University Of Florida’s New Dean Of Medicine Is National Leader In Research And Health Policy

August 21, 1997

GAINESVILLE–Dr. Kenneth Berns, known for a series of basic scientific discoveries that led to the use of a particular virus in gene therapy, is the newly appointed dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine. He will take office Oct. 15.

The selection of Berns, a national leader in science policy who has helped establish new directions in basic medical research, was announced today by UF President John Lombardi and Dr. David Challoner, vice president for health affairs.

Berns comes to UF from Cornell University Medical College in New York, where he has served since 1984 as a professor and chairman of the department of microbiology, and as a professor of pediatrics. From 1976 to 1984, he chaired UF’s department of immunology and medical microbiology.

“Dr. Ken Berns brings to the College of Medicine a record of outstanding accomplishment as a scholar, a physician and a national leader in academic medicine,” Lombardi said. “He understands the close relationship that must exist between research and clinical medicine in an academic health center, and through his own accomplishments has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to the academic research enterprise.”

Berns has been active for many years in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), recently serving as chairman. He also served two years on the AAMC advisory panel on the future of medical schools and has chaired the group’s advisory panel on biomedical research.

At the national level, Berns is an acknowledged leader in microbiology and in viral research. He has focused most of his 30-year research career on DNA viruses, particularly the tiny adeno-associated virus. AAV is harmless to humans and has unusual properties that make it ideal for transporting selected genes into human cells—the key step in gene therapy.

Berns has advanced understanding of this virus by defining its genetic make-up and the unique self-priming process by which it replicates in human cells. He discovered, for example, that when AAV infects a cell, it inserts its own chromosome in a specific place—squarely on human chromosome 19, which signals to the virus “this is where to park.”

As an outcome of the discoveries by Berns and his colleagues at UF and Cornell, the adeno-associated virus is now the most commonly used carrier molecule — also called a vector — in gene therapy.

Berns has won international recognition for his research, including a current Merit Award from the National Institutes of Health.

He earned his doctorate in biology and his medical degree at Johns Hopkins, where he also completed an internship in pediatrics. He spent three years in NIH research laboratories conducting studies in virology, biochemistry and metabolism. He later joined the Johns Hopkins medical faculty—first in pediatrics, then in microbiology.

Berns succeeds interim Dean Edward Copeland III, who already has resumed his positions as chairman of the College of Medicine’s department of surgery and as director of the UF Cancer Center. Executive Associate Dean Jerome Modell will serve as interim dean until Bern’s arrival.