The AST Welcomes Dr. Anil Chandraker as 2016-2017 President
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
The AST introduced its newly elected 2016-2017 board members at the recent American Transplant Congress (ATC) in Boston. Anil Chandraker, MD, FRCP, FAST was inducted as president and will serve a one-year term in office.
Originally from the United Kingdom, Dr. Chandraker earned his medical degree from Glasgow University and completed his residencies at Withybush Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary. He then completed fellowships at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Dr. Chandraker currently serves as the Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation and the Director of the Transplantation Research Center at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. His clinical interests include kidney transplantation, antibody mediated rejection, BK nephropathy, vascular composite allografts and rejection management.
Dr. Chandraker has academic interests in basic, translational, and clinical areas of transplantation research. He serves as the PI on various clinical studies involving renal transplant recipients, all of which are the result of investigator-initiated research, primarily the NIAID Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation. This multi-center U01 study looks at the effect of B cell depletion on allograft function after the development of anti-HLA antibodies in adult and pediatric kidney transplant recipients, as well as the use of rituximab as an induction therapy to prevent coronary allograft vasculopathy in unsensitized cardiac transplant recipients.
Dr. Chandraker has been actively involved with numerous committees since joining the AST in 1998. He was elected to the AST Board of Directors in 2012 as councilor-at-large, then served as secretary from 2013-2015 before becoming president-elect in 2015. He also co-chairs the Transplantation and Immunology Research Network (TIRN) as well as the Cutting Edge of Transplantation (CEOT) Planning Committee. His experience at various levels of AST leadership positions him well as the next leader of the society.
"I am grateful for the trust that the AST membership has shown by electing me president,” said Dr. Chandraker. “I will endeavor to continue the strong work that the society has done to promote research, advocacy, and education in the field of transplantation. I am proud to say that now, more than ever, we are a big tent organization with a diverse and engaged membership."
Other new members of the AST Board’s Executive Committee include President-elect Ronald G. Gill, PhD, Scientific Director of the CCTCARE at the University of Colorado; Treasurer Emily A. Blumberg, MD, Director of the Transplant Infectious Diseases Program and the Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, and Secretary Dianne B. McKay, MD, Medical Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at the University of California San Diego. Three new councilors-at-large were also announced: Jon Kobashigawa, MD; Nicole Turgeon, MD; and Alexander Wiseman, MD.
For more information on AST, please visit: www.myAST.org.
About the AST
With 3,500 members, the American Society of Transplantation (AST) is the largest organization in North America representing transplantation professionals. The society is dedicated to advancing the field and improving patient care by promoting research, education, advocacy, and organ donation. The AST’s diverse membership includes physicians, surgeons, scientists, nurses, administrators, and other allied health professionals. For more information, visit www.myAST.org.