Skip to main content

Miriam O. Adelson, a physician and expert in drug addiction research, is elected to the Board

by Alexandra MacWade, assistant editor

The university’s Board of Trustees elected new member Miriam O. Adelson, a doctor of internal medicine and an expert in drug addiction research, at their June 1 meeting. With her election, the university has 48 voting trustees.

Miriam O. Adelson

Miriam O. Adelson

Dr. Adelson is the chairman and cofounder of the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment and Research. The first clinic was established in 1993 and is located in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the second was established in 2000 and is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both clinics have treated thousands of heroin and cocaine addicts using methadone pharmacotherapy as well as psychosocial treatment.

Dr. Adelson, who has published numerous scientific papers about drug addiction, is also a guest investigator in Rockefeller’s Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases, headed by Mary Jeanne Kreek. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Kreek’s pioneering work in the development of methadone maintenance therapy.

Before founding the clinics, Dr. Adelson was head physician of internal medicine and emergency medicine at Rokach (Hadassah) Hospital in Tel Aviv. A native of Haifa, Israel, she earned her B.S. in microbiology and genetics from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After graduating, she served two years in the Israel Defense Forces in the area of biological research. From there, she earned her M.D., magna cum laude, from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine.

Since 1986, Dr. Adelson has served as a guest investigator at Rockefeller. Between 1986 and 1989, she also worked as an associate physician at the university.

Dr. Adelson is married to Sheldon G. Adelson, a philanthropist and chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, developers of several integrated resorts in the United States and Asia, and is a mother to four children.