June 9, 2000

Greg Koski, PhD, MD, has been appointed to lead a new national office charged with protecting the welfare of human participants in research studies. Koski, who is MGH director of Human Research Affairs and holds a similar position at Partners, was named director of the Office for Human Research Protections in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) June 6. He will take a leave of absence from his MGH and Partners positions to accept the new responsibilities.

"This appointment is an incredible opportunity and an enormous challenge," Koski says. "The protection of human research participants is a responsibility that must be shared by everyone involved in the research endeavor, and I'm hopeful that we can bring truly meaningful change in a collaborative manner to how we carry out that responsibility."

"Greg Koski is the right person with the right experience at the right time to take on this challenge," says Donna Shalala, HHS secretary. "He knows how to make institutions and investigators sit up and respond fully to the needs of patients in research."

Koski has overseen human studies at the MGH since 1991, when he became executive secretary for Human Studies and chair of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). "Over the past 10 years, Greg has developed a collegial and collaborative approach to the IRB process that has displaced the kinds of adversarial tensions that often characterize the review and approval processes," says Ronald Newbower, PhD, MGH senior vice president for Research Affairs.

Appointed to his current MGH post in 1996, Koski took on similar responsibilities for Partners in 1998. In that position, he led the integration of human studies activities across the Partners system, working to develop an innovative IRB structure and process for both teaching hospitals and for Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare. The program now includes the Partners-affiliated community hospitals and more than 1,000 community-based physicians in Partners Community HealthCare Inc. (PCHI).

Samuel O. Thier, MD, Partners president and CEO, says that one of Partners' goals is to create a system that can serve as a national model. "Greg has built such a model through his leadership of Partnerswide human studies activities," says Thier. "I couldn't think of a better person to represent on a national basis the kind of excellence that he has created at Partners."

Adds James J. Mongan, MD, MGH president: "The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in our research mission. Under Greg's leadership our human studies activities have not only kept up with this growth, they have led the way in dealing with the complex challenges of clinical research in the 21st century."

Koski is a cardiac anesthesiologist and associate professor of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Warren Zapol, MD, chief of MGH Anesthesia and Critical Care, says: "Greg is a man of the highest ethical standards and has the utmost respect of physicians and investigators throughout our system. His departure is a great loss to our department, but I am delighted he is bringing his ethical compass to benefit research and patients throughout the country."