The AASLD Foundation is pleased to introduce The Guadalupe (Lupe) Garcia-Tsao, MD Emerging Liver Scholar (ELS) Award. During Dr. Garcia-Tsao’s tenure as an AASLD President and Past President, she played a significant role in shaping the AASLD and the Emerging Liver Scholars program. This new AASLD Foundation Fund will support one annual Emerging Liver Scholars Award, ensuring long-term financial resources to encourage future hepatology leaders, and to attract the best and brightest physicians to pursue hepatology. This Award will further Dr. Garcia-Tsao’s legacy and be an important investment in the next generation of hepatologists.

Created in 2012, the AASLD Foundation’s Emerging Liver Scholars Program promotes the study of hepatology among residents who have the potential for a career in academic medicine AND who haven’t yet determined their long-term career goals. This program, targeted toward medical, surgical and pediatric residents and their mentors, provides opportunities to attend The Liver Meeting® and participate in other AASLD activities throughout their training. The program is supported by AASLD Foundation as part of its mission to inspire and invest in the next generation of hepatologists.

The Gupta Family Research Award for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC)
Thanks to the generosity of The Lalit and Anubha Gupta Family Foundation, Inc., this award will support one highly meritorious application in PSC submitted to the Pilot Research Award. The purpose of this award is to support new, highly innovative PSC research ideas that focus on questions pertaining to the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and/or management of PSC in children and/or adults.

Anna S. Lok, MD, FAASLD has established an endowment to support AASLD Foundation’s Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Award, which encourages exceptional hepatology trainees to choose academic careers in hepatology.

The Anna S. Lok Fund for Excellence in Research and Training represents the largest gift from an AASLD member in the Foundation’s history, and it makes Dr. Lok the first Champion Giving Circle Member for the Foundation’s Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign.

“The hepatology community has been kind to me – embracing and nurturing me in my early years, providing me with opportunity to grow and lead, and more recently, recognizing and rewarding me for years of hard work. Because of this, I want to give back, and the Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign provides the perfect opportunity to make an immediate and long-lasting impact,” explains Dr. Lok who is Co-Chair of the Leadership Gifts Division of the campaign.

By supporting the Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign, Dr. Lok is helping AASLD Foundation fund more meritorious liver disease research, address new research needs in hepatology, build a robust workforce of physicians and health care professionals trained to care for people with liver disease, and create opportunities to increase the public’s awareness of liver diseases.

Since the inception of the Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Award, five of Dr. Lok’s fellows have received the Award under her mentorship. This demonstrates Dr. Lok’s passion for mentorship and her commitment to the future of hepatology.

“We need bright, young physicians and researchers to get into the field, to stay in the field, and to work together to find ways by which we can diagnose liver diseases earlier and discover more treatments and cures,” explains Dr. Lok of her decision to set up the endowment. “I feel strongly about helping the next generation of hepatologists because I recognize how much my mentors and my early training shaped me and helped me get to where I am today.”

Dr. Lok is the Immediate Past President of AASLD and serves as the Alice Lohrman Andrews Research Professor in Hepatology at the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is also Director of Clinical Hepatology and Assistant Dean for Clinical Research in the Medical School.

Dr. Lok’s research focuses on the natural history and treatment of hepatitis B and C and the prevention of liver cancer. She has trained more than 50 fellows and junior faculty from all over the world and has been recognized by her institution — and across the medical community — not only for her research, but also for her mentorship and commitment to the field.

Support the Lok Fund.

The AASLD Foundation is pleased to introduce The Luxon Family Fund for Emerging Hepatology Scholars. This new AASLD Foundation Fund will support one annual Emerging Liver Scholars Award, thereby ensuring long-term financial resources to encourage future hepatology leaders, and to attract the best and brightest physicians to pursue hepatology as their career choice.

Created in 2012, the AASLD Foundation’s Emerging Liver Scholars Program promotes the study of hepatology among residents who have the potential for a career in academic medicine AND who haven’t yet determined their long-term career goals. This program, targeted toward medical, surgical and pediatric residents and their mentors, provides opportunities to attend The Liver Meeting® and participate in other AASLD activities throughout their training. The program is supported by AASLD Foundation as part of its mission to inspire and invest in the next generation of hepatologists. Since inception, close to 200 scholars have graduated from this valuable program.

The Luxons, along with their friends, John and Diane Goody, have contributed significant gifts to establish this vital source of stability for the Emerging Liver Scholars initiative. The fund is already at 75% of the goal of $100,000, the amount needed to sustain the Award in perpetuity.

Dr. Luxon has been an integral force in shaping the careers of some of the finest hepatologists in the United States. He’s had a tremendous impact on his colleagues in medicine, too. And, of course his patients hold Dr. Luxon in highest regard. Whether you are a colleague, trainee, mentee, or even a patient of Dr. Luxon’s – Dr. Bruce Bacon, AASLD Foundation’s Chair, invites you to consider a gift to honor Dr. Luxon. A gift to this Fund will be a meaningful way to acknowledge his impact on developing hepatologists and academic hepatology leaders.

Support the Luxon Fund.