Olden announces retirement from NIEHS

The director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Kenneth Olden, announced on July 29 that he will step down from the agency as well as resign as director of the National Toxicology Program in order to spend more time with his family and to do his own research. Olden, who has headed the National Institute of Health’s environmental arm for 12 years, will remain in office until a replacement is named.

Olden earned a B.S. at Knoxville College, an M.S. from the University of Michigan and, in 1970, a doctorate in biology from Temple University in Philadelphia. He did much of the research for that doctorate at the University of Rochester, where he was presented a second doctorate - the honorary degree of Doctor of Sciences, this past May.

A cell biologist and biochemist, Olden was active in research into the properties of cell surface molecules and their roles in human cancer at Harvard University and the National Cancer Institute. In 1985, he became director of the Howard University Cancer Center and professor and chairman of the Howard Department of Oncology. While serving there he was appointed to NIEHS.

The first African American to head a part of the NIH, Olden helped launch the 50,000-woman "Sister Study," the largest study of its type seeking to find both environmental and genetic clues to breast cancer. He also promoted the use of genetic tools to determine people’s varying susceptibility to environmental hazards.

His honors include appointment by President George H. W. Bush to membership on the National Cancer Advisory Board, membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; the Calver Award from the American Public Health Association; the HHS Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award; the President’s Meritorious and Distinguished Executive Awards, and the American College of Toxicology’s First Distinguished Service Award.

Source: NIEHS press release, July 29, 2003