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ASN honors nephrologists with annual awards
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SAN DIEGO — Educational innovators and preeminent researchers were among the leaders in nephrology honored at ASN Kidney Week.
During a plenary session focused on special awards, ASN honored the following individuals.
Nancy Day Adams, MD, received the Robert G. Narins Award, which honors individuals who have made substantial and meritorious contributions in education and teaching.
Adams is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and until her retirement in 2017, she served as chief of the division of nephrology as well as training program director. She also had an active nephrology practice.
Adams has served as chair of ASN’s Training Program Directors Executive Committee, chair of the ASN Workforce and Training Committee, and ASN’s Education Director for Fellowship Training. She also led an effort to create the Internal Medicine Subspecialty Milestones Project, which is used by nephrology fellowships during semi-annual performance reviews and helps determine overall progression of nephrology fellows in the Next Accreditation System.
William G. Couser, MD, FASN, received the John P. Peters Award for his wide-ranging research, clinical care and educational contributions to nephrology. The award recognizes individuals who have made substantial research contributions to the discipline of nephrology and have sustained achievements in one or more domains of academic medicine, including clinical care, education and leadership.
Couser is currently an affiliate professor of medicine in the division of nephrology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. There he has served as the Belding H. Scribner professor of medicine and head of the division of nephrology. He has also served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and has served as president of ASN and the International Society of Nephrology (ISN). Through directing the ISN Global Outreach Programs, he organized educational events in 61 developing countries. He was also instrumental in designating the second Thursday of March each year as World Kidney Day, an event now celebrated in more than 100 countries.
John T. Daugirdas, MD, FASN, was honored with the Belding H. Scribner Award for his outstanding contributions to the care of patients with kidney disease and his rigorous scientific approach to better understand and solve problems pertaining to dialysis care. The award is presented annually by ASN to one or more individuals who have made outstanding contributions that have a direct impact on the care of patients with renal disorders or have substantially changed the clinical practice of nephrology.
He is clinical professor of medicine in the division of nephrology and hypertension at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Daugirdas’ work in dialysis has focused on measuring dialysis adequacy and the causes of dialysis hypotension. He has published more than 250 papers and proposed simplified methods for checking hemodialysis adequacy that are now in wide use. He was involved in the NIH-funded HEMO Trial and the Frequent Hemodialysis Network Trials, and contributed to the design of the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort Trial. Daugirdas coedited the Handbook of Dialysis, a guide published in more than a dozen languages that nephrologists around the world have relied upon to help care for dialysis patients. He also founded the web journal, Hypertension, Dialysis and Clinical Nephrology, and is currently editor of Hemodialysis International.
M. Amin Arnaout, MD, FASN, received the Homer W. Smith Award, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to understanding how kidneys function in normal and diseased states. A professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, principal investigator at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, physician and chief emeritus of the division of nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Arnaout’s discovery and structure determination of leukocyte adhesion receptors, known as integrins, formed the foundation for development of new anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombosis and anti-fibrosis drugs for the treatment of common diseases affecting various organs. He has served on various ASN committees as well as on the council of ISN and on study sections at the NIH.
Morgan Grams, MD, PhD, MHS, is the 2018 winner of the Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award. The award is cosponsored by ASN and the American Heart Association Council on the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease. Grams was recognized for her innovative work with multidimensional data to develop clinically relevant tools and indicators. She has published more than 150 scientific papers and leads several NIH grants, including a role as co-principal investigator of the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium, an 11-million participant global consortium with a coordinating center at Johns Hopkins. Grams’ research centers on epidemiological approaches to optimizing interventions and preventing complications in chronic kidney disease. The award was previously known as the ASN–AHA Young Investigator Award, but was renamed after acclaimed nephrologist, Donald W. Seldin, MD, who passed away this year. ꟷ by Mark E. Neumann
Reference:
Plenary session: ASN Innovations in Kidney Education Winners. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week; Oct. 23-28, 2018; San Diego.