Economics, pathology scholars elected to National Academy of Sciences

Robert Ernest Hall, a professor of economics and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Andrew Fire, a professor of pathology and of genetics in the School of Medicine, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). They were among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates named to the academy April 20 in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Election to membership in the NAS is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer. Established by a congressional act in 1863, NAS is a private organization of scientists and engineers whose 1,949 active members are dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. Upon request, the academy advises the federal government on matters of science and technology.

This year's election brings the total number of Stanford faculty serving on the academy to 131, plus an additional two affiliated with the Hoover Institution.

Robert Ernest Hall is an applied economist with interests in technology, competition, employment and economic policy in the U.S. economy and, in particular, markets, especially computer software markets. His recent research focuses on levels of activity and employment and stock market valuations in market economies, and on the economics of high technology.

Hall earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1964 and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. Before coming to Stanford in 1978, Hall taught at MIT and Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Econometric Society.

In the early 1980s, Hall and Hoover Fellow Alvin Rabushka developed a proposal for comprehensive tax reform that is detailed in their book The Flat Tax. Hall also co-authored Economics: Principles and Applications, now in its third edition, and his most recent book is Digital Dealing: How e-Markets Are Transforming the Economy. Hall has advised a number of government agencies on national economic policy, including the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board. He has served on the National Presidential Advisory Committee on Productivity and has testified many times before congressional committees concerning national economic policy. He also serves as director of the research program on economic fluctuations and growth at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Andrew Fire earned his membership in the National Academy of Sciences as a result of the discovery of a highly effective defense mechanism against foreign DNA.

Fire brought his lab to Stanford in 2003 from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, along with a supply of nearly see-though 1-millimeter worms called Caenorhabditis elegans. It was in these worms that Fire and his colleagues uncovered molecules that trigger a mechanism called RNA interference, or RNAi, which is now used routinely for understanding what role a gene plays in a cell.

In RNAi, short RNA molecules prevent protein from being made from a given gene. This mechanism can eliminate that gene's function and help geneticists understand what role that gene normally plays in the cell. The mechanism is also being tested as part of gene therapy approaches for treating disease.

Fire and his colleague Craig Mello at the University of Massachusetts published a Nature paper in 1998 describing the mechanism of RNAi. Since that time, RNAi has been found to work in a wide range of animal cells, including human cells.

In his current work, Fire is piecing together the cellular steps involved in RNAi and related genetic control mechanisms.