Ronald Sokol, MD, a professor of pediatrics-gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition in the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been named president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).
Sokol was introduced as AASLD president in a recent article in Hepatology magazine. “Ron has made significant contributions to the field of hepatology through his clinical expertise, research, mentoring, advocacy and service within national organizations,” the article states.
In addition to his hospital affiliations at Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado Hospital, the article notes, Sokol is the vice chair of clinical and translational research in the Department of Pediatrics and director of the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. CCTSI recently received a $46.5 million NIH grant to continue its work of accelerating research discoveries and new health care treatments.
The article in Hepatology went on to say that Sokol has been an NIH-funded investigator since 1986 “and has received an astonishing $200 million in grant support to date. His major clinical interests are pediatric hepatology and liver transplantation. Ron’s scientific interests include the mechanisms of vitamin E deficiency and cholestasis; the role of mitochondria and oxidative stress in liver injury; the mechanisms of liver cell injury in cholestasis; fatty liver, and parenteral nutrition-associated liver injury; the pathogenesis of biliary atresia; and the development of predictive models for rare childhood liver diseases.
“To that end, Ron has published 250 original articles pertaining to basic science, translational and clinical research studies in pediatric hepatology.”