Sarah Hamm-Alvarez, the Gavin S. Herbert Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been appointed chair of the National Institutes of Health Gene and Drug Delivery Systems Study Section of the Center for Scientific Review. Her two-year term begins on July 1.

The Gene and Drug Delivery Systems Study Section considers grant applications to the NIH that focus on the development and delivery of drugs, genes and gene products to living organisms. According to the study section’s description on the NIH Web site, “research grant applications driven by bioengineering principle, design or validation, but not necessarily driven by hypothesis, are expected.”

As chair, Hamm-Alvarez will lead a group of nearly 20 scientists based across the country. She will continue here at USC while performing her study section duties, which include direction of the group’s meetings that ultimately assign a score to grants under consideration.

Hamm-Alvarez, chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is known for her work in “drug trafficking,” specializing on routes in and out of the tear gland. Her research focuses on diseases of the eye, such as Sjogren’s syndrome, attempting to find ways to put the proper molecules in the right place at the right time.

Hamm-Alvarez’s work has been consecutively funded by the NIH since 1994. Her lab collaborates with other schools at USC, most frequently with the Keck School of Medicine of USC, as well as with labs throughout the world.