American Society of Transplantation Welcomes Dr. James Allan as President
(PRWEB) May 19, 2015 -- The American Society of Transplantation (AST) introduced its newly elected 2015-2016 board members at the recent American Transplant Congress in Philadelphia. James S. Allan, MD, MBA, was inducted as president and will serve a one-year term in office.
Originally from Pittsburgh, Dr. Allan earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard, and completed residencies in Surgery and Thoracic Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Dr. Allan also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in transplantation immunology at the Center for Transplantation Sciences at MGH and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Allan is on the active clinical staff in Thoracic Surgery at MGH. He also serves as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital and as the Associate Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the North Shore Medical Center-Salem Hospital. His clinical interests include the surgical management of benign and malignant diseases of the lungs and esophagus, with an emphasis on lung cancer, esophageal cancer, chest trauma, hyperhidrosis, and lung transplantation.
Dr. Allan has been a continuously funded NIH principal investigator since 2002 in the area of lung transplantation, and he has received numerous other grants, awards, and patents for his research. He is the co-director of the Cardiothoracic Transplantation Laboratory in the MGH Center for Transplantation Sciences. His current research focuses on developing strategies to promote the long-term acceptance of transplanted organs without the need for immunosuppression. He is published in the fields of human physiology, thoracic surgery, and transplantation, with special expertise in the experimental use of large-animal models in cardiothoracic transplantation.
Dr. Allan has been actively involved with numerous committees since joining the AST in 2000. He was elected to the board of directors in 2011, serving as a councilor-at-large for three years prior to assuming the role of president-elect in 2014. He has chaired the Membership Committee, the Thoracic Transplantation Committee, and the AST-TSFRE Award Taskforce, and served on the 2007 and 2008 ATC Planning Committees, among others.
"My participation with the AST has been the most personally and professionally rewarding activity of my career," said Dr. Allan. "As I have progressed in leadership roles within the society, I have been consistently impressed by the people I have met who share my passion for serving our patients and the field of transplantation. I am honored to serve the AST as president and promise to commit my full energy and focus to this important endeavor."
Dr. Allan’s goals for his presidency include engaging with patients and the public in support of the AST’s mission, establishing new approaches to funding transplantation research, and advocating for the removal of financial disincentives to organ donation.
Other new members of the AST Board’s Executive Committee include President-elect Anil Chandraker, MD, Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Secretary Ronald Gill, PhD, Scientific Director of the CCTCARE at the University of Colorado. Four new councilors-at-large were also announced: John Gill, MD, MS; Deepali Kumar, MD; Jesse Schold, PhD, M Stat, MEd.; and Alexander Wiseman, MD.
For more information on AST, please visit: http://www.myAST.org.
About AST
The American Society of Transplantation (AST) is an organization of transplant professionals dedicated to advancing the field of transplantation and improving patient care by promoting research, education, advocacy, and organ donation. The Society comprises more than 3,500 transplant professionals, including physicians, surgeons, scientists, nurses, administrators, and other allied health professionals. For more information about AST, please visit http://www.myAST.org.
Cate Girone, American Society of Transplantation, http://www.myAST.org, +1 (856) 793-0796, [email protected]
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