph Dzau (; born 23 October 1945) is a Chinese-American doctor and academic. He serves as the President of the United States National Academy of Medicine (formerly the ''Institute of Medicine'') of the United States National Academy of ...

is President and Chairman of the Council. His six-year term began on July 1, 2014. The Leonard D. Schaeffer Executive Officer is

J. Michael McGinnis James Michael McGinnis (born 12 July 1944) is a US physician, epidemiologist, and long-time contributor to national and international health programs and policy, including continuous policy responsibilities for leadership in disease prevention an ...

. The majority of studies and other activities are requested and funded by the federal government. Private industry, foundations, and state and local governments also initiate studies, as does the academy itself. Reports are made available online for free by the publishing arm of the United States National Academies, the

National Academies Press The US National Academies Press (NAP) was created to publish the reports issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research C ...

, in multiple formats. The academy is both an honorific membership organization and a policy research organization. Its members, elected on the basis of their professional achievement and commitment to service, serve without compensation in the conduct of studies and other activities on matters of significance to health. Election to active membership is both an honor and a commitment to serve in Institute affairs. The bylaws specify that no more than 80 new members shall be elected annually, including 10 from outside the United States. The announcement of newly elected members occurs at the Annual Meeting in October. As of October 20, 2015, the number of regular members plus international and emeritus members is 2,012. An unusual diversity of talent among NAM members is assured by the charter stipulation that at least one-quarter be selected from outside the health professions, from such fields as the natural, social, and behavioral sciences, as well as law, administration, engineering, and the humanities. '' The New York Times'' called the NAM (then called the IOM) the United States' "most esteemed and authoritative adviser on issues of health and medicine, and its reports can transform medical thinking around the world."

Awards

The Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health (Sarnat Prize) was established in 1992 and is awarded annually by the Academy to recognize individuals, groups, or organizations for outstanding achievement in improving mental health. It is accompanied by a medal and $20,000.

Notable members, past and present

* Harold Amos, microbiologist and professor * Nancy Andrews, Dean of

Duke University School of Medicine The Duke University School of Medicine, commonly known as Duke Med, is the medical school of Duke University. It is located in the Collegiate Gothic-style West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The School of Medicine, along wit ...

* Andrea Baccarelli, Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University and President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology. * Elizabeth Blackburn, biologist and winner of 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for co-discovery of telomerase * Patricia Flatley Brennan, Director of the National Library of Medicine *

Emery N. Brown Emery Neal Brown (born 1957) is an American statistician, neuroscientist, and anesthesiologist. He is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a practicing anesthesio ...

, statistician, neuroscientist, and anesthesiologist, Director of the Harvard–MIT Program of Health Sciences and Technology * Atul Butte, pediatrician and scientist at the University of California, San Francisco * Robert Califf, cardiologist,

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food s ...

Deputy Commissioner * Ben Carson, columnist and retired American neurosurgeon, former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital * Anthony Cerami, pioneering medical researcher *

Dennis S. Charney Dennis S. Charney is an American biological psychiatrist and researcher, with expertise in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. He is the author of ''Neurobiology of Mental Illness'', ''The Physician's Guide to Depress ...

, dean of the

Mount Sinai School of Medicine The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eigh ...

in New York City *

Sarah Cleaveland Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon and Professor of Comparative Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow. Education Cleaveland obtained a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (VetMB) degree from the University of Cambridge in 1988 followed ...

, veterinary epidemiologist * Jewel Plummer Cobb, cell biologist and President of California State University, Fullerton, 1981–90 * Francis Collins, geneticist, leader in the

Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a ...

and Director of National Institutes of Health * Jim Collins, synthetic biology pioneer and MacArthur genius * Toby Cosgrove, cardiothoracic surgeon, inventor, and CEO, Cleveland Clinic * Mark Daly, statistician and human geneticist, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School *

Kenneth L. Davis Kenneth L. Davis is chief executive officer of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, an American author and medical researcher who developed the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale, the most widely used tool to test the efficacy of tre ...

, author, medical researcher and CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center *

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...

Lienhard Award for Decades of Work Improving Public Health and Leadership in Shaping COVID-19 Pandemic Response * Stanton A. Glantz, Professor of Medicine (UCSF) and prominent tobacco control researcher and activist *

Shimon Glick Shimon M. Glick ( he, שמעון גליק; born 1932) is an American-born Israeli physician. Personal life Glick was born in New Jersey. Married to Brenda, his six children include the rabbi and former member of Knesset Yehuda Glick. Additional ...

Ben Gurion University Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...

, endocrinology, internal medicine, medical education and medical ethics *

Farshid Guilak Farshid Guilak is an American engineer and orthopedic researcher. He is the Mildred B. Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis and director of research at Shriners Hospitals for Children. He is also on the fac ...

