Indianapolis, June 17, 2009 — Dr. D. Craig Brater has been named BioCrossroads’ Interim Chairman of the Board of Directors. Under its by-laws, BioCrossroads, acting through its Executive Committee, has appointed Dr. Brater to this role this week, following the recent death of BioCrossroads’ founding Chairman, Dr. August Watanabe. Dr. Brater will serve as Interim Chairman until the BioCrossroads Board of Directors meets later in the year to elect a permanent Chair.
A member of the organization’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors since the beginning of BioCrossroads, Dr. Brater is Dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine and Indiana University Vice President with responsibility for Life Sciences. Dr. Brater was one of the principal leaders of the original life sciences-community collaboration that drove the formation of BioCrossroads in late 2003. Over the past several years, he has played an integral role in BioCrossroads’ successful development of a wide variety of public-private and industry-academic partnerships that build upon Indiana’s strong life sciences base, such as the Indiana Health Information Exchange and the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities.
“Gus Watanabe has been my constant friend and colleague for many years, first at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and more recently in helping to build BioCrossroads. Thanks to Gus’s passion and energy, the BioCrossroads initiative has come to play a broad and significant role in the life of our community and our state. At this important time, I am prepared to do all I can to be sure that the critical work of BioCrossroads continues to move ahead,” Dr. Brater said.
Dr. Brater joined the faculty at the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1986, where he began the Division of Clinical Pharmacology in the Department of Medicine. Four years later he was selected to chair the Department of Medicine. A native of Oak Ridge, TN, he attended undergraduate and medical school at Duke University, completed his internship at Duke, and his residency at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and spent nine years on the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Under Dr. Brater’s leadership, the Indiana University School of Medicine has achieved widespread recognition as one of the nation’s premier medical research institutions and centers for translational research and technology transfer. Dr. Brater also chairs the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, and serves on the boards of directors of Clarian Health Partners and the Riley Children’s Foundation