CS Medical Center Senior Vice President Named to California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Governing

Los Angeles - August 5, 2010 - Shlomo Melmed, MD, senior vice president for academic affairs and dean of the medical faculty at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Independent Citizen’s Oversight Committee, the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

This state agency makes grants and provides loans to California-based research institutions for stem cell research, research facilities and other disease-focused research opportunities. It was established through the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, approved by California voters in 2004.

Melmed, the Helene A. and Philip E. Hixon Chair in Investigative Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, is an internationally recognized endocrinologist and specialist in pituitary disorders. His research, which is primarily focused on the regulation of growth hormones and causes and treatments of pituitary tumors, has impacted endocrine care worldwide, and has consistently been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1980.

He has authored more than 300 articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, trained more than 60 physicians, scientists and graduate students, and played a major role in leading the growth of research and educational programs at Cedars-Sinai, which is now one of the nation’s top-tier non-university academic medical centers.

Melmed is an editor for the flagship endocrinology textbooks and journals, an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and American Association of Physicians, a master of the American College of Physicians, fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and past president of the International Society of Endocrinology and of the Pituitary Society.