AST Awards Richard N. Fine, M.D. 2008 Ernest Hodge Distinguished Achieve...( MOUNT LAUREL N.J. June 23 /- The ...),Health

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J., June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Society of Transplantation (AST) recently presented its highest award, the Ernest Hodge Distinguished Achievement Award, to Richard N. Fine, M.D. at the American Transplant Congress in Toronto, Canada. The award recognizes a senior investigator whose lifelong work has advanced the field of transplantation and medicine and whose contributions to the field and the AST have been broad and far-reaching.

Dr. Fine served the AST as president, secretary-treasurer and on the AST board of directors as councilor-at-large. His contributions to the Society have been numerous and invaluable.

Dr. Fine is Dean of the School of Medicine, the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has distinguished himself on many levels, especially in the field of pediatric and transplant nephrology. His contributions to pediatric kidney transplantation are impressive. In the 1970s Dr. Fine and his group made seminal contributions to the field of pediatric renal transplantation on topics ranging from immunosuppression to post-transplant complications. In the mid- 1980s, he recognized the profound effect on growth in pediatric patients with renal insufficiency and pediatric renal transplant recipients and the use of human growth hormones as an effective treatment of this disorder.

He has served as editor of Pediatric Transplantation since 1997, as well as president of the American Society for Pediatric Nephrology in 1985-1986. In 2003, he was awarded the American Academy of Pediatrics Henry L. Barnett Award for Outstanding Teaching and Clinical Care for Children with Kidney Disease.

Dr. Fine was named vice chairman of clinical affairs in the Department of Pediatrics at UCLA in 1985. He was appointed chairman of Stony Brook's Department of Pediatrics in 1991, and has served in his current position since 2005.

Funding for the coveted Ernest Hodge Distinguished Achievement Award is provided by Ro
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