College of Medicine's Highest Honor Awarded

CINCINNATI—The University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine on Sunday, May 25, presented two alumni and one current faculty member with the college’s highest honor, the Daniel Drake Medal.

The Daniel Drake Medal, established in 1985, is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Medicine and is given annually to living faculty or alumni for their outstanding and unique contributions to medical education, scholarship and research. The medal is named for Daniel Drake, who in 1819 founded the Medical College of Ohio, the precursor to today’s UC College of Medicine.

Drake Medal recipients for 2014 are John O’Shea Jr., MD, graduate of the College of Medicine’s class of 1978 and director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; Richard Steketee, MD, a 1976 College of Medicine graduate and current science director of the Malaria Control Program at PATH, a Seattle-based not-for-profit public health organization; and Arnold Strauss, MD, who is completing his term as Rachford Professor and Chair of Pediatrics at UC and director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation and chief medical officer of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

O’Shea, Steketee and Strauss received their medals during a ceremony and dinner at the Queen City Club Sunday, May 25. Their names, along with biographies and photos, have been added to the permanent Daniel Drake Medal exhibit in the Medical Sciences Building on UC’s medical campus.

2014 Daniel Drake Medal Recipients

John O’Shea Jr., MD
John O’Shea Jr., MD, graduated from the UC College of Medicine in 1978 and completed his residency in internal medicine at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center. He received subspecialty training at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Currently director of the Intramural Research Program at the NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, O’Shea has made fundamental discoveries related to the basic mechanisms underlying cytokine signal transduction, molecules that are critical for the development and functioning of the immune system. A four-time winner of the NIH Director’s Award, O’Shea made discoveries that have led to an approved therapy for rheumatoid arthritis—the first oral therapy approved in a decade.

Arnold "Arnie” Strauss, MD
Arnold "Arnie” Strauss, MD, received his undergraduate degree cum laude in philosophy from Stanford University and completed his medical degree in 1970 at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007, following careers at Washington University and Vanderbilt University, Strauss joined the UC College of Medicine as Rachford Professor and Chair of Pediatrics and became director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation and chief medical officer of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Strauss’ research interests include mechanisms underlying genetic disorders of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and myocardial energetics. A member of the Institute of Medicine, he was recognized for his research in 1991 by the E. Mead Johnson Award for Excellence in Pediatric Research and in 2006 with the Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association.

Richard Steketee, MD, MPH
Richard Steketee, MD, MPH, a 1976 UC College of Medicine graduate, is an internationally recognized leader in global health and malaria prevention, control and elimination. He is currently the science director of the Malaria Control Program at PATH, a Seattle-based not-for-profit public health organization, and the principal investigator of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa program. Steketee previously spent 21 years at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he worked nationally and globally in infectious diseases, focusing on malaria, HIV and maternal and child health issues. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Service Medal and nine additional Commendation and Service Medals from the U.S. Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services.