Venue: Zijingang Hall, 3th floor, Alumni Center, Zijingang Campus
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Kastner, scientific director of National Human Genome Research Institute.
Dr. Daniel Kastner obtained his A.B. summa cum laude in philosophy from Princeton University and a Ph.D. and M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. After completing an Internal Medicine residency and chief residency also at Baylor, Dr. Kastner moved to the NIH in 1985. He completed clinical Rheumatology training in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and then rose through the NIAMS faculty ranks to become NIAMS Clinical Director from 2005 to 2010. From 2008 to 2011 he was also the first NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Clinical Research. Since late 2010 he has served as Scientific Director of the Division of Intramural Research of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Throughout his career at the NIH Dr. Kastner's research has focused on using genetic and genomic strategies to understand inherited disorders of inflammation, often stimulated by patients seen at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Kastner's laboratory identified the gene mutated in familial Mediterranean fever by positional cloning, discovered the genetic basis for a second recurrent fever syndrome they named TRAPS (TNF receptor-associated periodic syndrome), and made seminal genetic discoveries that establish other distinct illnesses as disorders of the IL-1 pathway, thus helping to define the role of IL-1 in human biology and establishing the conceptual basis for therapeutic trials with IL-1 inhibitors. More recently his laboratory has utilized genomic approaches in genetically complex disorders, such as Behçet's disease, and Dr. Kastner continues to maintain a very active clinical research program. His group also proposed the now widely accepted concept of autoinflammatory disease to denote disorders of innate immunity. Dr. Kastner has won a number of awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2012.