Elias Zerhouni

"Zerhouni" redirects here. For other people with this surname, see Zerhouni (surname).

Elias Zerhouni
Elias Zerhouni
15th Director of the National Institutes of Health
In office May 2, 2002 – October 31, 2008
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Harold Varmus
Succeeded by	Francis Collins
Personal details
Born	(1951-04-12) April 12, 1951 Nedroma, Algeria,
Citizenship	United States of America
Nationality	Algerian American
Alma mater	University of Algiers
Known for	Director of the National Institutes of Health Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Sanofi
Awards	Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
Scientific career
Fields	Medical imaging
Institutions	Johns Hopkins School of Medicine National Institutes of Health Sanofi

Elias Zerhouni (in Arabic إلياس زرهوني) (born April 12, 1951) is an Algerian-born American scientist, radiologist, biomedical engineer, entrepreneur, and pharmaceutical industry executive, known for having been the 15th Director of the National Institutes of Health.

He spent much of his career on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, serving as an executive vice dean from 1996 to 2002. As mentioned, he was the 15th Director of the National Institutes of Health, serving from May 2, 2002, to October 31, 2008, under the George W. Bush administration. In 2009, under the Obama administration he served as one of the country's first presidential science envoys to foster scientific and technologic collaboration with other nations. He also served as a senior fellow for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2009 through 2010. From January 2011 until his retirement June 30th, 2018, he was the President for Global Research and Development at the pharmaceutical company Sanofi.

October 2020, Dr. Zerhouni co-founded ModeX Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company focused on developing innovative multi-specific immune therapies for cancer and infectious diseases. In 2022, ModeX was acquired by OPKO Health, and Zerhouni was appointed President and Vice Chairman of the latter. In 2023, ModeX signed a deal with Merck to develop an Epstein-Barr Virus vaccine.

Background, Johns Hopkins, and EVMS

A resident of Florida, Dr. Zerhouni was born in Nedroma, Algeria. He grew up during the Algerian War for independencece. Having earned his M.D. degree at the University of Algiers, School of Medicine in 1975, Zerhouni emigrated to the United States to study radiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His initial, informal residency (sponsored by the Algerian government) turned into a formal residency. He went on to positions of increasing responsibility in the Hopkins radiology department, including chief resident and assistant professor. He then served as vice chair of the Department of Radiology at Eastern Virginia Medical School and its affiliated DePaul Hospital from 1981 to 1985. In 1985, Zerhouni returned to Johns Hopkins as co-director of body CT and MRI and was promoted to associate professor. He was appointed sole director of the MRI division in 1988, and he transformed the division into a center of international excellence by ushering in a multidisciplinary approach combining physical, biological, and radiological sciences, and in 1992 he was promoted to full professor. In 1995, he was also made a professor of biomedical engineering at Hopkins. In 1996, he was named chair of the radiology department at Johns Hopkins. Zerhouni was appointed Executive Vice Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1996, serving as Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs and President of the Clinical Practice Association (1996-1999) and Vice Dean for Research (1999–2002).

During his time at EVMS and Johns Hopkins, Zerhouni engaged in several entrepreneurial ventures. In the early 1980s, he founded Computerized Imaging Reference Systems (a manufacturer of tissue equivalent phantoms for densitometry, calibration, quality control, research, and training in medical imaging and radiation therapy, now part of Mirion Technologies). Zerhouni also founded Advanced Medical Imaging Institute, an integrated outpatient medical imaging center, with different modalities combined into one location. His other ventures included Biopsys Medical (Zerhouni envisioned and co-invented a novel, image-guided, less-invasive breast biopsy method to diagnose breast cancer), which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1997, and American Radiology Services, an innovative expansion of Johns Hopkins outpatient radiology, merging it with competing practices into a unified company with a major share of the market.

Other milestones from this era: Zerhouni served on the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors (1998-2002), was a consultant to the White House under President Ronald Reagan (1985), and was a consultant to the World Health Organization (1988).

National Institutes of Health (2002–2008)

Zerhouni was appointed Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by President George W. Bush. Confirmed by the Senate in April 2002, he served until October 2008. He was the first immigrant to ever hold the title of NIH Director. He led the agency to many key milestones, including:

1. The creation and initiation of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, a new research vision to accelerate medical discovery to improve health. The roadmap was focused on efforts that no single or small group of institutes or centers at NIH could or should conduct on its own.
2. Congress passing (with bipartisan support) and President Bush signing into law the NIH Reform Act of 2006, the agency’s third reauthorization in its history.
3. Supporting the NIH Neuroscience Blueprint.
4. Establishing an NIH-wide research initiative to address the obesity epidemic.
5. Making health disparities (preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or in opportunities to achieve optimal health, experienced by socially disadvantaged racial, ethnic, and other population groups) a research priority.
6. Helping create the Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers, made to address barriers that women in the biomedical workforce uniquely face, which affect their advancement and retention in the field.  
7. Supporting important research related to women’s health, and the completion of a vaccine to help protect against human papillomavirus (HPV).
8. Ensuring public access to NIH-funded research results.
9. The creation of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Program, for high-risk, high-reward, breakthrough science. Under the umbrella of the high-risk, high-reward research supported by the roadmap’s common fund, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award would be joined by the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, established in 2007.
10. Reforming peer review to help increase support for younger, early-stage investigators.

He also oversaw the agency during an era of bioterrorism and pandemic threats (including the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) outbreak).

He currently sits on the Board of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Legion of Honour, Presidential Envoy, Senior Fellow

In 2008, at the Élysée Palace, French President Nicholas Sarkozy awarded Dr. Zerhouni the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit. The award was given to Zerhouni for his roll in helping mend the relationship between the NIH and Pasteur Insitute in France.

