The International Biomedical Research Alliance announced that Shamit Grover is joining its board of directors. Shamit Grover is the Managing Director of the Private Capital Group at MSD Partners.
Originally from India, Mr. Grover moved to the United States in 2001. After graduating from Harvey Mudd College with a B.S in Engineering and a double major in Economics at Claremont McKenna College, Mr. Grover decided to pursue a career in finance. He started his career at Merrill Lynch, working in Mergers & Acquisitions investment banking and then in the Global Private Equity group. During this time, he helped the financial services private equity team evaluate buying IndyMac from the US government and was part of the team that put together a group of investors to consummate the transaction. Following this transaction, one of the key investors, MSD Capital, asked him to join their private capital effort.
Since joining MSD in May 2009, Mr. Grover has been directly involved with a number of the group’s investments. He serves on the Board of Directors of WCG Clinical, the country’s leading Clinical Services Organization facilitating safe and effective clinical research. He is, or has been involved with OneWest Bank, BrightView, EverBank, Kobalt Music Group, Transaction Network Services, Owl Rock, and UFC. His efforts have included identifying investment opportunities in business and tech-enabled services, media & entertainment and vertical market software. Outside of work, Mr. Grover also engages in non-profit efforts such as serving on the board of trustees at his alma mater, Harvey Mudd College.
“Mr. Grover’s exceptional leadership in finance and his background in engineering position him to make substantial intellectual contributions to the Alliance board,” remarked Stephen McLean, Chairman of the Alliance board of directors. “His curiosity in research and his passion for education will allow him to connect with the scholars of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program on a new and deep level.”
“Becoming an Alliance board member, I look forward to mentoring the next generation of biomedical researchers and physicians in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program” stated Mr. Grover. “My devotion to the students at Harvey Mudd College has provided me with the desire to continue to mentor students, providing them with resources and skillsets to become leaders.”
Alumnus Reid Alderson has been busy since he graduated from the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program this past fall. Reid moved to Zagreb, Croatia, to partake in a beginner’s Croatian language course during the 2018-2019 fall semester at the University of Zagreb. He was granted a scholarship to participate in this course from the Republic of Croatia’s Central State Office for Croats Abroad. This was a unique opportunity for Reid, who was eligible for this scholarship because of his Croatian wife, Iva, who is also a postdoctoral researcher and graduate of Oxford and Zagreb. The scholarship allowed Reid to live and study in Zagreb while also getting the opportunity to spend time with Iva’s family and friends. “It was wonderful to have a few months where I could decouple from thinking about science every day, and instead focus my time on other aspects of personal development. It was refreshing and a fun challenge. Now I am an A2/B1-level speaker of Croatian,” stated Reid. He now has a foundation in the language and will continue learning on his own — of course with Iva’s help!
Reid on a visit to the Croatian island Hvar, overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
During this time, Reid was also putting final touches on his Nature Communications paper, which was published on March 6, 2019. This paper, Local unfolding of the HSP27 monomer regulates chaperoneactivity, employed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to characterize the three-dimensional structure of the molecular chaperone HSP27, which is an abundant protein in humans that is highly expressed in many forms of cancer. He found that the function of HSP27 is regulated by a disulfide bond and determined the structural basis for this regulation. A related study on the phosphorylation of HSP27 was recently accepted for publication in Science Advances with Reid as second-author (Phosphorylation of Hsp27 regulates its intramolecular dynamics and mechanosensitive molecular chaperone interaction with filamin C). Both journals are entirely open-access, which means the articles are freely available to everyone, and both articles were initially deposited in the bioRxiv (“bio-archive”), a recently established repository where articles can be freely shared with the scientific community, both before and after peer-review. The bioRxiv has drastically altered the publishing landscape in the life sciences, causing split opinions on the topic. “I strongly support the bioRxiv because it allows everyone the same level of access, accelerates both the generation and distribution of scientific knowledge, and provides an opportunity for real-time feedback from colleagues and the community at large,” said Reid.His most recent bioRxiv preprint is an NMR project that was led by Iva. In total, Reid has now contributed to 15 publications, from which he was the first-author of eight.
If you thought these achievements have been incredible, Reid continues to impress and surpass all expectations. In January 2019, Reid moved to Toronto to become a postdoctoral researcher with Lewis Kay, and Reid has just been awarded the prestigious Banting Fellowship, which is named in honor of the 1923 Nobel laureate Frederick H. Banting, a professor at the University of Toronto who co-discovered insulin. The Banting Fellowship was awarded to 23 postdocs across Canada who were selected from a pool of 204 applicants that had been nominated by their host universities. Reid’s research proposal, which was ranked #11 overall, focuses on understanding the molecular basis of apoptosis, a means of programmed cell death, and its dysregulation in diseases such as cancer. He will receive funding for the next two years. “I am grateful to the training and guidance that I received during my PhD from my mentors at the NIH and Oxford, and also earlier during my undergraduate training at UW-Madison. Thanks to the initiative and support of the NIH-OxCam program, I was able to develop research skills in world-leading institutions.” Reid also notes the serendipity of his current position, “My postdoctoral supervisor Lewis completed his own postdoctoral training with my NIH PhD supervisor Ad Bax and later trained my Oxford PhD supervisor Andy Baldwin. So, in a way, everything has come full circle now!”
