March 14 (Reuters) - Dr. Margaret Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner with expertise in food safety and battling disease outbreaks, is President Barack Obama's nominee for Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
Here are some facts about her:
* Hamburg is currently a senior scientist at the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, which works to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
* Hamburg is a former Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, one of the National Institutes of Health.
* She is also a former Health and Human Services Department adviser on policy and regulations.
* Hamburg is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, with an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center.
* As New York health commissioner she set up bioterrorism, tuberculosis control, childhood immunization and needle-exchange initiatives -- achievements that make her a sought-after speaker at meetings on biological threats and infectious diseases.
* She is on the board for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Nanotechnology is currently virtually unregulated in the United States.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Vicki Allen)