, Biomedical engineering and orthopaedic researcher, Shriners Hospitals for Children and Washington University in St. Louis *

Margaret Hamburg Margaret Ann "Peggy" Hamburg (born July 12, 1955, Chicago, Illinois) is an American physician and public health administrator, who is serving as the chair of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and co-chair ...

, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration * Maurice Hilleman, microbiologist *

Anna Huttenlocher Anna Huttenlocher is an American rheumatologist and physician-scientist known for her work in cell migration and wound healing. Early life and education Huttenlocher was born to two academic parents; her father, Peter, was a pediatric neurologis ...

, a rheumatologist and cell biologist *

David Ho David Da-i Ho (; born November 3, 1952) is a Taiwanese-American AIDS researcher, physician, and virologist who has made a number of scientific contributions to the understanding and treatment of HIV infection. He is the founding scientific d ...

, a pioneer in the use of protease inhibitors in treating HIV-infected patients *

Leroy Hood Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood (born October 10, 1938) is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Washington. Hood has developed ground-breaking scientific instrum ...

, winner of the 2003 Lemelson–MIT Prize *

Arthur Kellermann Arthur L. Kellermann (born 1954) is an American physician, epidemiologist, professor of emergency medicine at VCU School of Medicine, and CEO of the VCU Health System. He was formerly professor and dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine ...

, professor and founding chairman of the department of Emergency Medicine at Emory University * Herbert Kleber, professor of psychiatry, Yale University *

Philip J. Landrigan Philip John Landrigan (born June 14, 1942), is an American epidemiologist and pediatrician and one of the world's leading advocates of children's health. His work has been recognized by national non-profit organization Healthy Child Healthy Wor ...

, pediatrician and children's environmental health advocate *

Jeffrey Lieberman Jeffrey Alan Lieberman (born 1948) is an American psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia and related psychoses and their associated neuroscience (biology) and pharmacological treatment (psychiatric drugs). He was principal investigator fo ...

, chair of psychiatry, Columbia University; president, American Psychiatric Association *

Rudolph Leibel Rudolph Leibel (born 1942) is the Christopher J. Murphy Professor of Diabetes Research, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, and Director of the Division of Molecular Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics ...

, MD, professor at Columbia University and discoverer of

leptin Leptin (from Ancient Greek, Greek λεπτός ''leptos'', "thin" or "light" or "small") is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells and enterocytes in the small intestine that helps to regulate Energy homeostasis, energy balance by inhib ...

and leptin receptor *

Alice H. Lichtenstein Alice Hinda Lichtenstein is an American professor and researcher in nutrition and heart disease. In 2006, ''Shape'' magazine named Lichtenstein one of ten "Women Who Shaped the World". In 2019, Tamar Haspel called her a "grande dame of nutrition ...

, senior scientist and director of Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, professor at Tufts University * Susan Lindquist, a molecular biologist and former Director of the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

Howard Markel Howard Markel (born April 23, 1960) is an American physician and medical historian. Markel is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and Director of the University of Michigan's Center ...

, George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan * Jonna Mazet, professor of epidemiology at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and executive director of the One Health Institute *

Maclyn McCarty Maclyn McCarty (June 9, 1911 – January 2, 2005) was an American geneticist, a research scientist described in 2005 as "the last surviving member of a Manhattan scientific team that overturned medical dogma in the 1940's and became the first to ...

, youngest member of the research team responsible for the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment *

Sherilyn S. McCoy Sherilyn S. McCoy (born 1959) is an American scientist and business executive. She is the former CEO of Avon Products and former vice chairman and member of the office of the chairman of Johnson & Johnson, where she was responsible for the phar ...

, CEO of

Avon Products Avon Products, Inc. or simply known as Avon, is an American-British multinational cosmetics, skin care, fragrance and personal care company, based in London. It sells directly to the public. Avon had annual sales of $9.1 billion worldwide in 2 ...

and former Vice Chairman of

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

* Ruslan Medzhitov, professor of

immunobiology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...

at Yale University, co-discoverer of human

Toll-like receptors Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a class of proteins that play a key role in the innate immune system. They are single-pass membrane-spanning receptors usually expressed on sentinel cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells, that recognize st ...

(TLRs) *

David O. Meltzer David Owen Meltzer (born 1964) is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He holds faculty appointments in the Department of Medicine, Department of Economics and the Harris School of Public Policy Studies. He is Chief of the Section ...

, Professor of Medicine and health economist at University of Chicago *

Mario J. Molina Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (19 March 19437 October 2020), known as Mario Molina, was a Mexican chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemis ...

, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovery of impact of

CFCs Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F), produced as volatile derivatives of methane, ethane, and propan ...

ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rela ...

