INTRODUCING THE AASLD PRESIDENT Introducing the AASLD President: Gyongyi Szabo Craig McClain
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n January 1, Gyongyi Szabo, M.D., Ph.D., (Fig. 1) becomes the 66th president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the third female president. Gyongyi has many personal qualities and leadership skills that will serve us all well. Gyongyi was born and raised in Hungary. She grew up in Gyongyos, a small city close to Budapest. Her father, a mining engineer, always valued academic and scholastic activities and earned a Ph.D. in his field. His encouragement and value of academic life greatly influenced Gyongyi in her aspirations. Gyongyi’s mother was a highly respected elementary school teacher, and her mother and grandmothers taught her many life skills, including making the finest pasta from scratch (without machines). In her youth, Gyongyi spent many summers at her grandparent’s house in a small mining town and enjoyed being in the outdoors with her grandfather. She quickly became an expert in wild mushrooms and always knew the best spot for picking them. Gyongyi attended high school at the Berze Nagy Janos Gymnazium in Gyongyos, which was quite rigorous and had a great reputation. She was one of only eight girls in a class that put great emphasis on mathematics and physics. The high school class and environment provided many lifelong lessons and unique opportunities for Gyongyi. For example, she was selected to represent her school at national student leadership conferences. Her favorite activity in high school was running the student radio program. She enjoyed interviewing students, teachers, and celebrities and actors visiting her city. In fact, if it were not for Abbreviations: AASLD, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases; ALD, alcoholic liver disease; IL, interleukin; NIH, National Institutes of Health; PTI, post-traumatic immunosuppression; UMMS, University of Massachusetts Medical School. From the School of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. Received November 19, 2014; accepted November 20, 2014. Address reprint requests to: Craig McClain, M.D., School of Medicine, University of Louisville, 401 East Chestnut Street, Louisville, KY 40202. E-mail: [email protected]; fax: 502-852-6233. C 2014 by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Copyright V View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/hep.27625 Potential conflict on interest: Nothing to report.
Fig. 1. Dr. Gyongyi Szabo.
her parents’ resistance, she would have become an anchorwoman or reporter. Gyongyi’s interest in medicine arose from her interactions with her uncle, a professor of urology at the Semmelweis University in Budapest, during Sunday lunches at her grandmother’s house. Gyongyi completed her medical training at the University Medical School of Debrecen, Hungary. This is the second-oldest medical school in Hungary, with a beautiful campus and great student life. This also was her first experience with research. Because of the active medical student research program at the university, Gyongyi started research in the Medicine Department in immunology, studying monocyte and neutrophil chemotaxis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosis. After spending endless nights performing cell migration counts in the dark microscope room, Gyongyi published several articles and presented in national and international conferences on her student research work. It was during her research time in medical school where she met George, her husband to be. George was also a medical student studying 413
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immunology. Gyongyi had great mentors who encouraged her to embark on additional research and Ph.D. training after medical school. Her first international postdoctoral training was in Innsbruck, Austria, with Manfred Dietrich studying human immunodeficiency virus infection. After Innsbruck, she moved to Leiden, The Netherlands, to join George where he had a research fellowship with Ralph van Furth, the leading macrophage expert in Europe. Gyongyi also had the opportunity to work with Ralph van Furth, studying the role of tumor necrosis factor alpha on Toxoplasma gondii infection. The most remarkable event in their stay in Leiden was the arrival of their first son, Daniel. They lived next to the church in Leiden that was the last home of the Pilgrims before their voyage on the Mayflower to America. Following history, Gyongyi and George came to Massachusetts to continue their studies. Gyongyi started her postdoctoral training at University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) in the Surgery Department with Carol Miller, studying the role of cytokines in post-traumatic immunosuppression (PTI). With Carol’s encouragement, Gyongyi started to study the effects of alcohol on PTI. Gyongyi rapidly developed her independent project and laboratory. After committing to stay in the United States, Gyongyi realized that her passion was to be a physician scientist and embarked on residency training. She was the first to enter the physician scientist training pathway at UMMS in internal medicine. This combined clinical training and research program allowed her to maintain her research laboratory during the clinical training. Thanks to her talented and devoted research technician and postdoctoral fellow, she maintained and expanded her research program, focusing on the immunoregulatory effects of alcohol. Because of her