Dr. Anna Lok earns top gastroenterology honor

Anna S. Lok, M.D., FRCP, AGAF, the Alice Lohrman Andrews Research Professor in Hepatology at the University of Michigan, will be honored Sunday by the American Gastroenterological Association for her pioneering work in liver diseases.

She has earned the AGA’s 2016 William Beaumont Prize in Gastroenterology, which recognizes an individual who has made a unique, outstanding contribution of major importance to the field. She’ll receive the honor during the Digestive Diseases Week conference in San Diego.

Lok has led some of the most prominent studies in clinical hepatology and has effectively altered the practice of medicine for the betterment of patients worldwide. She made a crucial contribution to hepatitis C research, demonstrating that it is possible to cure hepatitis C with interferon-free regimens using a combination of direct-acting antiviral agents.

At the U-M, she is director of clinical hepatology and assistant dean for clinical research.

She is in line to become the president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in 2017.

Dr. Lok has co-authored four iterations of the AASLD guidelines on hepatitis B which shapes the management of hepatitis B worldwide.  The World Health Organization asked Lok to serve on its guideline development panel for hepatitis B and hepatitis C in 2014 and 2015.

Since joining the AGA in 1996 the U-M professor has severed on several of AGA committees, and earned continuous federal funding for her research throughout her career.

Lok was educated at the University of Hong Kong and Royal Free Hospital in London. She received postdoctoral training in molecular biology techniques at University of California-San Francisco and University of California-Los Angeles.

Website: http://www.med.umich.edu/hepatology/