William R. Brinkley

William R. Brinkley, PhD, is Senior Vice President for Graduate Sciences and Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. He is a Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. He received his doctorate from Iowa State University in 1964 and served as a NIH postdoctoral trainee at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital and as assistant and associate professor of biology until 1972, when he accepted a position as Professor and Director of Cell Biology in the Department of Human Biological Chemistry at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas. In 1976, he moved to Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, as the Director of the Division of Cell Structure and Function in the Department of Cell Biology. In 1985, he moved from Texas to become Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy and Director of the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He returned to Baylor College of Medicine in his present position in 1991. Brinkley is the recipient of a Merit Award from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, where he received continuous funding for more than 35 years for his research on cell division and genomic instability in tumor cells. He served as a member of several NIH advisory panels, including the Molecular Biology Study Section, Cancer Special Program Advisor Committee, Board of Scientific Counselors, NIDDK and as chair of the Biomedical Sciences Study Section. He was elected President of the American Society for Cell Biology in 1979 and was President of the International Federation of Cell Biology from 1980-1984. Brinkley served as secretary general of the 6th International Congress for Cell Biology in 1996. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals and has been editor-in-chief of the international journal, Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton, for over 20 years. Brinkley served as president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) from 1998-1999, the nation's largest organization of biomedical scientists, consisting of more than 60,000 members. He is a member, and former chair, of the Board of Directors of the Campaign for Medical Research. He was named 2006 Medalist by the Australian Society for Medical Research for his leadership and advocacy for medical research funding in America and his leadership in the five-year campaign to double the budget of the National Institutes of Health, 1998-2003. As Senior VP and Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, he is dedicated to training future leaders of biomedical research and is active in the curriculum development and other aspects of graduate education at Baylor College of Medicine. Brinkley is a member of Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas and has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus from Sam Houston State University, Iowa State University, and The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.