It is a pleasure to introduce Dr. Howard E. Gendelman as this year’s recipient of the ISNV 2013 Bill Narayan Lectureship. “Howie”, as he is affectionately known, is the Margaret R. Larson Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Howie went both to undergraduate (Muhlenberg College) and medical school (Penn State University College of Medicine) in Pennsylvania. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and was a Clinical and Research Fellow in Neurology and Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. How appropriate that Howie is the recipient of the ISNV 2013 Bill Narayan Lectureship as he was a postdoctoral fellow in Bill Narayan’s laboratory while at Johns Hopkins. Howie occupied senior faculty and research positions at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and the Henry Jackson Foundation for the Advancement in Military Medicine before joining the University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty in March of 1993. He retired from the US Army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Howie has a long and prestigious career in the field of Neurovirology. Among his many accomplishments, Howie has shown how functional alterations in brain immunity induce metabolic changes and ultimately lead to neural cell damage for a broad range of infectious, metabolic, and neurodegenerative disorders. Importantly, he has translated these observations into the development of therapeutic strategies aimed at preventing, slowing or reversing diseases of the CNS. He has shown that AIDS dementia is a reversible metabolic encephalopathy and has developed novel immunotherapy and nanomedicine strategies for Parkinson’s and viral diseases currently being tested in early clinical trials. Under his leadership, Howie is credited with the growth of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to be amongst the top-like ranked and federally funded departments (top ten) nationwide.
His many awards and accolades are highlighted in an impressive CV (over 123 pages). Howie has authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications, edited nine books and monographs, holds eight patents, is the Editor-In- Chief and Founder of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology along with service on numerous editorial boards, national and international scientific review and federal and state committees. Howie has the enviable and almost unheard of accomplishment of uninterrupted funding for the past 30 years. He has been an invited lecturer to more than 200 scientific seminars and symposia and the recipient of numerous local, national and international honors. These include, but are not limited to, the Henry L. Moses Award in Basic Science; the Carter-Wallace Fellow for Distinction in AIDS Research; the David T. Purtilo Distinguished Chair of Pathology and Microbiology; the UNMC Scientist Laureate; NU Outstanding Research; and Creativity and the Joseph Wybran Distinguished Scientist Awards. Dr. Gendelman was also named a J. William Fulbright Research Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. In 2001, he received the prestigious Jacob Javits Neuroscience Research Award and the Career Research Award in Medicine from UNMC. He is included amongst a selective scientific group listed on highly cited.com as one of the top cited scientists in his field. Most importantly, Howie is committed and dedicated to shaping our next generation of biomedical researchers and has trained more than 70 scientists (pre and postdoctoral fellows) who have themselves developed independent successful careers.
It is therefore a pleasure and a privilege for the International Society of Neurovirology to bestow this year’s Bill Narayan Lectureship to Dr. Howard Gendelman. There is no better colleague that embodies the strength of character, the vision of science, and the outpouring of friendship and collegiality that Howie brings to our field.
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