In 2009, under the Obama administration, he served as one of the country's first presidential science and technology envoys to foster scientific and technologic collaboration with other nations. He also served as a Senior Fellow for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, from 2009 through 2010.

During this period, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Science magazine launched Science Translational Medicine, of which Zerhouni was a founding editor. He also served on the board of Actelion Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss biotechnology company.

President, Global R&D of Sanofi

Sanofi, a global pharmaceutical company, named Dr. Zerhouni as the Global Head of Research and Development in 2011. He retired from Sanofi in June 2018. During his tenure, he led the transformation of the R&D organization, resulting in marked improvement of R&D productivity, and presided over 30 programs – 11 of which received regulatory approvals and launched commercially, including the blockbuster drug Dupixent. As head of R&D, Zerhouni pushed Sanofi to partner with companies that were at the leading edge of biologics, acquire companies that were at the leading edge of biologics, and try to develop its own proprietary biologic platforms to leapfrog the field. In 2017, Zerhouni was awarded 'Executive of the Year' at the 13th Annual Scrip Awards in London.

Foundation Work and Corporate Boards

Following his retirement from Sanofi, Zerhouni joined a number of boards, including the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, Research!America, and the Lasker Foundation. He also became a founding board member of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), a global partnership of like-minded organizations mobilizing the world against Alzheimer’s disease.

Zerhouni agreed to join the management board of Waypoint Capital (now B-FLEXION, chaired by Ernesto Bertarelli) and he also continued to serve on the board of Danaher Corporation.

ModeX and OPKO Health

In 2020, Zerhouni co-founded ModeX Therapeutics with R&D leaders Gary Nabel, Zhi-yong Yang, Ronnie Wei, Chih-Jen Wei and Elizabeth Nabel. ModeX is a biotechnology company focused on developing innovative multi-specific biologic drugs for cancer and infectious diseases. The ModeX product portfolio includes cancer immunotherapies that combine four specificities into one protein to improve targeting and immune killing, as well as masking or “stealth” technology to improve tumor-specific killing and reduce side effects. For viral diseases, the lead targets of a broad multi-specific antibody portfolio include HIV and SARS-CoV-2, and a vaccine for Epstein-Barr virus is also in development.

In 2022, ModeX was acquired by OPKO Health, and Zerhouni was appointed President and Vice Chairman of the latter. In 2023, ModeX signed a deal with Merck to develop an Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) vaccine. This same year, ModeX was also awarded a contract from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to advance a platform and specific candidates designed to address a range of public health threats in viral infectious diseases. In 2025, ModeX announced dosing of the first participant in the Phase I study of an EBV vaccine candidate being developed in collaboration with Merck.

Awards and international recognition

Zerhouni has advised many world leaders and has won various awards. As a scientist, he has authored over 200 publications, and among other scientific achievements, is credited with developing crucial imaging methods used for diagnosing cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Awards and Honors:

The American Roentgen Ray Society – Gold Medal Award for Scientific Exhibits (in 1985 for Air Contrast CT and in 1987 for High Resolution CT of the Lung)

Paul Lauterbur Award for MRI Research (1989, Cardiac Tissue Tagging by MRI)

Frank T. McClure Fellowship Award (1990-1992, Cardiovascular Disease Research)

Paul Lauterbur Award for MRI Research (1993, The Dependence of MRI intensity on Blood Oxygenation in the Isolated Arrested Blood-Perfused Rabbit Heart.)

Centennial Speaker, Royal Swedish Society of Radiology (September 15–16, 1995)

Fleischner Society Medal (1997, Functional MR and CT Imaging of the Chest)

Elected Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (1998)

Opening Session Keynote Speaker, Radiological Society of North America (1998)

Keynote Lecturer, Garmisch Meeting (1999)

Merrill Sosman Lecturer, Harvard Medical School (2001)

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Biomedical Research (2003)

Johns Hopkins University Heartfest Honoree (2004)

American Association for the Advancement of Science Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award (2004)

Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Woodrow Wilson Award (2005)

Ben Franklin Medal: Pennsylvania College of Physicians and Surgeons (2006)

Clinical Research Forum Leadership Award (2006)

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS/USCIS) Outstanding American by Choice Award (2007)

Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (2007)

Radiology Society of North America, New Horizons Lecturer Award (2007)

French National Order of the Legion of Honor, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor) (2008)

International Congress of Radiology Antoine Béclère Medal (2008)

Ben Qurrah Award from the Arab American Medical Association-Houston Chapter (2008)

Gold Medal Award of the Radiological Society of North America (2010)

Chair of Innovation at the College de France (2011)

Gold Medal Award of the American Roentgen Ray Society (2012)

Honorary Degrees:

Doctor Honoris Causa of the Medical College of Wisconsin, May 16, 2003

Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 21, 2003

Doctor Emeritus of the University of Algiers, April 11, 2005

Doctor Honoris Causa of the Michigan State University, May 6, 2005

Doctor Honoris Causa of the Wake Forest University, May 15, 2006

Memberships:

Zerhouni served on the board of trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

Zerhouni is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and U.S. National Academy of Engineering, an emeritus public trustee on the board of trustees of the Mayo Clinic, a member emeritus (honored member for life) of the Radiological Society of North America, professor emeritus of radiology and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, a member of the board of fellows of Stanford Medicine, a member of the board of directors of Research!America, a member of the board of directors of the Foundation for the NIH, a member of the board of directors of the Lasker Foundation, a founding board member of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, and a member of the French Academy of Medicine.

External links

• Media related to Elias Zerhouni at Wikimedia Commons
• KAUST Board of Trustees
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Elias Zerhouni collected news and commentary at The New York Times