Nationally renowned expert in COPD Mark Dransfield, M.D., has been the medical director of the UAB Lung Health Center since 2009.Mark Dransfield, M.D., professor of medicine and William C. Bailey Endowed Chair in Pulmonary Disease, has been selected as director of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I am humbled and honored to be named director of the division where I trained and have spent my career,” Dransfield said. “It will be my privilege to lead our outstanding faculty and staff as we strive for our highest potential across our academic missions.”
Dransfield is a nationally renowned expert in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and has been the medical director of the UAB Lung Health Center since 2009. An elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Dransfield is the principal investigator for multiple clinical trials and observational studies sponsored by the National Institutes for Health, the United States Department of Defense and American Lung Association. Along with pulmonology colleague Surya Bhatt, M.D., Dransfield pioneered the use of bronchoscopic lung volume reduction to treat emphysema. He also chairs the Lancet Commission on COPD, an international consortium whose objective is to set the course to eradicate the disease.
“Mark Dransfield will be a fabulous leader for the division,” said Seth Landefeld, M.D., MACP, chair of the UAB Department of Medicine. “A global leader in work to eradicate COPD, Mark has also led studies showing what works and what doesn’t work in its treatment and won the recognition of his peers as an exceptional teacher and doctor. In the last year, he has led our faculty and trainees as they cared for hundreds of our most severely ill patients with COVID.”
A graduate of the UNC School of Medicine, Dransfield trained in medicine and in pulmonary and critical care medicine at UAB, where he served as chief fellow. He joined the faculty in 2003, and earned the rank of full professor in 2016. Dransfield served as the division’s interim director for the past 11 months.