Two Outstanding UAMS Alumni & a Faculty Icon Are Honored

Sept. 2, 2009 | The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Alumni Association and the UAMS College of Medicine honored two alumni – a renowned pediatric gastroenterologist and a pioneering osteoporosis researcher – along with a towering figure in American medicine who was on the UAMS faculty for many years, at the annual Alumni Weekend awards ceremony Aug. 29.

Distinguished Alumnus Award
David Brent Polk, M.D. ’84

David Brent Polk

David Brent Polk, M.D., has served as chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Vanderbilt University in Nashville since 2001 and has held the Vanderbilt Dean’s Chair since 2004. In honor of his leadership and many contributions, Vanderbilt renamed Polk’s division in his honor last summer.

A highly regarded gastroenteric researcher, Polk currently chairs the American Gastroenterological Association Institute Council. He co-chairs the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America Research Initiatives Committee and is the incoming chair of the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases committee that selects career development awards and training grants. He directs the NIH-supported Digestive Disease Research Center at Vanderbilt and serves on the scientific advisory boards of additional centers at institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Stanford University.

Polk graduated magna cum laude from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia in 1980. He received his medical degree at UAMS in 1984 and stayed at UAMS for an internship and residency in pediatrics. Polk completed a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Stanford and was recruited to the pediatrics faculty at Vanderbilt in 1990. He is a tenured professor of pediatrics and a professor of cell and developmental biology. He served as interim chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt in 2007-2008.

COM Hall of Fame Inductee
B. Lawrence Riggs, M.D. ’55

B. Lawrence Riggs

For over four decades, B. Lawrence Riggs, M.D., built the Mayo Clinic into a world-renowned center for bone and osteoporosis research and care. He is considered by many endocrinologists to be the preeminent world authority in the clinical investigation, epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment of osteoporosis.

Riggs and his colleagues developed the first instruments used to measure bone density in osteoporosis and conducted the first clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy of most of the major osteoporosis treatments used today. He has published more than 500 papers, served on many scientific study panels and served as president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the National Osteoporosis Foundation. In May, the foundation presented him with its highest honor, the Legends of Osteoporosis Award.

A Hot Springs native, Riggs graduated from UAMS in 1955. He completed his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., before joining the Mayo faculty in 1962. He was chairman of the Division of Endocrinology from 1974 to 1985 and later directed Mayo’s General Clinical Research Center. He was the Tabor Professor of Medical Research from 1987 to 2003. He retired to Little Rock in 2006 but remains a professor emeritus at Mayo.

COM Hall of Fame Inductee
Thomas E. Andreoli, M.D.

Thomas E. Andreoli

Thomas E. Andreoli, M.D., was an internationally respected leader in internal medicine who made seminal observations in nephrology, edited a classic textbook and leading scientific journals, and trained legions of medical students and residents in Arkansas and beyond.

After receiving his medical degree at Georgetown University, Andreoli trained at Duke University and in the NIH Laboratory of Intermediary Metabolism. Early in his career, he made landmark observations about the mechanics of water transport in the kidney, predicting the presence of water channels in the cortical collecting duct 15 years before the formal discovery of aquaporins.

Andreoli established the Division of Nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1970 and led it to become one of the nation’s premier nephrology programs. In 1978 he was appointed chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. He was recruited to UAMS as the Nolan Chair in Internal Medicine in 1988. He stepped down in 2004 to focus on teaching, research and patient care but remained a distinguished professor and chair emeritus until he died in April 2009.

Andreoli served as president of the American Society of Nephrology and the International Society of Nephrology. He was a leader in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and many other organizations. He was an editor of the American Journal of Physiology: Renal Physiology, and Kidney International. He was editor and chief of “Andreoli and Carpenter’s Cecil Essentials of Medicine.” He received many teaching awards and prestigious international honors throughout his career. At UAMS, the Thomas E. Andreoli, M.D., M.A.C.P., Clinical Scholar Chair was established in his honor in 2005.