Dr. John Ruffin, newly appointed director of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Gary J. Gibbons, director of the Morehouse Cardiovascular Research Institute, will discuss the health disparities of African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and other minorities at a meeting from 8:30 AM until lunch on Friday, May 4, at the NC Biotechnology Center, 15 TW Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

The meeting is sponsored by the Student National Medical Association, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Ruffin has dedicated his career to improving the health status of minority populations in the U.S. and to developing and supporting education programs for minority researchers and health care practitioners. Before joining NIH in 1990, he was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at North Carolina Central University (http://www.nccu.edu/) . Dr. Ruffin will speak at 8:55 AM.

ARRANGEMENTS CAN BE MADE FOR INTERVIEWS - CALL 919-605-6783.

In addition to serving as director of the Morehouse Cardiovascular Research Institute, Dr. Gibbons has been selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Minority Faculty Development Awardee, a PEW Foundation  Biomedical Scholar and an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association. He serves on editorial boards for Circulation Research (http://circres.ahajournals.org/) , Circulation , and Hypertension.

Dr. Gibbons will participate in a discussion of Health Disparities Research, with John Bartlett of Duke University, Patricia Rivera of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Dr. Perry Blackshear, NIEHS's Clinical Director. The panel discussion begins at 9:35 AM. at the NC Biotechnology Center, 15 TW Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC. Directions to the Biotechnology Center are available at http://www.ncbiotech.org/regions . Parking is available anywhere not reserved for the handicapped.