Dr. Frank Douglas with Dr. Olaf Andersen, director of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program. Dr. Andersen is professor of physiology and biophysics and chair of the graduate program in physiology, biophysics and molecular medicine at Weill Cornell.
Dr. Frank Douglas, who received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cornell University in Ithaca in 1972 and his M.D. degree from Cornell University Medical College (CUMC) in 1977, talked to MD-PhD students about his varied career path, on Oct. 11, when he was the guest speaker at the annual Alumni Dinner of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program jointly sponsored by Weill Cornell, Sloan-Kettering Institute, and The Rockefeller University.
Dr. Douglas, whose career has taken him from the practice of clinical medicine and research in academia to senior positions in the pharmaceutical industry, is executive vice president for drug innovation and approval, and chief scientific officer, for Aventis Pharma, an international pharmaceutical conglomerate.
After graduating from CUMC, Dr. Douglas did an internship and residency in medicine at Johns Hopkins. He then joined the NIH, first as a clinical associate at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and then as a fellow in the neuroendocrinology unit of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration. In 1982, he left the NIH to join the University of Chicago, where he was director of the hypertension clinic and assistant professor of medicine. In 1984, he took his first position in the pharmaceutical industry, joining Ciba-Geigy as executive director for clinical biology. From Ciba-Geigy, he went to Marion Merrell Dow, which became Hoechst Marion Roussel, which is now part of Aventis Pharma.