Former FDA commissioner to deliver Wilkinson Lecture, April 12
Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, will deliver the 14th annual Grant R. Wilkinson Distinguished Lectureship in Clinical Pharmacology at 8 a.m. April 12 in 208 Light Hall.
Sponsored by Vanderbilt University’s Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Departments of Pharmacology and Medicine, Califf’s lecture is entitled “Can data science equip doctors and systems to reverse the decline in U.S. health status?”
Califf currently is Vice Chancellor for Health Data Science and the Donald Fortin, MD, Professor of Cardiology at Duke University and director of the Center for Integrated Health Data Science at Duke Health. He also serves as advisor to Verily Life Sciences, a Google company.
Internationally recognized for his studies in cardiovascular medicine, health outcomes research, healthcare quality and clinical research, Califf is one of the most frequently cited authors in biomedical science with 1,250 publications in the peer-reviewed literature.
During his back-to-back one-year terms as deputy FDA commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco and as commissioner in 2015-2017, he provided direction for cross-cutting clinical, scientific, and regulatory initiatives, including precision medicine, combination products, orphan drugs, pediatric therapeutics and the advisory committee system.
Califf has led major initiatives aimed at improving methods and infrastructure for clinical research, including the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public-private partnership co-founded by the FDA and Duke.
He also served as the principal investigator for Duke's Clinical and Translational Science Award and the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory coordinating center, and as co-PI of the national Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet).
The late Grant Wilkinson, PhD, DSc, professor of Pharmacology emeritus who died in 2006, was widely known for his contributions to understanding why patients vary in their response to drugs. His research papers are among the most frequently cited by pharmacologists worldwide.