Robert S. Gaston, M.D., endowed professor of Transplant Nephrology and co-director of the Comprehensive Transplant Institute at UAB, has been named interim director of the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Gaston’s appointment follows the Feb. 8, 2013, selection of former director Anupam Agarwal, M.D., as interim senior vice president of Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine at UAB. A national search will begin immediately to choose a permanent dean, with Agarwal slated to return as division director upon installation of the successful candidate.
While serving as interim dean, Agarwal will retain his leadership roles in the laboratory and as director of the NIH funded UAB-University of California San Diego O’Brien Core Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research. Gaston, a member of the Division of Nephrology at UAB since 1990, is a noted transplant nephrologist, funded researcher and author of more than 200 articles, books and abstracts.
Gaston has been medical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant programs at UAB since 2003, and became the endowed professorship in Transplant Nephrology in 2009. He was president of the American Society of Transplantation from 2011 to 2012 and was instrumental in founding the CTI at UAB in 2011.
“Anupam is the once and future leader of our division; it is my privilege to serve in this interim role until he is able to rejoin us full time,” notes Gaston. “I look forward to helping lead the division of nephrology through this transition period.”