Helen Heslop, MD, DSc (Hon), Director of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital, and Interim Director of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine. She is among 90 regular members and 10 international members announced at the academy’s 2021 annual meeting.
Election to the National Academy of Medicine is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
Dr. Heslop is a Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and holds the Dan L Duncan Chair at Baylor. She is a physician-scientist engaged in translational research, taking scientific discoveries from the laboratory and developing them into clinical treatments for patients. Her research focuses on adoptive immunotherapy with gene-modified effector cells, a type of therapy in which immune cells are genetically modified and given to a patient, to improve effectiveness of hemopoietic stem cell transplantation and cancer therapy.
She has extensive experience in developing and conducting transplant studies and cell and gene therapy studies and currently holds more than 20 investigational new drug applications. She also has played a major role nationally as president of societies focusing on the intellectual and clinical development of cellular therapies and accreditation of facilities delivering cell therapies.
“I am very honored to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine and want to acknowledge that this is based on team science with many superb collaborators in the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor, Texas Children’s and Houston Methodist,” Dr. Heslop said.