Dr. John Mendelsohn to join the Baker Institute as senior fellow in health and technology policy

David Ruth
713-348-6327
druth@rice.edu

Franz Brotzen
713-348-6775
franz.brotzen@rice.edu

Dr. John Mendelsohn to join the Baker Institute as senior fellow in health and technology policy

MD Anderson President Dr. John Mendelsohn has been named the L.E. and Virginia Simmons Senior Fellow in Health and Technology Policy at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Starting in March 2012, he will play an active part in the Baker Institute’s health policy research programs and work closely with collaborators at Rice University and other institutions in the Texas Medical Center.

“On behalf of James A. Baker, III, the institute’s honorary chair, and myself, it is a great honor to welcome Dr. Mendelsohn to the Baker Institute,” said founding director Edward P. Djerejian. “His accomplishments as a physician, researcher and visionary leader exemplify a high standard of excellence that is matched by few. We look forward to his valuable contributions to the institute’s health policy programs.”

Mendelsohn’s work at the Baker Institute will focus on the identification and evaluation of new technologies, therapeutics and best practices, as well as the promotion of policy recommendations to improve national and global health outcomes. This new position was made possible by the generosity of L.E. and Virginia Simmons.

“We established the endowed fellow position to strengthen the Baker Institute’s already strong health policy research programs and to continue to support collaboration between Rice University and the Texas Medical Center,” L.E. Simmons said. “We cannot express how pleased we are that Dr. John Mendelsohn will be the first person to hold the position of L.E. and Virginia Simmons Senior Fellow in Health and Technology Policy at the Baker Institute. His influential stature in health care will have an immediate impact on health policy.

Mendelsohn is currently president of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. During his 15 years of leadership, MD Anderson has more than doubled in size by most measures and has repeatedly been named the top cancer hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Hospitals” survey. His support for integrated programs in patient care, research, education and cancer prevention has created new avenues for disease treatment and management. Mendelsohn will retire as president Sept. 1 and remain on the MD Anderson faculty as co-director of the new Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy.

“Technology plays a critical role in medicine today, and policymakers are looking for the best ways to evaluate and understand these tools of the future,” Mendelsohn said. “My new position at the Baker Institute will allow me to contribute to these important decisions and employ my background as a practitioner, researcher and leader in the medical field. I am also excited about joining the Baker Institute Health Economics Program, which I have long admired for its collaborative work at Rice University, across the Texas Medical Center and with the global health community.”

Before joining MD Anderson in 1996, Mendelsohn led and expanded the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He also held the Winthrop Rockefeller Chair in Medical Oncology and served for five years as co-head of the Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Previously, Mendelsohn spent 15 years at the University of California, San Diego, where he was founding director of a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemical sciences magna cum laude from Harvard College and an M.D. cum laude from Harvard Medical School. His research over two decades pioneered the development of cancer therapies that target the aberrant genes which cause the disease.

As the institute’s senior fellow in health and technology policy, Mendelsohn will work closely with Vivian Ho, Ph.D., James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, and the researchers associated with the Baker Institute Health Policy Forum.

The Baker Institute Health Economics Program studies the ways in which economic incentives and government policies influence the quality and costs of health care. The program’s guiding philosophy is that society can deliver high-quality medical care while controlling expenditures. Health care providers, patients and others must be offered incentives to balance costs against benefits to ensure that resources are not wasted. No other health policy research center focuses on the effects of incentives embodied in institutional arrangements. In the past year, the program has focused on issues ranging from the role of health information technology in health care delivery to obesity rates and the impact of health care reform on business.