UCSF GENETICIST CHARLES EPSTEIN, MD

ELECTED TO CHAIR BUCK INSTITUTE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

 Novato, CA, December 11, 2009  Charles J. Epstein, MD, has been elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Buck Institute for Age Research effective January 1, 2010. He will preside over his first regular Board of Trustees meeting on April 2, 2010. Marin realtor Catherine Munson was elected Vice Chair, well known Bay Area volunteer leader Ann Otter will become Secretary, and former Bank of America CEO Richard Rosenberg will remain as Treasurer.

Epstein, who joined the Board in 2004, has chaired the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board, which provides guidance on the Institute’s scientific and educational programs, for the past five years. He becomes Board Chair as the Buck Institute enters its second decade as the nation’s only independent research institute focused solely on aging and age-related disease. “The Institute has made remarkable progress during its first decade, and it is now poised to attain new heights,”  said Epstein. “Our plans to construct a new building for stem cell research are coming to fruition, and we shall be recruiting a new CEO and adding outstanding new investigators to our faculty. It will be a privilege to work with the Institute’s board, staff and scientists to ensure that the Institute succeeds in its mission to extend the healthy years of life.”

            Epstein is Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).  A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty of UCSF in 1967 and established the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics.  In 1997, he became the Co-Director and later Director of the newly established UCSF Program in Human Genetics, the forerunner of the present UCSF Institute for Human Genetics. Dr. Epstein  is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As former President of the American Society of Human Genetics and American College of Medical Genetics, Dr. Epstein has played a leading role in guiding the development of medical genetics into a recognized and independent medical specialty and in shaping many of its research and clinical institutions.  He and his wife, Lois B. Epstein, M.D., a UCSF physician scientist and Professor Emerita, live in Tiburon.

“We are fortunate to have Charles Epstein as Chair,” said James Kovach MD, JD, President and COO of the Buck Institute. “His experience leading our Scientific Advisory Board, his ongoing commitment to the Buck Institute, and his expertise in genetics and aging research will be invaluable as we build on the Institute’s reputation as the nation’s preeminent research facility on aging.”

Other key appointments to the Institute’s 20-member Board of Trustees include returning trustee, Arthur Gensler, of Gensler Architecture, and Stephen Hauser M.D., who was appointed Chair of the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board.  Hauser is Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCSF.

About the Buck Institute for Age Research: