Five faculty members elected to National Academy of Medicine

Four professors at the School of Medicine and one at the School of Humanities and Sciences have been elected members of the National Academy of Medicine.

Christopher Garcia, PhD; Mark Krasnow, MD, PhD; Mark Musen, MD, PhD; Thomas Rando, MD, PhD; and Laura Carstensen, PhD, now number among the academy’s 1,947 members and 146 international members.

Garcia is a professor of molecular and cellular biology and of structural biology, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on understanding and manipulating interactions between receptors and ligands, particularly in the fields of immunology, stem cell biology and neurobiology.  

Krasnow is a professor of biochemistry, executive director of the Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease and an HHMI investigator. His research examines the development of lung tissue and the role of stem cells, the genetic origin of lung cancer and other lung diseases, and the neural circuits that control breathing and speech. 

Musen is a professor of medicine and of biomedical data science and director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research. He is principal investigator for the Stanford Center for Expanded Data Annotation and Retrieval, which aims to make online biomedical data sets more accessible and reusable. His research focuses on intelligent systems, ontology engineering and biomedical decision support. He is a creator of Protégé, an open-source framework for building intelligent systems. 

Rando is a professor of neurology and neurological sciences, director of the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging and deputy director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. At the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, he is chief of the neurology service and director of the Center for Tissue Regeneration, Repair and Restoration. His research focuses on the development of muscle tissue, the molecular control of muscle stem cell differentiation, the functionality of older muscle stem cells and the molecular basis of muscular dystrophy and potential therapies for it.

Carstensen is a professor psychology, the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Her research addresses changes in motivation and emotion across adulthood and the ways that these changes influence cognitive processing, decision making and health practices.

Established in 1970, the National Academy of Medicine, formerly called the Institute of Medicine, is recognized as a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on health issues. The academy’s almost 2,000 active members are selected on the basis of their professional accomplishments and volunteer service.