Academician Ding-Shinn Chen has been awarded the 2011 Distinguished Clinician Educator/Mentor Award by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) for his outstanding contributions to research and education about liver diseases. Dr. Ding-Shinn Chen will be formally recognized at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the AASLD in San Francisco on November 6, 2011.

AASLD, founded in 1950, is the leading organization of scientists and healthcare professionals committed to preventing and curing liver disease. The annual meeting of the AASLD is attended by 7,000 physicians, surgeons, researchers, and health professionals from around the world. The Distinguished Clinician Educator/Mentor Award was established to honor those that have exhibited the highest standards of excellence and dedication to the field of hepatology.

The AASLD has venerated Dr. Chen for devoting his life to teaching and performing research at National Taiwan University Hospital. Since taking up his position at the hospital in 1975 he has trained over 90 gastroenterologists and hepatologists, many of whom now hold key positions in major teaching hospitals in Taiwan. Twenty-seven years ago, he was instrumental in creating a public health program that has immunized most newborns in Taiwan against hepatitis B. In training his fellows, Dr. Chen encourages them to explore clinical issues both at the bedside and in the laboratory. He regards translational medicine as bi-directional, not limited to one-way from bench to bedside. Dr. Chen strongly encourages his fellows to publish research and believes that research is not complete unless the results are published. Many of his students have become successful physician scientists.

Dr. Chen has published more than 600 original articles in scientific journals, and frequently serves as the reviewer of major international journals in gastroenterology, hepatology and hepatitis research. He was the Associate Editor of Hepatology from 2001 to 2006.

Dr. Chen is currently a Distinguished Chair Professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine National Taiwan University. Dr. Chen's team has contributed to understanding of the natural history of hepatitis B virus infection, the early detection and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma as well as the prevention of hepatitis B virus infection. His achievements also extend to the hepatitis C virus with development of a new and effective treatment for chronic hepatitis C. The combination therapy of interferon and ribavirin has become a standard treatment worldwide.

Dr. Chen was elected Academician of Academia Sinica in 1992, a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 2001 and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2005. He was President of the International Association for the Study of the Liver (2004-2006), and has won the Trieste Science Prize (2006), Presidential Science Prize of Taiwan (2007), International Recognition Award, EASL (2009), and the Nikkei Asia Prize in (2010).

Related website:
http://www.aasld.org/awards/distinguished/Pages/DistinguishedClinicianEducatorAward.aspx