Director

Philip Halloran, MD, PhD, OC, FRSC Director Division of Nephrology and Immunology Email: phallora@ualberta.ca

Dr. Philip Halloran received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1968, and trained in internal medicine and nephrology. He studied immunology and immunogenetics in England, completing his PhD (University of London, 1976) at the London Hospital. From 1975 to 1987 he worked as a clinician and investigator at the Toronto Hospital. He joined the University of Alberta in 1987, serving as Director of the Division of Nephrology & Immunology from 1987 to 2003. He then founded the Alberta Transplant Applied Genomics Centre, now the world's leading resource in molecular studies of organ transplants, and now exploring organ diseases. A Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Alberta, he held a Canada Research Chair in Transplant Immunology. Dr. Halloran served as founding Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Transplantation 2000-2010, the official journal of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. The journal launched its first issue in May, 2001 and is now first in its field with an impact factor of 6.433.

Dr. Halloran's research focuses on organ transplants, particularly changes in gene expression in transplant organs undergoing rejection and injury. This includes age effects, specifically the importance of senescence mechanisms. He has investigated mechanisms of T cell-mediated rejection and was the first to discover antibody-mediated organ rejection - now understood to be the leading cause of late kidney transplant loss. His clinical research has included many new immunosuppressive drugs. His work in experimental mouse organ transplants on interferon-gamma explains major rejection mechanisms, but also provides the basis of a new discovery system, and the basis of a US patent. Dr. Halloran's recent pursuits have focused on the diagnostic applications of microarrays in organ transplantation.

As founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Roche Organ Transplant Research Foundation, an independent Swiss charity, Dr. Halloran has worked to support research projects aimed at advancing the science of organ transplantation. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has won the Royal College Medal in Medicine, as well as the Kidney Foundation of Canada Medal of Excellence in Research. He has held the Muttart Chair in Clinical Molecular Immunology and Autoimmunity from the Muttart Foundation since 1993. In July 2004, Dr. Halloran was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada. In the same year, he received the first Paul I. Terasaki Clinical Science Award from the American Society for Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics. In 2005 he received the 'Physician of the Century' Award from the Alberta Medical Association, the Alberta Centennial Medal, and The Canadian Society of Transplantation Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Halloran's recent awards are listed below, many of which also acknowledge the outstanding team assembled in the ATAGC.