For the first time in two decades, the president and president-elect of the American Society of Transplantation are colleagues in the same institution — the University of Alabama at Birmingham, home to one of the nation’s busiest kidney transplant programs.
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| Robert Gaston. |
Robert S. Gaston, M.D., medical director of kidney and pancreas transplant at UAB, was inducted as president of the society for 2011-2012 earlier this month at AST annual meeting, and Roslyn Mannon, M.D., director of research for the Comprehensive Transplant Institute at UAB, became president-elect.
“I look forward to a challenging, productive year,” Gaston says. “As president, I will continue to position the society as a leading voice on transplantation, collaborate with other organizations on key initiatives and promote increased funding for transplant-related research.”
“This is a wonderful recognition of the excellence of the UAB transplant programs,” Mannon says. “We provide our patients with outstanding multidisciplinary support and superb outcomes, and we continue to be at the forefront of scientific advances in the field. In the 30-year history of the society, there has been only one other occurrence of presidents serving back-to-back from the same institution. I am honored to represent our institution as well as the unique constituencies of the AST.”
Gaston, who joined UAB as its first fellow in transplant medicine, now is an endowed professor of transplant medicine. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 articles, chapters and abstracts in transplantation literature, and he also was an associate editor of the American Journal of Transplantation from 2003-06.
Gaston is a member of other medical organizations, including the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, The Transplantation Society and the American Society of Nephrology. He also is on the scientific and technical advisory committee of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients and has directed various task forces on diabetes mellitus, access to transplantation and living donor follow-up. Gaston has been listed as one of American’s Top Physicians and the Best Doctors in America for several years.
Mannon was medical director of transplantation, a translational research program in transplantation immunology, for NIDDK at the National Institutes of Health before she joined the UAB faculty in August 2008.
Mannon, a councilor-at-large and a member of numerous AST committees, also is a member of the American Society of Nephrology and The Transplantation Society. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles and reviews on immune monitoring, chronic allograft injury, transplantation complications and tolerance trials, and is an associate editor for the American Journal of Transplantation.