Cynthia E. Dunbar MD

Dr. Dunbar has pursued a career encompassing clinical investigation and patient care, basic science, and education/administration.As a translational research scientist, she has made important findings in the areas of hematopoiesis, stem cell biology, leukemogenesis, natural killer cell biology, and gene therapies, focusing on non-human primate models to provide insights not possible using murine or in vitro studies. She has also led landmark clinical trials in gene therapy, transplantation, autoimmune disease, and bone marrow failure, resulting in FDA approval for a new treatment for aplastic anemia. She has published over 290 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in History of Science and from Harvard Medical School. Following internal medicine training at Boston City Hospital, she came to the NIH as a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Arthur Nienhuis, followed by clinical training in hematology at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1991 she returned to the NIH to set up her own research program. She has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American College of Physicians, and the National Institute of Medicine. She has been active in major professional societies, including current service as the Secretary of the American Society of Hematology, and in the past as President of the American Society for Cell and Gene Therapy. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the premier hematology journal BLOOD from 2007-2012, the first woman to serve in this position. She has shown great commitment to education and career development of physician-scientists, leading the NIH hematology fellowship program for 17 years, and receiving numerous teaching and mentoring awards from NHLBI, NIH and her professional societies. She has been a leader in efforts to enhance the research environment and diversity within the NIH and biomedicine more generally through her service as founding co-chair and current officer of the NIH Assembly of Scientists, and as a founding member of the NIH Equity Committee.