Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni began his tenure as the 15th Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2002. Soon after his arrival, Dr. Zerhouni initiated the creation of a new research vision for the NIH. This vision focuses the attention of the biomedical research community on new pathways of discovery, research teams for the future, and the re-engineering of the clinical research enterprise.

Among his noteworthy achievements as Director of NIH, Dr. Zerhouni has named directors for five institutes, a deputy director, a director of the Office of Technology Transfer, and an associate director of communications. He has also overseen the doubling of the NIH budget.

Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Zerhouni served as Executive Vice Dean of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, and Martin Donner Professor of Radiology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering.  Dr. Zerhouni earned his medical degree from the University Of Algiers School Of Medicine and completed his residency in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins as Chief Resident. 

Dr. Zerhouni's research in imaging led to advances in Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) scanning and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that resulted in 157 peer-reviewed publications and eight patents.

Since 2000, he has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. He served on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors from 1998-2002.