Sean J. Morrison Sean J. Morrison is a Canadian-American stem cell biologist and cancer researcher. Morrison is the director of Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern, a nonprofit research institute established in 2011 as a joint venture ...

, stem cell biologist and director of the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center *

Herbert Needleman Herbert Leroy Needleman (December 13, 1927 – July 18, 2017) researched the neurodevelopmental damage caused by lead poisoning. He was a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, an elected me ...

, pediatrician and psychiatrist *

Carl F. Nathan Carl F. Nathan is the chair of the department of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine and dean of the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences at Cornell University. Some of his most notable work has been in the characterization o ...

, Professor of Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at Weill Cornell Medicine * Peter R. Orszag, 37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama *

Nicholas A. Peppas Nicholas (Nikolaos) A. Peppas ( gr, Νικόλαος Α. Πέππας; born August 25, 1948 in Athens, Greece) is a Chemical engineering, chemical and Biomedical engineering, biomedical engineer whose leadership in biomaterial, biomaterials science ...

, pioneer of biomaterials and drug delivery *

Megan Ranney Megan L. Ranney is a practicing American emergency physician currently serving as the Warren Alpert Endowed Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital and the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Ranney is t ...

, emergency physician, deputy dean of the

Brown University School of Public Health The Brown University School of Public Health is the public health school of Brown University, a private research university in Rhode Island. It is located along the Providence River, down the hill and about a quarter mile from Brown's central ...

, public health leader and communicator *

Frederick Redlich Frederick Carl Redlich ("Fritz") (June 2, 1910 – January 1, 2004) was a psychiatrist and academic administrator. He was dean of the Yale School of Medicine from 1967 to 1972. Personal life Redlich was born in Vienna, the son of Ludwig Johann a ...

, dean of the Yale School of Medicine from 1967 to 1972 * James Rothman, winner of the 2002

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is one of the prizes awarded by the Lasker Foundation for a fundamental discovery that opens up a new area of biomedical science. The award frequently precedes a Nobel Prize in Medicine; almost 5 ...

Charles Rotimi Charles Nohuoma Rotimi (born 1957) is the Director of the Trans-National Institutes of Health (NIH) center for research in genomics and global health. He works to ensure that population genetics include genomes from African populations and founde ...

, epidemiologist and Chief & Senior Investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute * Jeffrey Sachs, economist and director of

The Earth Institute {{Infobox organization , name = The Earth Institute , image = Ei blue1.gif , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption = , map2 = , type = , tax_id ...

at Columbia University *

David A. Savitz David A. Savitz is a professor of Community Health in the Epidemiology Section of the Program in Public Health, Vice President for Research, and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at The Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Associa ...

, director of the Disease Prevention and Public Health Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center * Richard A. Smith, physician *

Shirley M. Tilghman Shirley Marie Tilghman, (; née Caldwell; born 17 September 1946) is a Canadian scholar in molecular biology and an academic administrator. She is now a professor of molecular biology and public policy and president emerita of Princeton Univers ...

, former president of Princeton University * Abraham Verghese, novelist and recipient of the National Humanities Medal *

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield (born August 12, 1954) is an American nurse and health care administrator, who served in the Obama administration as acting United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2015 to 2017, and as head of the Health ...

, appointed administrator of the

Health Resources and Services Administration The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services located in North Bethesda, Maryland. It is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for peop ...

(HRSA) by President Barack Obama in February 2009 *

Douglas C. Wallace Douglas Cecil Wallace (born November 6, 1946) is a geneticist and evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. He pioneered the use of human mitochondr ...

, geneticist and pioneer of human mitochondrial genetics *

Lawrence Weed Lawrence Leonard Weed (December 26, 1923 – June 3, 2017) was an American physician, researcher, educator, entrepreneur and author, who is best known for creating the problem-oriented medical record as well as one of the first electronic he ...

, creator of the problem-oriented

medical record The terms medical record, health record and medical chart are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the systematic documentation of a single patient's medical history and care across time within one particular health care provider's jurisdic ...

Sheldon Weinbaum Sheldon Weinbaum: (born July 26, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York, United States) is an American biomedical engineer and biofluid mechanician. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering at The City College of N ...

, biomedical engineer,

biofluid Body fluids, bodily fluids, or biofluids, sometimes body liquids, are liquids within the human body. In lean healthy adult men, the total body water is about 60% (60–67%) of the total body weight; it is usually slightly lower in women (52-55%). ...

mechanician and Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

Kern Wildenthal Kern Wildenthal is an American academic and president of the Children's Medical Center Foundation in Dallas, Texas. He also holds honorary appointments as President Emeritus and Professor of Medicine Emeritus at University of Texas Southwestern Me ...

, former president of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School * William Julius Wilson, sociologist * Elias Zerhouni, former executive vice-dean of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the National Institutes of Health under

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

References

External links