UT Southwestern's Mangelsdorf elected to National Academy o...( DALLAS April 29 2008 The National ...)

DALLAS April 29, 2008 The National Academy of Sciences today elected Dr. David Mangelsdorf, chairman of pharmacology at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, to membership, one of the highest honors attainable by an American scientist.

Three other Texans, all from UT Austin, were among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates who were elected today to the NAS. They are Dr. Richard Aldrich, chairman of neurobiology in the School of Biological Sciences; Dr. Wilson Geisler, professor of psychology and biomedical engineering; and Dr. David Hillis, director of the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.

With Dr. Mangelsdorfs election, UT Southwestern now has 18 faculty members currently serving in the esteemed organization. There are now 24 NAS members at Texas academic medical institutions, and 75 percent of those are at UT Southwestern.

A unique strength of UT Southwestern is not just the caliber of its great science, but also its culture of mentorship. I am grateful to have benefited from both of these attributes, said Dr. Mangelsdorf, who holds the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science. The National Academy of Sciences members here at UT Southwestern have long been my role models and to now be recognized amongst them is a marvelous honor.

Dr. Mangelsdorf is an internationally prominent researcher in lipid biology and has made major contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms that control cholesterol and bile acid metabolism. His work complements the Nobel Prize-winning research on cholesterol metabolism carried out at UT Southwestern by Dr. Michael Brown, director of the Erik Jonsson Center for Research in Molecular Genetics and Human Disease, and Dr. Joseph Goldstein, chairman of molecular genetics.

Dr. Mangelsdorfs research focuses on nuclear receptors, proteins that turn genes on and off in the body and serve as
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