E. Albert Reece Email & Phone Number

I am a basic scientist at heart with a keen interest in not only preserving but vastly enhancing the state of the US biomedical research enterprise to ensure that our history and legacy of discovery and innovation can continue to benefit generations to come. As an Ob/Gyn physician-scientist, I have seen first-hand over the course of my career how devastating uncontrolled diabetes can be for pregnant women and their fetuses, leading to developmental anomalies that can affect proper organ development. Over the last few decades, my research colleagues and I have uncovered molecular mechanisms underlying diabetes-associated birth defects, and have identified several potential targets around which to design therapies. As a medical school dean, I have witnessed how the business of healthcare and medicine have changed over the past decades, and the impact this has had on our clinicians, researchers, and physician-scientists. Medicine and biomedical research are incredibly exciting fields and the potential for advance has never been greater.Throughout my 16-year tenure and especially since stepping down from being dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, I have focused my efforts on advancing the biomedical research enterprise. Locally, as the Endowed Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Research Training and Innovation (CARTI) at UMSOM, I assist early-to-mid-career faculty members to access the mentoring and support they need for success. More globally, I spent a one-year sabbatical as Visiting Scholar-in Residence at the National Academy of Medicine chairing a committee of NAM members to develop a vision for how the US can leverage its strengths to ensure continued excellence and leadership in biomedical research. The results of this work will be published in 2024. As a Senior Scientist in the UMSOM Center for Birth Defects Research, I remain involved in laboratory studies exploring the biomolecular mechanisms of birth defects. I am still very excited about the new data generated by the many talented researchers in our laboratory. I have continued to update the textbooks which I have had the great honor to co-edit with some wonderful colleagues. These textbooks are in their fourth editions: Clinical Obstetrics: The Fetus & Mother, and Diabetes & Obesity in Women: Adolescence, Pregnancy, and Menopause.