Tulane University Translational Science Institute (TUTSI)
TUTSI Leadership
Jiang He, MD, PhD, FAHA, FACE
Director
Professor of Epidemiology and Clinical Medicine
Joseph S. Copes, M.D. Chair of Epidemiology
Department of Epidemiology
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Dr. He is the Chair and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Professor of Clinical Medicine and Human Genetics at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Dr. He is a nationally and internationally well-known expert in the clinical, translational, and epidemiological research of cardiovascular and kidney diseases. He has conducted novel studies in obesity, hypertension, diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has been the principal investigator and co-investigator for more than 40 major research awards from the National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association worth more than 160 million US dollars. Dr. He has authored over 500 scientific articles and has published in first class biomedical journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of The American Medical Association, Lancet, and Nature Genetics. He has received many awards from local, national, and international academic institutions and professional societies.
Lee Hamm, M.D.
Co-Director
Senior Vice President and Dean of the School of Medicine
The James R. Doty Distinguished Professor and Chair
Tulane University
Dr. Lee Hamm is Senior Vice President and Dean of the School of Medicine, and the James R. Doty Distinguished Professor and Chair, Tulane University School of Medicine. He is also Co-Director of the Tulane Hypertension and Renal Center of Excellence. Dr. Hamm’s honors and awards include a Merit Award from the NIH, an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, American Heart Association Distinguished Service Award, the Donald Seldin Award of the National Kidney Foundation, and the Founders Medal from the Southern Society of Clinical Investigation. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Heart Association, and he was elected to membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He has been on the editorial board of Kidney International and the American Journal of Physiology, and has been a consulting editor for Hypertension. His research has been funded by numerous research grants from the AHA, VA and NIH. He has authored more than one hundred twenty original articles and book chapters. Clinically, his interests are general nephrology focused on cardiovascular disease in kidney disease, metabolic causes of kidney stones, and electrolyte and acid-base disorders.
Jing Chen, MD, MMSc, MSc
Clinical Director
Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine
Tulane University School of Medicine
Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Dr. Chen is a Professor of Medicine in the Section of Nephrology and Hypertension at Tulane University School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Chen has formal training in Clinical Medicine, is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology, and is a Clinical Hypertension Specialist. She has extensive experience in the design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of clinical research and clinical trials in hypertension, kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease. She is a principal investigator and co-investigator on several NIH-funded multicenter clinical research studies and clinical trials. She authored approximately 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Amanda Hyre Anderson, PhD, MPH
Associate Director
Associate Professor of Epidemiology
Department of Epidemiology
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Dr. Amanda Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Anderson’s major research interests address the epidemiology of kidney diseases, with an emphasis on the causes and consequences of the excessive morbidity and mortality experienced by patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). She has a particular focus on factors associated with CKD progression including fibrosis measures and the gut microbiome, prediction of kidney function decline over time, and the insufficiently characterized burden of co-morbidities and outcomes associated with CKD. Dr. Anderson is the principal investigator of two NIH/NIDDK R01 studies to investigate blood and urine fibrosis measures as predictors of CKD progression and cardiovascular disease in the setting of CKD, and to examine associations between the gut microbiome, plasma and fecal metabolomes, and CKD progression. She has over 10 years of experience providing scientific and operational leadership to Scientific and Data Coordinating Centers of large, multi-center studies examining risk factors for cardiovascular disease and progression of kidney disease among adults with CKD.
External Advisory Committee
TUTSI’s External Advisory Committee (EAC) provides oversight and advice to Institute leadership on the development and planning of concepts and programs; encourages and assists faculty development and mentoring; identifies resources and evaluates the development of the Institute; evaluates the progress of junior faculty’s research projects and professional development; and reviews and recommends candidate investigators for replacement/substitute projects.
The EAC is chaired by Dr. Lawrence Appel and is comprised of members selected for their superior expertise in the specific areas of research related to the junior faculty investigators, and for their distinguished reputations as mentors and advisors.
Lawrence J. Appel, MD, MPH
David Molina, M.D., M.P.H. Professor of Medicine with Joint Appointments in Epidemiology, International Health and Nursing
Director, Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Frank Hu, MD, PhD
Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
Chair, Department of Nutrition
Department of Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Jonathan M. Samet, MD, MS
Dean and Professor
Departments of Epidemiology and Environmental and Occupational Health
Colorado School of Public Health