There are thirteen medical professionals who may not always be very visible to you as readers, but who are very visible to the members of the Board of Directors. They very generously lend us their expertise as consultants on difficult questions from members, in the writing or reviewing of material for this newsletter, in presenting or helping design presentations for our annual meeting, and in advising us on various aspects of our programming. We continue here the introductions begun in the September issue. We have purposely sought out people with depth and breadth of experience with VHL — people whose formal training has been enriched by working with a number of patients with VHL over a number of years.

John A. Libertino, M.D.

Dr. Libertino is Chairman of the Institute of Urology at the Lahey Clinic, Burlington, Massachusetts. He has written or co-authored some 85 articles, has contributed to nearly forty textbooks, and has edited or co-edited another five textbooks. He is the series editor of the textbook series International Perspectives in Urology.

Educated at New York University and Georgetown University School of Medicine, he did his internship at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, and his residency in urology at Yale-New Haven Medical Center in New Haven, Connecticut. He was awarded a Cardiovascular Research Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, and the Harvey Cushing Fellowship in Surgery at Yale University School of Medicine.

Dr. Libertino serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the VHL Family Alliance.

W. Marston Linehan, M.D.

Dr. Linehan is Head, Urologic Surgery, Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Linehan is author or co-author on over 170 scientific publications published or In Press, most dealing with kidney cancer. His primary work is the study of the genetic basis of familial and sporadic kidney cancer. This work, which began eleven years ago with Dr. Berton Zbar, led to the discovery of the VHL gene. Dr. Linehan is currently studying the VHL gene and performing studies to determine why inactivation of this gene leads to von Hippel-Lindau disease and how this knowledge will lead to better forms of diagnosis, prevention and therapy of this disease. Dr. Linehan is initiating clinical trials to evaluate new forms of preventative therapies in patients with von Hippel-Lindau disease.

Andrew C. Novick, M.S., MDCM

A native of Canada, Dr. Andrew Novick has been with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation since 1974. He graduated in 1972 from McGill University in Montreal with a combined degree in Science and Medicine. After completing residencies in Montreal, he went to Cleveland for his Urology residency, and has continued on their staff. He is Chairman of the Department of Urology and Professor of Surgery at Ohio State University School of Medicine. He has served as head of the Section of Renal Transplantation (1977-1991), and as Chairman of the Organ Transplantation Center (1985-1992).

He is an active member of the American Urological Association and has led studies in various management techniques for renal cell carcinoma, including a movie on "Partial Nephrectomy for Renal Carcinoma" (1987), and evaluations of the effectiveness of Interleukin-6 and ALT versus Interferon Alpha. Drs. Novick and Libertino collaborated on a volume on Adrenal Surgery (Urologic Clinics of North America, vol. 16, no. 3, August 1989). His ten-year study of von Hippel-Lindau has been published in the Journal of Urology.

As published in the VHL Family Forum, 3:2, June 1995. For permission to reprint, please contact the VHL Family Alliance, editor@vhl.org. Further information is available from the VHL Family Alliance, info@vhl.org