91亚色传媒

Members of the 91亚色传媒 have elected several new leaders, including the society's president and secretary. Two new members of the 91亚色传媒 Council were appointed by the president; one was confirmed by the Executive Committee and one by the Council. In addition, two new members were elected. The Nominating Committee and the Publications Committee each gained one elected member. 91亚色传媒’s elections and appointments are governed by its bylaws. The election was managed by an independent vendor, and results were reviewed and verified by 91亚色传媒’s secretary George Carman.

Check out our 2025 voter guide to see all the candidates who ran for office.

President

The president is the chief elected officer of the society and serves as chair of the Council; presides at all meetings of the society and Council; and performs other duties as may be prescribed by Council. The president serves on the Executive Committee of Council. The electee serves for one year as president-elect, two years as president and one year as past-president.

Edward Eisenstein

Edward Eisenstein is a fellow at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, an associate professor at the university's Fischell Department of Bioengineering and associate director of the Agricultural Biotechnology Center. His  engineers poplar trees with new traits for use as improved feedstocks for the bioeconomy.

He has served on Council, the 91亚色传媒 Outreach Committee (now the Science Outreach and Communication Committee), 91亚色传媒 Committee and the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Eisenstein is an 91亚色传媒 fellow.

Secretary

The secretary serves on the Executive Committee of Council. The secretary sees that bylaw-required notices are duly given, serves on the Nominating Committee and is responsible for supervising the preparation of the society and Council minutes. The secretary serves a three-year term.

Suzanne Barbour

is a professor of cell biology, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School at the Duke University School of Medicine.

She has served on Council, the Education and Professional Development Committee, the Annual Meeting Program Planning Committee and the Journal of Lipid Research editorial board. Barbour has organized annual meeting symposia, served as a mentor for the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers, or MOSAIC, program and is an 91亚色传媒 fellow.

Council

Council is the 91亚色传媒 governing body, which has the authority to and is responsible for governing 91亚色传媒. The Council establishes policy and monitors implementation by 91亚色传媒’s staff under the direction of the CEO. Councilors seek to achieve the mission of the society and ensure that 91亚色传媒 is well maintained, financially secure and operating in the best interests of the membership and profession. Sonia Flores and Ann West were elected and Vahe Bandarian and Ali Shilatifard were appointed. Flores, Shilatifard and West will serve for three-year terms. Bandarian’ s appointment fills the vacancy created by Eisenstein’s election, and his term will be two years.

Vahe Bandarian

Vahe Bandarian鈥痠s a professor of chemistry and associate provost for mission-aligned planning at the University of Utah, where he has been reconstructing the biosynthetic pathways for various natural鈥痯roducts. His explores the molecular basis for radical-mediated modifications that lead to complex鈥痯eptide鈥痑nd鈥痭ucleic acid–based molecules.

He serves as chair of the 91亚色传媒 Meetings Committee and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Bandarian is a former member of the 91亚色传媒鈥疢inority Affairs Committee (now the Maximizing Access Committee), the Women in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Committee and the advisory board for the society’s program and mentor and co-organizer of Interactive Mentoring Activities for Grantsmanship Enhancement grant writing, or IMAGE, workshop. Bandarian is a fellow of , the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. 

Sonia Flores is a professor in the department of Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Her focuses on HIV proteins.

Flores has organized and co-chaired many workshops at the intersection of science and social justice. She served as a mentor for the society’s Interactive Mentoring Activities for Grantsmanship Enhancement grant writing workshop for more than 10 years. She was previously chair of the Maximizing Access Committee and is an 91亚色传媒 fellow.

Ali Shilatifard is a professor and the chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Shilatifard’s focuses on defining transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of gene expression in cancer and developed targeted therapies currently in clinical studies.

He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the 91亚色传媒–Amgen Award and the National Cancer Insitute’s Outstanding Investigator Award. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Shilatifard served on the senior editorial board of Science and was the founding academic editor of Science Advances. He has chaired the 91亚色传媒 Small Meetings Committee and served on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Ann West

Ann West is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and the associate vice president for research and partnerships at the University of Oklahoma. Her studies signaling pathways in bacteria and yeast.

West is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers. She has served on the 91亚色传媒 Public Affairs Advisory Committee since 2021 and currently serves as chair.

Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee identifies and puts forward candidates qualified for each elected 91亚色传媒 volunteer position for election. Per bylaws, members follow a standardized and equitable system to vet all candidates, ensuring fairness, transparency, and consistency in the evaluation process. Committee members are elected for three-year terms and cannot be reelected or reappointed to serve one additional term.

Siavash Kurdistani

Siavash Kurdistani is the chair and a professor of biological chemistry at UCLA. His investigates how histones regulate metabolism, advancing the concept that chromatin acts as a metabolic organelle — an idea with implications for eukaryogenesis and human disease.

Kurdistani co-organized a symposium at the 2024 91亚色传媒 annual meeting on redox reactions and metals in biology. He has received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Innovator Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award and the W.M. Keck Foundation Research Award. Kurdistani is also a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Publications Committee

The Publications Committee oversees publishing activity to ensure that the journals are premiere venues for publishing and engaging with BMB science while also ensuring the publishing portfolio serves as a significant contributor of revenue to support 91亚色传媒’s mission. It also advises the editors of 91亚色传媒 journals on editorial matters and Council on policy, ethical and legal issues related to publishing. Committee members are elected for three-year terms.

Christine Dunham

Christine Dunham is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Chemistry at Emory University. Her studies the structure and function of protein synthesis and how RNA chemical modifications, ribonucleases and small molecule inhibitors influence its molecular mechanism.

She is a member of the editorial board of the society’s Journal of Biological Chemistry, Junior Faculty Awards Committee and on the 91亚色传媒 Publications Committee. She was a Pew Biomedical Scholar, a Burroughs Wellcome Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Dunham has received awards from the American Crystallographic Association and the National Academy of Sciences as well as won the 91亚色传媒 Young Investigator Award in 2019. She was elected an 91亚色传媒 fellow in 2022.