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Elias Zerhouni

Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. (b. 12 April 1951) is the 15th and current director of the National Institutes of Health, appointed by George W. Bush in May 2002. His accomplishments at the NIH have included the establishment of a research program into the problem of widespread obesity, and supporting the reduction of healthcare disparities. In April 2006, he told a Congressional subcommittee, "We can now clearly envision an era when the treatment paradigm of medicine will increasingly become more predictive, personalized and preemptive. We will strike disease before it strikes us with the hope of greatly reducing overall costs to society."

Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Zerhouni served as executive vice-dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, chair of the Russell H. Morgan department of radiology and radiological science, and Martin Donner professor of radiology, and professor of biomedical engineering. Before that, he was vice dean for research at Johns Hopkins.

A resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Zerhouni is actually North African, having been born in Nedroma, a small mountain village on the western border of Algeria. He came to the United States at age 24, having earned his medical degree at the University of Algiers School of Medicine in 1975. After completing his residency in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins in 1978 as chief resident, he served as assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1985. Between 1981 and 1985, he was in the department of radiology at Eastern Virginia Medical School and its affiliated DePaul Hospital. In 1988, Dr. Zerhouni returned to Johns Hopkins where he was appointed director of the MRI division, and then was appointed full professor in 1992, becoming the chairman of the radiology department in January 1996.

In 1985, he was a consultant to the White House under President Ronald Reagan. In 1988, he was a consultant to the World Health Organization. Since 2000, he has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. He had served on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors from 1998-2002.

He has won several awards for his research including a Gold Medal from the American Roentgen Ray Society for CT research and two Paul Lauterbur Awards for MRI research. His research in imaging led to advances in Computed tomography (CAT scanning) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that resulted in 157 peer reviewed publications and 8 patents.

Dr. Zerhouni received the honorary title Doctor Emeritus from the University of Algiers in 2005.

• Official biography from the NIH