U faculty members marked to join medical elite

Four of the University of Minnesota’s Medical School faculty were elected Monday to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors for medical researchers.

Karen Hsiao Ashe, M.D., Ph.D., Michelle Biros, M.D., M.S., Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., and Susan M. Wolf, J.D, make up four of this year’s 65 annual inductees.

Election to the institute is mostly honorary; however, the institute also stands as a preeminent resource in the field of independent medical research. The institute is a commonly utilized outlet of Congress, when medical research is a necessity.

On an institutional level, this year’s election boosts the University’s medical prestige.

“People look at institutions based on the number of prominent faculty members they have, and this is one of the ways of identifying who the prominent faculty members are,” said Exec Vice Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Medical School Mark Paller, M.D.

This year’s class joins eight other University members at the IOM, boosting the University’s presence in the 1,610 member institution.

“For some years there was too much of an emphasis on people from the coasts getting elected,” Paller said. “Members elect new members, you have to break into the voting cycle and I think we’ve done a good job of getting our faculty recognized and elected into the Institute of Medicine.”

Among those responsible for electing the four distinguished faculty is University Regents’ professor and current IOM member Ashley Haase.

“I looked and said ‘my gosh, there are four people from Minnesota this year, that’s terrific’,” Haase said. He also noted the significance of Minnesota’s 2009 class, saying, “I didn’t see large numbers of people from other distinct institutions.”

“I think this kind of success suggests that we are really making the right moves as a University to grow our stature and accomplishments,” said Susan M. Wolf, director of the University Joint Degree Program and an IOM honoree.