Dr. Paul Adams recognized by the Canadian Liver Foundation

The Canadian Liver Foundation (CLF) has awarded Dr. Paul Adams of the Department of Medicine the 2010 Gold Medal for excellence. Each year, the CLF recognizes doctors and scientists in Canada and internationally who have made, or are making, an outstanding and sustained contribution to research in the field of liver disease.

Adams has established himself as a respected international expert on the diagnosis and treatment of hemochromatosis (iron overload) disease. Hemochromatosis is a genetic disease affecting one out of every 227 Canadian people of Northern European ancestry.

Adams is recognized for the breadth of his work, which encompasses fundamental genetic determinants and epidemiology, to effective new treatments to manage the disease, including liver transplantation. "There is no other physician in Canada who has increased awareness of this disease process amongst the medical community or has expanded the boundaries of knowledge in this area as Dr. Adams," says Dr. Eric Yoshida, Professor of Medicine and Chief of Gastroenterology at UBC.

Nearly a decade ago, Adams received a $34 Million dollar National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to lead the "Hemochromatosis and Iron Overload Screening Study (HEIRS)". The study investigated the prevalence of iron overload in a multi-ethnic population to determine the optimal use of diagnostic blood testing including genetic testing. Adams' innovative research has had far reaching implications for attitudes on genetic testing for all medical diseases. The information
learned through HEIRS has been used by major policy decision makers, with Adams highly involved in developing expert documents that have been and will be utilized for policy development to standardize patient care for the diagnosis and treatment of hemochromatosis.

Adams' award will be presented on February 28th during the 2010 Canadian Digestive Diseases Week in Toronto.