Rudy Pozzatti, Ph.D.

Dr. Rudy Pozzatti's first love is the peer review process, which he oversees at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). As the chief of NHGRI Scientific Review Branch, he shares responsibility for overseeing the review of all grant applications and contract proposals assigned to NHGRI for Institute review.

Dr. Pozzatti plays a bigger role as executive secretary of NHGRI's advisory council. The 18-member group meets three times a year to perform the second-level of review for grant applications and to help set the institute's extramural program priorities. In addition to planning and logistics, Dr. Pozzatti will match council members' expertise to review the proposed grant programs, and he will administer the process and make recommendations on the selection of new members of council, one-quarter of whom rotate off every year.

"Just like the peer review process, you have a group of very intelligent people sitting around the table. My job will be to harness their considerable expertise and energy so they can help advance the work of the institute," Dr. Pozzatti said.

As a member of the extramural leadership team, Dr. Pozzatti will contribute to the institute's strategic planning.

"We need to be very thoughtful in how we move our research agenda towards the application of genomic technologies in healthcare," he said. "We've been highly successful in basic science research and the development of new technologies to sequence genes, annotate genomes and building catalog of genetic variations. We're beginning to fund research that moves genomics into the clinic. We have to do this in a balanced, judicious way."

Prior to joining the Scientific Review Branch in 1996, Dr. Pozzatti conducted research at the National Cancer Institute Intramural laboratories in Bethesda, Md. His research focused on the regulation of the metastatic phenotype in a rat model system, and studies designed to map genes involved in the development of prostate cancer in humans.

Dr. Pozzatti received a double B.A. in biology and chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in animal virology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.