Keynote Address with Dr. William Kaelin

Dr. Ebony Boulware is the Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Chief Science Officer for Advocate Health. She is a genera internist, physician-scientist and clinical epidemiologist who seeks to improve health and health equity. Dr. Boulware’s internationally recognized research has identified patient, clinician, health system, and community- level barriers that result in disparate outcomes for historically marginalized individuals, with an emphasis on those affected by chronic health conditions such as kidney disease. Through her research and thought leadership, she has developed successful interventions, shaped national policy guidelines, raised physician awareness and changed clinical practice to improve health and health equity. Dr. Boulware’s research has been continuously funded by the NIH, the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and other organizations throughout her career. She has garnered over $80M in individual and institutional grant funding from these funders. She has published over 230 manuscripts, book chapters, and editorials. She has also mentored numerous students, residents, fellows, and faculty members, and she is a passionate advocate for advancing justice and equity in medical education and research. Dr. Boulware is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Associate of American Physicians, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

David Herrington, MD, MHS, Professor of Internal Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine and Public Health Sciences/Epidemiology and Prevention, is a clinician and researcher focused on the pathogenesis and prevention of atherosclerosis and clinical cardiovascular disease. His efforts have focused on the application of various “omics” technologies in clinical and population research to identify potential molecular determinants of cardiovascular health and disease.  These efforts include leading or significantly contributing to several NIH- and European Commission-funded multi-institutional programs of research focused on genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic investigations. He serves on the Steering Committee and the Statistical Methods Working Group for the NCI-directed Consortium of Metabolomics Studies (COMETS). He has held numerous administrative positions including past Chair of the American Heart Association Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology, former Director of the Wake Forest Translational Science Institute, and current Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Internal Medicine.

William Kaelin is the Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Senior Physician-Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He obtained his undergraduate and M.D. degrees from Duke University and completed his training in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he served as chief medical resident. He was a clinical fellow in Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and later a postdoctoral fellow in David Livingston’s laboratory, during which time he was a McDonnell Scholar. 

A Nobel Laureate, Dr. Kaelin received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the American College of Physicians. He previously served on the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors, the AACR Board of Trustees, and the Institute of Medicine National Cancer Policy Board. He is a recipient of the Paul Marks Prize for cancer research from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Prize from the AACR; the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist award; the 2010 Canada International Gairdner Award; ASCI’s Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award; the Scientific Grand Prix of the Foundation Lefoulon-Delalande; the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences; the Steven C. Beering Award; the AACR Princess Takamatsu Award; the ASCO Science of Oncology Award; the Helis Award; the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Prize; the Massry Prize; the Harriet P. Dustan Award for Science as Related to Medicine from the American College of Physicians. 

Dr. Kaelin’s research seeks to understand how, mechanistically, mutations affecting tumor-suppressor genes cause cancer. His laboratory is currently focused on studies of the VHL, RB-1, and p53 tumor suppressor genes. His long-term goal is to lay the foundation for new anticancer therapies based on the biochemical functions of such proteins. His work on the VHL protein helped to motivate the eventual successful clinical testing of VEGF inhibitors for the treatment of kidney cancer. Moreover, this line of investigation led to new insights into how cells sense and respond to changes in oxygen, and thus has implications for diseases beyond cancer, such as anemia, myocardial infarction, and stroke. His group also showed that leukemic transformation by mutant IDH was reversible, setting the stage for the development and approval of mutant IDH inhibitors, and discovered how thalidomide-like drugs kill myeloma cells by degrading two otherwise undruggable transcription factors.

Dr. McGinnis is the founding director of the Center for Remote Health Monitoring and an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. A leader in digital health, he’s held roles developing FDA-cleared digital biomarkers at MC10, Inc., and in academia at the University of Vermont and Stanford.

An NSF CAREER Award recipient and senior IEEE member, Dr. McGinnis’s research—funded by NSF, NIH, and industry—focuses on wearable and mobile technologies to advance patient care. His interdisciplinary collaborations span neurology, orthopedics, and mental health, and his innovations have shaped product offerings from nine companies.