Baylor Names New President, CEO

A high-ranking pharmaceutical company executive is the new president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine, effective March 1. The announcement was made during a Jan. 29 press conference.

Following an extensive, national search, Peter Traber, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer at the drug giant GlaxoSmith-Kline, was selected to head the college, which ranks No. 1 among all U.S. colleges and universities in biological science research expenditures and No. 7 among the country’s medical schools in grants awarded from the National Institutes of Health.

Traber, 47, says he plans to maintain Baylor’s already top-tier status as a major player in the world of academic medicine.

“I want institutions throughout the world to look up to and be positively influenced by Baylor,” Traber said. “It’s my hope that every discipline in that school up north – Harvard School of Medicine – will ask the question, ‘How do they do it in Houston?’”

This goal can be achieved, Traber said, by recruiting premier talent, collaborating with other Texas Medical Center institutions, and positioning Baylor as the ‘intellectual engine’ behind various pharmaceutical and biotech endeavors.

“There’s a lot more academic medicine can do in terms of partnering with commercial endeavors. There’s a lot of talent to be tapped here,” he said.

A gastroenterologist specializing in colon cancer and a national leader in gastrointestinal molecular research, Traber is in charge of worldwide clinical development programs for GlaxoSmithKline’s phase II, III and IV studies.

Prior to joining the pharmaceutical company, he served as chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia. Before being promoted to CEO, he held several positions at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, including interim dean, chair of the department of internal medicine, and chief of gastroenterology. Under his leadership, the department of internal medicine was ranked third in the nation in NIH funding, and featured prominently in U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey of top medical schools.

“I can tell you this is a man we’re going to be very proud of,” said Corbin J. Robertson Jr., chairman of Baylor’s board of trustees. “Everyone has offered stellar remarks about Dr. Traber above and beyond any I’ve ever heard, and I’ve checked a lot of references in my day,” Robertson said of the job search.

Traber, who made the decision to accept Baylor’s top job only 24 hours prior to the press conference with “snow fluttering down onto the ground in Philadelphia,” says his family is eager to relocate to Houston. He and his wife Bobbi, an anesthesiologist and hospital administrator, have a 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

“My daughter, an avid horseback rider, is delighted at the size of the equine population in Texas,” Traber said. “My son, who loves sports of all types, is excited about the prospect of playing fields and golf courses that are green year-round.”

Traber succeeds Ralph Feigin, M.D., who has served as Baylor’s president and CEO since 1996. Feigin will continue as chairman of pediatrics at Baylor and physician in chief at Texas Children’s Hospital, a dual position he has fulfilled for 26 years. Under his leadership, Baylor and Texas Children’s earned towering reputations as world leaders in academic medicine and pediatric clinical care.

Traber is the college’s fourth president and the first chosen from outside Baylor to lead the college. Baylor’s three previous presidents, who were all present during the press conference, include heart surgery pioneer and Baylor’s Chancellor Emeritus Michael DeBakey, M.D., who was president from 1969 to 1979; immunologist William T. Butler, M.D., who held the presidency from 1979 to 1996; and pediatrician and infectious disease specialist Feigin, who held the role from 1996 to this year.

Traber earned his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit in 1981. He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. In addition, he completed a fellowship in gastroenterology research at the University of Michigan Medical School, and in 1997, finished the Management Development Program for Physician Executives at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. As an undergraduate, he attended the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship and played backup tight end on the 1976 Orange Bowl team.

---

©2006 Texas Medical Center

---

E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu
URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/02_15_03/page_03.html