Bonnie Ramsey receives major award from CF Foundation

Dr. Bonnie Ramsey, professor of pediatrics and director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center and the UW, received the highest national award of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Saturday, Oct. 9, during the foundation’s annual North American CF Conference in Seattle. She is also principal investigator of the CFF-funded Research Development Program at the UW and associate director of the NIH-funded Core Center for Gene Therapy.

Bonnie Ramsey

Ramsey was presented with the Paul di Sant’ Agnese Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award for her work both as a physician and as a clinical researcher. The presentation was made at a gala dinner event and was planned as a surprise to Ramsey.

“This award is the most prestigious tribute that the CF Foundation can offer a physician/scientist,” said Dr. Robert Beall, president and chief executive officer of the foundation. “Dr. Ramsey is clearly the best of the best—an example, mentor and innovator—to whom everyone in the CF community should be grateful. Her dedication has, and continues, to improve the lives of not only her patients, but thousands of others as well.”

Ramsey’s contributions have significantly improved the quality of life for people with CF, the foundation noted. For example, she led the revolutionary studies that produced the first aerosolized antibiotic used to treat lung infections in CF patients.

She was recently recruited by the CF Foundation to direct its Therapeutics Development Network and its Coordinating Center, both based at Children’s in Seattle. As director of the Therapeutics Development Network, Ramsey oversees the foundation’s most ambitious clinical research initiative, with the goal of reducing the time and costs for development of new CF drugs. The National Institutes of Health last spring awarded the Seattle Coordinating Center additional support for its innovative approach to biostatistical and data management infrastructure for multicenter trials in diseases such as CF.

Ramsey has worked closely with the CF Foundation since 1983. Today she holds several positions with the foundation, including vice chair of its national Medical Advisory Council and member of the Board of Trustees.

A graduate of Stanford who earned her M.D. degree at Harvard, Ramsey came to the UW as a resident in pediatrics in 1978.

Among previous honors, she has had a 928-ton oil barge christened the “Bonnie R” in honor of her research work and she received the Doris Tulcin Award from the University of Alabama School of Medicine for Research in CF.

The Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award is given to researchers whose efforts have reshaped the direction of CF medicine. It has been presented only six times before. Dr. Paul di Sant’ Agnese, for whom the award is named, developed the sweat test for elevated levels of salt in 1953. It remains an important diagnostic tool.

Cystic fibrosis is a complex genetic disease that affects about 30,000 children and adults in the United States. Although improved treatment has extended lifetimes for those with CF, the disease remains a fatal one. ¶