Dr. Carl Nathan, a member of the Rita Allen Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee and a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, has been elected to the National Academy of the Sciences.
Currently the Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Nathan is a world-renowned scientist who studies global infectious diseases.
He is also director of the Abby and Howard P. Milstein Program in Chemical Biology, professor of medicine, and the R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology at Weill Cornell.
Dr. Nathan is an expert in antibacterial infection defense. His research has shown that defense cells in the immune system attack body-penetrating bacteria with various chemicals, including nitric oxide, and he has clarified how tuberculosis bacteria escape this bombardment.
A graduate of Harvard and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Nathan has received numerous awards and recognitions in addition to his election to the National Academy of Sciences.
He is a Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology; Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar; Scholar of the Leukemia Society of America; and a Research Career Award recipient of the Irma T. Hirshl Trust. Dr. Nathan was awarded the Robert Koch Prize, Robert-Koch Stiftung, in 2009 for "groundbreaking work which led to the elucidation (clarification) of mechanisms underlying antibacterial host defense notably against tuberculosis."
Dr. Nathan has been honored with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the genetic mechanism by which tuberculosis emerges from its latent state into an infectious and symptomatic disease.
Dr. Nathan and the other members of the National Academy of the Sciences serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine."
Based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, new members of the Academy are elected annually by current members. Election is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.
Currently, there are eleven living Rita Allen Foundation Scholars, including Dr. Nathan, and one other member of our Scientific Advisory Committee who serve the National Academy of the Sciences.