James R. Baker Jr. Installed as First Ruth Dow Doan Professor
of Biologic Nanotechnology
|
Dean Allen Lichter and James Baker
Jr. Photo: Gregory Fox
|
On June 11, James R. Baker Jr., M.D., was installed as
the first Ruth Dow Doan Professor of Biologic Nanotechnology.
The Professorship honors Ruth Alden Dow Doan who was the
daughter of Herbert Henry Dow, founder of the Dow Chemical
Company, and the mother of Herbert D. (Ted) Doan, former
president of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation
and of the Dow Chemical Company.
|
|
Ruth Dow Doan
|
The Ruth Dow Doan Professorship in Biologic Nanotechnology
recognizes the extraordinary promise of nanotechnology
and its applications to medicine and also supports the
Directorship Fund for the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology.
The professorship was made possible through a gift from
Herbert D. Doan, the Herbert and Junia Doan Foundation,
and the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, the fifth
largest private family foundation in Michigan.
|
|
Front row, left to right: James and Lisa Baker, Junia
and Herbert (Ted) Doan; back row: Alexandra Doan, daughter
of Herbert and Junia Doan, Margaret (Ranny) Riecker, president
of the board of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation,
Donald Rumelhart and his wife, Judy Dow Rumelhart, sister
of Margaret Riecker. Margaret Riecker’s and Judith Dow
Rumelhart’s mother, Margaret Dow Towsley, was a sister
of Ruth Alden Dow Doan. Photo: Gregory
Fox
|
Baker joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1989
as an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's
Division of Allergy. In 1991 he was appointed associate professor
in the Department of Pathology and became the director of its
Histocompatibility Laboratory. Baker was appointed chief of
the Division of Allergy in 1993 and became professor of medicine
in 1996. Baker's work concentrates on several aspects of the
host defense mechanism and immunologic diseases. He has recently
been involved in work concerning gene transfer and drug delivery;
these studies have produced new vector systems for gene transfer
using dendritic polymers and have the potential to revolutionize
pharmaceutical therapy. Baker also serves as director of the
Center for Biologic Nanotechnology and, this year, was named
co-director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering at the
Medical School.
|