immunology background, Gyongyi was initially interested in rheumatology. However, at alcohol center site visits (back when site visits still existed) and at study section, we told her how much more exciting hepatology would be. Herbert Bonkovsky also was instrumental in guiding her to hepatology, and Gyongyi completed her gastroenterology fellowship training at UMMS with him. During this time, she transformed her research to focus on the role of innate immunity in liver diseases, and in the past 15 years, she made seminal contributions to understanding the importance and mechanisms of pattern recognition receptors, signaling, and hepatocyte and macrophage cross-talk in chronic liver inflammation. Throughout these years, Gyongyi balanced her family life and career with the help of her family and friends. Her grandmother was instrumental in the early
HEPATOLOGY, February 2015
years by helping to raise her two sons, and many times, both her mother and mother-in-law traveled from Hungary to babysit. Dan, her older son, is now an M.D./Ph.D. student at UMMS and studies patient-centered outcomes. Chris, a bioengineer, is a consultant for Genentech in San Francisco. Chris is an avid sportsman who rowed for the U.S. national team and recently completed an ironman event. Her husband, George Frendl, M.D., Ph.D., is a lead physician scientist at the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. They are avid sailors in the summer and enjoy the theater life and travel in the winter. For those of you that have been at AASLD parties, Gyongyi and George are always the “dancing stars” and the last to leave the dance floor. Gyongyi currently is professor and vice chair of medicine as well as associate dean for clinical and translational sciences at UMMS and serves as director of the M.D./Ph.D. program. Dr. Szabo is an internationally recognized leader in liver immunology and inflammation. Her laboratory studies liver diseases through the spectrum of basic, translational, and clinical studies. Her basic research focuses on the molecular and cellular regulation of inflammation in alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and viral hepatitis. Her recent research focuses on the role of Toll-like receptor and Nod-like receptor signaling pathways in liver diseases and investigates micro-RNAs and extracellular vesicles in intercellular communication and biomarker discovery. Dr. Szabo has had uninterrupted National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding since 1989 and is currently the lead investigator on six NIH grants, including a prestigious NIH merit and UO1 consortium awards. She has been organizer, as well as keynote and invited speaker, at over 80 international and national conferences and universities, published over 150 articles in the highestranking journals, 35 book chapters in the field of liver research, and serves on the editorial boards of HEPATOLOGY and several other journals. Dr. Szabo has trained 34 undergraduate students, 12 graduate students, 34 postdoctoral fellows, and 12 residents/fellows in research. Gyongi has been able to take her basic research and apply it clinically. She documented the importance of inflammasome activation in the development of experimental ALD, and she used an interleukin (IL)21 inhibitor to treat experimental ALD. Gyongi now directs a U01 consortium (Defeat Alcoholic Steatohepatitis; DASH) in which this same IL-1 inhibitor is being tested in patients. Dr. Szabo serves as a role model for
HEPATOLOGY, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2015
students in the M.D./Ph.D. program and in her position in the Clinical and Translational Science Award program at UMMS. Gyongi is the hepatology equivalent of Tom Brady in Massachusetts—she has stayed with one program (team) since her training and has been highly successful over an extended period of time. At the national level, Dr. Szabo served as a member of the Liver Action Plan for the NIH and on the National External Advisory Board for the National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Currently, she is a member of the advisory boards of several universities and agencies, including Yale University, University of California Los Angeles, the NIH Extracellular RNA Consortium, the American Beverage Medical Foundation, and the Liver Institute in Beijing, China. She was a standing member of the NIH Hepatobiliary Study Section and participated in numerous other study sections for NIH, as well as national and international foundations. Dr. Szabo was honored with a Doctor
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Honoris Causa from the Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Szabo is a “fellow” of the American Association of Physicians, American Gastroenterology Association, and the AASLD. She was elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2013. Gyongyi has prepared for the leadership role in the AASLD in many ways, ranging from her experiences on the governing board of the AASLD to being a graduate of the prestigious ELAM Leadership program. Partnering with Keith Lindor, Gyongyi led the strategic planning of the AASLD governing board in 2013, and this plan now provides the outline for the continued success of the organization. She is a broad consensus builder, as evidenced by her work in the U01 consortium. Her leadership will bring an exciting year for the members of the AASLD, with growing opportunities in education programs, member participation, and international outreach for the AASLD.
