National Academy of Medicine welcomes 3 new UCLA faculty members

Health economist Susan Ettner, whose research has revealed deep connections between income and health; physician-scientist Donald Kohn, a pioneer in gene therapies for children with life-threatening diseases; and cancer researcher Dennis Slamon, whose discoveries have transformed breast cancer treatment, have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

The three UCLA faculty members join 97 other distinguished researchers and health professionals from the U.S. and around the world in the class of 2026, the academy announced today.

Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors in medicine, recognizing outstanding professional achievement and a commitment to service. New members are chosen by their peers for major contributions to medical science, healthcare and public health.

"I am thrilled to welcome these outstanding health and medicine leaders into the National Academy of Medicine," said Monica M. Bertagnolli, president of the academy. "Their extraordinary talent and commitment to advancing evidence-based guidance and solutions for our country's greatest healthcare challenges will strengthen our efforts to improve health for all."

Established in 1970 as the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Medicine is one of three academies, along with the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation on critical issues in science, medicine, health and public policy.

Susan Ettner, Ph.D.
-Distinguished professor in the division of general internal medicine and health services research , department of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
-Distinguished professor in the department of health policy and management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
-Dean emerita of graduate education, UCLA

Ettner is a health economist whose pioneering research has helped establish the connections between socioeconomic status and health. Her work has advanced the field of behavioral health economics and helped inform policies designed to improve access to mental health and substance-use disorder treatment while reducing financial barriers to care.

Among her foundational contributions, Ettner was the first researcher to apply innovative statistical methods to measure the causal relationship between income and multiple measures of physical and mental health. Her research has helped clarify how economic circumstances affect health outcomes and how insurance coverage can ease the financial burden of behavioral health treatment.

More recently, Ettner led a comprehensive evaluation, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, of the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires certain health insurance plans to provide comparable coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatment and medical and surgical care. Her research demonstrated that the legislation significantly improved insurance coverage and treatment for mental health and substance use disorders.

"I am truly honored to accept this tremendous recognition of my work establishing the deep connections between socioeconomic status and health and the critical role of insurance policy in ensuring financial access to behavioral healthcare," Ettner said. "As a first-generation college graduate and University of California alum whose research aspirations were realized only through the support of my undergraduate faculty mentor, it is especially meaningful to be recognized for my work while serving as a UC faculty member myself."

Ettner joined UCLA in 1999 after serving on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. She has authored more than 230 peer-reviewed publications and served as principal investigator on 34 research grants or sub-awards. In 2021, she was recognized as one of the most highly cited researchers in her field.

She previously served as UCLA's dean of graduate education, overseeing more than 12,000 graduate students in more than 130 academic and professional degree programs. Ettner earned bachelor's degrees from UC Santa Barbara and a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

► Read more about Ettner's election on the UCLA Health website and the UCLA Fielding School website.

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Donald B. Kohn, M.D.
-Distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, UCLA College
-Distinguished professor of pediatrics and of molecular and medical pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Kohn is a physician-scientist whose pioneering work in blood stem cell gene therapy has opened new possibilities for treating children with life-threatening immune and blood disorders.

A member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Kohn has spent nearly four decades developing treatments that use patients' own genetically modified stem cells to correct the underlying causes of disease.

Among his most significant achievements is the development of a gene therapy for adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency, or ADA-SCID, a rare inherited disorder that leaves children without a functioning immune system. Kohn and his colleagues treated their first patient with gene therapy in 1993 and have spent more than three decades refining a technique that inserts a healthy copy of the defective gene into a patient's blood-forming stem cells, enabling the body to produce healthy immune cells. Long-term results published in 2025 showed that the treatment restored and maintained immune function in 59 of 62 children.

Kohn also led UCLA's participation in a multicenter clinical trial of a gene therapy for severe leukocyte adhesion deficiency-I, another potentially fatal inherited immune disorder. In March 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment, known as Kresladi, after all nine children in the trial survived and showed sustained restoration of immune function. It became the first FDA-approved therapy for the disorder and the first gene therapy Kohn had helped develop to receive FDA approval.

A pediatric bone marrow transplant physician, Kohn has focused on developing treatments that can eliminate the need for matched donors and reduce the risks associated with traditional transplants. His laboratory continues to investigate gene therapies and gene-editing technologies for sickle cell disease and other inherited disorders.

"It's a great recognition of a lifetime of work and research," Kohn said of his election. "We don't do this to get awards - we do it because we're trying to accomplish something for our patients."

Kohn joined UCLA in 2009 and has served as president of both the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and the Clinical Immunology Society. His honors include career achievement awards from the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy and the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium.

► Read more about Kohn's election on the Broad Stem Cell Research Center website.

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Dennis J. Slamon, M.D., Ph.D.
-Professor and chief of the division of hematology-oncology, department of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
-Director of clinical and translational research, UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Slamon is a pioneering cancer researcher whose discoveries have transformed the treatment of breast cancer and helped establish targeted therapies as a cornerstone of modern cancer care. His work demonstrated that treatments aimed at the specific molecular drivers of cancer can improve patients' outcomes while limiting damage to healthy cells.

In the 1980s, Slamon and his colleagues discovered that the HER2 gene plays a critical role in driving the growth of an aggressive form of breast cancer that accounts for approximately 20% of cases. That finding laid the groundwork for the development of trastuzumab, marketed as Herceptin, a drug designed to target cancer cells carrying excess amounts of the HER2 protein. Slamon led the first human clinical trials of the drug at UCLA in 1990, and it received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 1998. Since then, Herceptin has been used to treat nearly 3.5 million people worldwide, significantly improving survival for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Slamon also helped pioneer another major advance in breast cancer treatment: drugs known as CDK4/6 inhibitors, which block proteins involved in cancer cell division. His research contributed to the development of palbociclib (Ibrance) and ribociclib (Kisqali), which have substantially improved outcomes for patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, the most common form of the disease.

Over more than four decades at UCLA, Slamon has continued to lead international clinical trials of new cancer treatments, including next-generation HER2-targeted therapies and approaches to overcoming drug resistance. His many honors include the 2026 Albany Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research, the Sjöberg Prize and the Canada Gairdner International Award.

"It is a tremendous honor to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine and to be recognized alongside so many individuals whose work has advanced medicine," Slamon said. "This recognition reflects the dedication of the many researchers, clinicians and patients who have been part of our work over the years. Seeing these discoveries translate into treatments that have made a meaningful difference in patients' lives has been the most rewarding part of my career."

► Read more about Slamon's election on the UCLA Health website.