SEMSS 2024 Keynote Speakers
James E.K. Hildreth Sr, PhD, MD
President and CEO
Professor, Internal Medicine
Meharry Medical College
Dr. James Hildreth is a world-class infectious disease expert and scientific leader whose accomplishments have transformed several institutions and impacted the lives of countless individuals. Dr. Hildreth is currently the 12th President and CEO of Meharry Medical College, the nation’s largest private historically Black academic health sciences center. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Hildreth has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, appointed to the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to review COVID-19 vaccine candidates and to FDA Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee. He was also appointed to President Biden’s Health Equity Task Force in 2021. He has received numerous awards and recognition, including honorary degrees and an NIH Pioneer Award, for his scientific accomplishments, leadership, service to disadvantaged communities and mentorship of students and junior colleagues. Dr. Hildreth has served on numerous national advisory committees including NIH Advisory Committee to the Director and chair of the VA National Academic Advisory Committee.
Dr. Hildreth holds an M.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, a Ph.D. from Oxford University and a B.A. from Harvard University. He was the first African American Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas. Dr. Hildreth spent 23 years at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as student, postdoc, professor and associate dean. Dr. Hildreth was the first African American to achieve full professorship with tenure in basic sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research on HIV resulted in numerous publications and international recognition for several key discoveries including identifying a critical role of cholesterol and lipid rafts in HIV infection and the characterization of HIV as a “Trojan exosome”. His research resulted in 11 patents and a technology he developed was licensed by Genentech which resulted in an FDA-approved drug, Raptiva. Following his work at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. HIldreth served as dean of the College of Biological Sciences at University of California, Davis and was the first African American dean at the University. In this role, he oversaw the education of thousands of undergraduates — the majority of whom had aspirations for health care careers. He also created a unique research program called “Kingdom Crossing” involving collaborations between scientists who focused on organisms from distinct kingdoms of life. This program resulted in novel discoveries including a plant hormone with significant potential as an antimalarial drug. In addition to all of these accomplishments, Dr. Hildreth has been inducted into the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame, and he was named Nashvillian of the Year for his leadership in the fight against COVID-19 by the Nashville Scene Magazine. During his tenure as Meharry’s CEO, he has launched two new schools, School of Applied Computational Sciences and School of Global Health and created several major new programs including a physician assistant training program and international dentistry program. Under his leadership, the research base at Meharry has quadrupled and he has led a major fund-raising campaign which has garnered $194 million of a $350 million goal.
Duane A. Mitchell, MD, PhD
Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor of Neurosurgery
UF Assistant Vice President for Researcher
Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Sciences at the UF College of Medicine
Director of the UF Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
Co-Director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy at UF Health
Dr. Duane Mitchell is the University of Florida Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor of Neurosurgery and the Director of the UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program. He is also the founder, President, and Chairman of iOncologi, Inc. a biotechnology company in Gainesville, FL specializing in immuno-oncology. As Co-Director, the Wells Brain Tumor Center has grown to one of the largest brain tumor centers in the United States. Dr. Mitchell is a leading expert in the development of innovative immunotherapy treatments for adults and children with malignant brain tumors. He has pioneered many novel brain tumor immunotherapies that have been translated into first-in-human clinical trials and multi-center phase two studies.
Dr. Mitchell graduated with a degree in biology from Rutgers College before earning his MD-PhD from the Duke University MSTP in 2001. Following his graduation, Dr. Mitchell completed his postgraduate training in pathology and neuro-oncology research and joined faculty at Duke in 2005 as an Assistant Professor before being recruited to the University of Florida in 2013. Dr. Mitchell has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including a 2016 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum in Washington, D.C., induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2019, the Academy of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics of Florida in 2020, and American Association of Physicians in 2023. Dr. Mitchell has received over $40 million in research awards as a principal investigator and has been continuously funded by the NIH for his cancer research since 2009. In 2023, he was the inaugural recipient of the American Society for Clinical Investigation Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Award for research on new immunotherapy treatments for adults and children with malignant brain tumors. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for several organizations, including the National Cancer Institute, National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, and National Brain Tumor Society.