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Maria C. Freire, Ph.D. is President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, and is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Carreer
Prior to her appointment to the Lasker Foundation, Dr. Freire served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development from 2001 to 2007.

Dr. Freire directed the Office of Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health from 1995 to 2001, where she oversaw the transfer of federally funded technology from the not-for-profit sector to the for-profit sector and ensured continuing availability of technology as to not limit basic research or encumber future products for public benefit. Prior to that, Dr. Freire established and headed the Office of Technology Development at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

In 2008, Dr. Freire was elected to the Institute of Medicine. She also served as a member of the Commission of Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health of the World Health Organization and on the International Advisory Committee for the Instituto Carso de la Salud.

Education
A native of Lima, Peru, Dr. Freire trained at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. She received a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Virginia and completed post-graduate work in immunology and virology at the University of Virginia and at the University of Tennessee, respectively. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship as well as two AAAS Congressional Science Fellowships, sponsored by the Biophysical Society and the American Society for Photobiology.

Selected Awards

 * 1999 Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service
 * 1999 Arthur S. Flemming Award
 * 2002 Bayh-Dole Award, Association of University Technology Transfer Managers (AUTM).