Leaders | Cure Sickle Cell

Our Leadership

Dr. Gary H. Gibbons

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD INSTITUTE

Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., is director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the third largest institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he oversees an annual budget of more than $3 billion and a staff of 917 federal employees.

The NHLBI provides global leadership in research, training, and education programs that promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders and diseases.

Before joining the NHLBI in 2012, Dr. Gibbons served as the founding director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. He was also chairman of the school’s department of physiology, as well as a professor of physiology and medicine.

Under his leadership of the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Dr. Gibbons directed NIH-funded research in the fields of vascular biology, genomic medicine, and the pathogenesis of vascular diseases. During his tenure, the Institute emerged as a center of excellence, leading the way in discoveries related to the cardiovascular health of minority populations. Dr. Gibbons received several patents for innovations derived from his research in the fields of vascular biology and the pathogenesis of vascular diseases.

Dr. Gibbons earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency and cardiology fellowship at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and in 1990 joined the faculty at Stanford University. In 1996 he returned to Harvard Medical School, where he served on the faculty until leaving for Morehouse in 1999. Before his NHLBI appointment, Dr. Gibbons already had a presence at the Institute, serving as a member of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Advisory Council (NHLBAC) from 2009-2012. He was also a member of the NHLBI Board of Extramural Experts (BEE), a working group of the NHLBAC.

Throughout his career, Dr. Gibbons has received numerous honors. Among them: election to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Sciences, selection as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Minority Faculty Development Awardee, selection as a Pew Foundation Biomedical Scholar; and recognition as an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Edward J. Benz Jr.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CURE SICKLE CELL INITIATIVE

Edward J. Benz, Jr., M.D., President and CEO Emeritus at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, began his faculty career at Yale University in 1979, rising to the rank of Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics in 1987. He served as Chief of the Hematology Section and Vice Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1987-1993.

Dr. Benz is an internationally recognized hematologist who is an active National Institutes of Health-funded Investigator. He is an expert in inherited anemias. His laboratory studies focus on the molecular regulation and functions of membrane cytoskeletal proteins that were originally discovered in the red blood cell. He has authored more than 300 peer reviewed articles, reviews, chapters, and abstracts. He is co-editor of Hematology: Principles and Practice, which received the First Place Award for Textbooks from the British Medical Journal, and co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine, for which he and his colleagues received the Royal Society of Authors Textbook Award. He was an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 2002 – 2016.

Dr. Benz’s accomplishments have been recognized by a number of distinctions. He is a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and a member in the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He is a past President of the American Society of Hematology, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Cancer Institutes, the American Clinical and Climatological Association, and the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing. In recognition of his efforts to achieve the ideal working environment, Dana Farber created the Edward J Benz Jr People and Culture Award, and its Office of Faculty development re-named its award for advancement of women faculty the Edward J Benz Jr Award. In 2016 he received the Innovator in Health Care Award from the Network for Excellence in heath Innovations.

Dr. Benz received his training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the National Institutes of Health, Boston Children’s Hospital, Yale University, Princeton University, and Harvard Medical School, where he received the Soma Weiss and Leon Resnick Awards for student research. He is board certified in internal medicine and hematology.