The 2010 award application deadline has passed.
Recipient Notification: March 2010
Award Period: July 1, 2010 - June 30, 2013
The ALF Liver Scholar Award* is a three-year, basic science award that endeavors to encourage young investigators to pursue a career in liver-related research. The goal of the ALF Liver Scholar Award is to provide young scientists with support for their research to bridge the gap between completion of research training and attainment of status as an independent research scientist. The additional research experience provided by this award is intended to enable them to successfully compete for research grants from national sources, particularly the NIH. The long-term goal is to attract well-trained investigators, who hold MD, PhD or MD/PhD degrees, to a career in liver disease research.
*AASLD provides financial support for the AASLD/ALF Liver Scholar Awards.
The 2009 recipients of the AASLD/ALF Liver Scholar Awards are:
Dr. Alexander G. Miethke, sponsored by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and mentored by Dr. Jorge A. Bezerra, for his research project entitled Regulatory T Cells and the Pathogenesis of Biliary Atresia. Upon completion of postdoctoral studies at the Institute for Anatomy, Free University Berlin, Dr. Miethke joined Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center for his pediatric internship and residency. He then continued on to hold fellowships in pediatric gastroenterology and transplant hepatology under the mentorship of Dr. Bezerra and Dr. William Balistreri respectively. Dr. Miethke's goal during the award period is to develop a research program that addresses mechanistic questions about pathogenesis of biliary injury and to discover non-transplant treatment options for immune-mediated bile-duct injury in children.
Dr. Ekihiro Seki, sponsored by the University of California, San Diego and mentored by Dr. David A. Brenner, for his research project entitled Innate Immunity Regulates Hepatic Fibrosis. Dr. Seki began his career in liver research in Japan at the Hyogo College of Medicine, where he held his surgery residency and received his PhD in immunology. Upon completion of his PhD work he joined Dr. Brenner's laboratory at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research fellow. Dr. Seki will be drawing on his experience in both clinical and basic science to better understand the molecular pathophysiology of liver diseases with long-term goals of finding clinically relevant concepts of disease mechanisms and novel approaches to therapy.
AASLD thanks the New Challenges – New Solutions Campaign donors whose support makes the 2009 AASLD Liver Scholar Awards possible. This includes independent educational grants from: Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals/Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, The Roche Foundation, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Additional support for the 2009 AASLD Liver Scholar Awards from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences is gratefully acknowledged.
AASLD is also providing support for this program from its own operating funds.
Current AASLD Liver Scholars
2008 - 2011
Costica Aloman, MD
Mount Sinai Medical School
2007 – 2010
Rongze Yang, MD, PhD
University of Maryland Baltimore
Project Title: Isoform-Specific ALT Assay and its Application in Liver Disease
Carlo Spirli, PhD
Yale University
Project Title: Epithelial Angiogenic Signaling in Polycystic Diseases of the Liver
Previous AASLD Liver Scholars
Dr. Bradley Aouizerat (2004)
Dr. Ana J Coito (2001)
Dr. Antonia Follenzi (2005)
Dr. David N Frick (2001)
Dr. Lynette A. Gillis (2006)
Dr. Arumugam R Jayakumar (2005)
Dr. Mauricio Loureiro-Silva (2003)
Dr. Li Wang (2006)