We continue to be amazed by the work of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars and look forward to the future of Dr. Alderson’s career.
Mr. David Rubenstein explores successful leadership in an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci for the March 12, 2019 Lasker Lessons in Leadership. Dr. Fauci is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the 2007 Lasker Public Service laureate. He was interviewed on a range of global health and research topics by David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of the Carlyle Group. The interview was followed by a Q&A discussion.
Present in the audience were NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars and Alumni, Wellcome Trust Scholars, Medical Research Scholars, Lasker Clinical Research Scholars, NIH Faculty, Lasker Foundation Staff, and International Biomedical Research Alliance Board Members and Staff.
Dr. Michael Chen, a graduate of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, was recently named as the RNA Society/Scaringe Graduate Student Award recipient for 2019. The RNA Society/Scaringe Awards were established to recognize the achievement of young scientists engaged in RNA research and to encourage them to pursue a career in the field of RNA. They are open to junior scientists, graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, from all regions of the world who have made a significant contribution to the broad area of RNA.
While in the NIH OxCam program he conducted his research in the laboratory of Professor Shankar Balasubramanian at the University of Cambridge, UK, and with Adrian R. Ferré-D’Amaré in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the NIH. Michael’s work in these two labs revolved around investigating how the essential helicase protein, DHX36, recognizes G-quadruplex nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) with extraordinarily high affinity, and how it destabilizes these thermodynamically stable structures. He succeeded in providing a detailed biochemical analysis of this interaction, and ultimately the atomic structure of this complex. Michael received a NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholarship and a Cambridge International Scholarship in 2012, as well as the International Biomedical Research Alliance’s Gregory Paul Lenardo Basic Science Award for Discoveries in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2016. He has been a member of the RNA Society since 2014. Dr. Chen is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Nuclera Nucleics based in Cambridge, UK.
This is not the first instance in which a graduate of the NIH OxCam Program has been recognized with these prestigious awards. Dr. Katie Deigan-Warner was the 2014 recipient of the Alliance’s Gregory Paul Lenardo Basic Science Award and the 2014 RNA Society/Scaringe Graduate Student Award. Dr. Warner is the Founder and Senior Director of Research at Ribometrix located in Durham, North Carolina.
The University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine has announced the winners of the annual graduate prizes, naming two NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars, Jyothi Purushotham and Reid Alderson. Winners are chosen on the basis of their research impact and output.
Jyothi Purushotham, a 2017 NIH-Oxford scholar, has been awarded the Outstanding Work Outside of Degree Prize for her work as co-founder and inaugural president of People Oriented Development (POD), a global health capacity-building organization. POD partners with healthcare-affiliated institutions and community stakeholders in resource-limited settings to strengthen local capacity for clinical and epidemiological research, evidence-based medical practice, and public health program evaluation. In the past year, POD has launched projects in Ghana, Papua New Guinea, and Liberia. As a doctoral student, Jyothi explores viral vector platforms and their application to vaccine development against emerging outbreak pathogens.
“I am humbled by the recognition of the Nuffield Department of Medicine for my extracurricular work related to POD. It has been an incredibly enriching and fulfilling experience to pursue multidisciplinary interests through my doctoral research and global health outreach activities. I am deeply grateful to my mentors (Professor Teresa Lambe, Professor Sarah Gilbert, and Dr. Vincent Munster) and the NIH-OxCam program for continually supporting my endeavors both inside and outside of the lab.”
Recent graduate and NIH-Oxford scholar Reid Alderson has been named the Overall Winner (out of 330 eligible students) for his extensive publication record and innovative work using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to provide atomic-level insight into both the structures and dynamics of biomolecules. Reid has 8 prestigious publications so far with another two that have been submitted.
“I am honored to be recognized by the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) for my graduate research. I am especially thankful to NDM, the NIH-OxCam program, and Pembroke College for their support and for creating nurturing academic environments in which young scientists can develop skills necessary for their future careers” states Reid as he comments on his award in the Pembroke College News. Reid will be continuing on to pursue a post doc with Lewis Kay at the University of Toronto.
We look forward to the continued success of both Jyothi and Reid as they excel in their scientific careers.
