Frank L. Douglas

Douglas was born April 30, 1943, in Georgetown, Guyana.^{[citation needed]} He graduated with a BS in Engineering from Lehigh University in 1966.^[1] He went on to a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University, which he received at the beginning of 1973, with a thesis on chlorophyll-a.^[2] After a brief stint working at Xerox,^[3] Douglas moved to New York City to pursue a medical degree from the Cornell University Medical School.^[1] After finishing the MD, Douglas completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution, and a fellowship in neuroendocrinology at the National Institutes of Health.^[1]

Following his fellowship, Douglas took a position as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, in which role he remained for 5 years.^[3] At this time, he also began work at the pharmaceutical company Ciba-Geigy.^[3] In 1992, he moved as an executive vice president to Marion Merrell Dow, where he remained as it was acquired and changed names to Hoechst Marion Roussel, and later to Aventis.^{[3][4][better source needed]}

In 2005, Douglas left Aventis and took a position as a professor of the practice at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was involved in founding the Center for Biomedical Innovation.^[3][5][6] After 2 years at MIT, he resigned over concerns about institutional racism, particularly regarding the tenure-denial of James Sherley.^[5][7][8][9]

In 2009, Douglas moved to Akron, Ohio, to serve as president and CEO of the Austen BioInnovation Institute.^[10][11][12] He left the institute at the beginning of 2015.^[10][13]

Douglas published an autobiography in 2018, titled Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream.

• Douglas, Frank L. (2018). Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream. Dorrance Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4809-9481-2.^[14]