O
n January 1, Gyongyi Szabo, M.D., Ph.D., (Fig. 1) becomes the 66th president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the third female president. Gyongyi has many personal qualities and leadership skills that will serve us all well. Gyongyi was born and raised in Hungary. She grew up in Gyongyos, a small city close to Budapest. Her father, a mining engineer, always valued academic and scholastic activities and earned a Ph.D. in his field. His encouragement and value of academic life greatly influenced Gyongyi in her aspirations. Gyongyi’s mother was a highly respected elementary school teacher, and her mother and grandmothers taught her many life skills, including making the finest pasta from scratch (without machines). In her youth, Gyongyi spent many summers at her grandparent’s house in a small mining town and enjoyed being in the outdoors with her grandfather. She quickly became an expert in wild mushrooms and always knew the best spot for picking them. Gyongyi attended high school at the Berze Nagy Janos Gymnazium in Gyongyos, which was quite rigorous and had a great reputation. She was one of only eight girls in a class that put great emphasis on mathematics and physics. The high school class and environment provided many lifelong lessons and unique opportunities for Gyongyi. For example, she was selected to represent her school at national student leadership conferences. Her favorite activity in high school was running the student radio program. She enjoyed interviewing students, teachers, and celebrities and actors visiting her city. In fact, if it were not for Abbreviations: AASLD, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases; ALD, alcoholic liver disease; IL, interleukin; NIH, National Institutes of Health; PTI, post-traumatic immunosuppression; UMMS, University of Massachusetts Medical School. From the School of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. Received November 19, 2014; accepted November 20, 2014. Address reprint requests to: Craig McClain, M.D., School of Medicine, University of Louisville, 401 East Chestnut Street, Louisville, KY 40202. E-mail: [email protected]; fax: 502-852-6233. C 2014 by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Copyright V View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/hep.27625 Potential conflict on interest: Nothing to report.
Fig. 1. Dr. Gyongyi Szabo.
her parents’ resistance, she would have become an anchorwoman or reporter. Gyongyi’s interest in medicine arose from her interactions with her uncle, a professor of urology at the Semmelweis University in Budapest, during Sunday lunches at her grandmother’s house. Gyongyi completed her medical training at the University Medical School of Debrecen, Hungary. This is the second-oldest medical school in Hungary, with a beautiful campus and great student life. This also was her first experience with research. Because of the active medical student research program at the university, Gyongyi started research in the Medicine Department in immunology, studying monocyte and neutrophil chemotaxis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosis. After spending endless nights performing cell migration counts in the dark microscope room, Gyongyi published several articles and presented in national and international conferences on her student research work. It was during her research time in medical school where she met George, her husband to be. George was also a medical student studying 413
414
MCCLAIN
immunology. Gyongyi had great mentors who encouraged her to embark on additional research and Ph.D. training after medical school. Her first international postdoctoral training was in Innsbruck, Austria, with Manfred Dietrich studying human immunodeficiency virus infection. After Innsbruck, she moved to Leiden, The Netherlands, to join George where he had a research fellowship with Ralph van Furth, the leading macrophage expert in Europe. Gyongyi also had the opportunity to work with Ralph van Furth, studying the role of tumor necrosis factor alpha on Toxoplasma gondii infection. The most remarkable event in their stay in Leiden was the arrival of their first son, Daniel. They lived next to the church in Leiden that was the last home of the Pilgrims before their voyage on the Mayflower to America. Following history, Gyongyi and George came to Massachusetts to continue their studies. Gyongyi started her postdoctoral training at University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) in the Surgery Department with Carol Miller, studying the role of cytokines in post-traumatic immunosuppression (PTI). With Carol’s encouragement, Gyongyi started to study the effects of alcohol on PTI. Gyongyi rapidly developed her independent project and laboratory. After committing to stay in the United States, Gyongyi realized that her passion was to be a physician scientist and embarked on residency training. She was the first to enter the physician scientist training pathway at UMMS in internal medicine. This combined clinical training and research program allowed her to maintain her research laboratory during the clinical training. Thanks to her talented and devoted research technician and postdoctoral fellow, she maintained and expanded her research program, focusing on the immunoregulatory effects of alcohol. Because of her immunology background, Gyongyi was initially interested in rheumatology. However, at alcohol center site visits (back when site visits still existed) and at study section, we told her how much more exciting hepatology would be. Herbert Bonkovsky also was instrumental in guiding her to hepatology, and Gyongyi completed her gastroenterology fellowship training at UMMS with him. During this time, she transformed her research to focus on the role of innate immunity in liver diseases, and in the past 15 years, she made seminal contributions to understanding the importance and mechanisms of pattern recognition receptors, signaling, and hepatocyte and macrophage cross-talk in chronic liver inflammation. Throughout these years, Gyongyi balanced her family life and career with the help of her family and friends. Her grandmother was instrumental in the early
HEPATOLOGY, February 2015
years by helping to raise her two sons, and many times, both her mother and mother-in-law traveled from Hungary to babysit. Dan, her older son, is now an M.D./Ph.D. student at UMMS and studies patient-centered outcomes. Chris, a bioengineer, is a consultant for Genentech in San Francisco. Chris is an avid sportsman who rowed for the U.S. national team and recently completed an ironman event. Her husband, George Frendl, M.D., Ph.D., is a lead physician scientist at the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. They are avid sailors in the summer and enjoy the theater life and travel in the winter. For those of you that have been at AASLD parties, Gyongyi and George are always the “dancing stars” and the last to leave the dance floor. Gyongyi currently is professor and vice chair of medicine as well as associate dean for clinical and translational sciences at UMMS and serves as director of the M.D./Ph.D. program. Dr. Szabo is an internationally recognized leader in liver immunology and inflammation. Her laboratory studies liver diseases through the spectrum of basic, translational, and clinical studies. Her basic research focuses on the molecular and cellular regulation of inflammation in alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and viral hepatitis. Her recent research focuses on the role of Toll-like receptor and Nod-like receptor signaling pathways in liver diseases and investigates micro-RNAs and extracellular vesicles in intercellular communication and biomarker discovery. Dr. Szabo has had uninterrupted National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding since 1989 and is currently the lead investigator on six NIH grants, including a prestigious NIH merit and UO1 consortium awards. She has been organizer, as well as keynote and invited speaker, at over 80 international and national conferences and universities, published over 150 articles in the highestranking journals, 35 book chapters in the field of liver research, and serves on the editorial boards of HEPATOLOGY and several other journals. Dr. Szabo has trained 34 undergraduate students, 12 graduate students, 34 postdoctoral fellows, and 12 residents/fellows in research. Gyongi has been able to take her basic research and apply it clinically. She documented the importance of inflammasome activation in the development of experimental ALD, and she used an interleukin (IL)21 inhibitor to treat experimental ALD. Gyongi now directs a U01 consortium (Defeat Alcoholic Steatohepatitis; DASH) in which this same IL-1 inhibitor is being tested in patients. Dr. Szabo serves as a role model for
HEPATOLOGY, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2015
students in the M.D./Ph.D. program and in her position in the Clinical and Translational Science Award program at UMMS. Gyongi is the hepatology equivalent of Tom Brady in Massachusetts—she has stayed with one program (team) since her training and has been highly successful over an extended period of time. At the national level, Dr. Szabo served as a member of the Liver Action Plan for the NIH and on the National External Advisory Board for the National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Currently, she is a member of the advisory boards of several universities and agencies, including Yale University, University of California Los Angeles, the NIH Extracellular RNA Consortium, the American Beverage Medical Foundation, and the Liver Institute in Beijing, China. She was a standing member of the NIH Hepatobiliary Study Section and participated in numerous other study sections for NIH, as well as national and international foundations. Dr. Szabo was honored with a Doctor
MCCLAIN
415
Honoris Causa from the Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Szabo is a “fellow” of the American Association of Physicians, American Gastroenterology Association, and the AASLD. She was elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2013. Gyongyi has prepared for the leadership role in the AASLD in many ways, ranging from her experiences on the governing board of the AASLD to being a graduate of the prestigious ELAM Leadership program. Partnering with Keith Lindor, Gyongyi led the strategic planning of the AASLD governing board in 2013, and this plan now provides the outline for the continued success of the organization. She is a broad consensus builder, as evidenced by her work in the U01 consortium. Her leadership will bring an exciting year for the members of the AASLD, with growing opportunities in education programs, member participation, and international outreach for the AASLD.
