A Festschrift honoring Dr. John J. Curtis.

O n April 17, 2009, the Division of Nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) hosted a festschrift for a distinguished member, Dr. John J. Curtis. Our goal was to acknowledge Dr. Curtis’s achievements on the occasion of his retirement from the faculty at UAB after 30 yr of service. To anyone even remotely familiar with the study of hypertension and the history of transplant nephrology, John’s career was of sterling significance and his accomplishments more than worthy of broad recognition. A native Pennsylvanian, John Curtis graduated from the University of Scranton and then moved to Georgetown, where he completed medical school, training in internal medicine, and a Nephrology fellowship under the tutelage of George Schreiner (and highlighted by six months at the Royal Melbourne Hospital with Priscilla Kincaid-Smith). John’s first faculty job was at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where his association began with Robert G. Luke, another pre-eminent nephrologist with a bent to studying transplant-related clinical issues. It was this association that brought Dr. Curtis to UAB, where his career achieved its zenith. John Curtis’s time in Lexington (1974 to 1979), as medical director of kidney transplantation, saw publication of several papers reporting astute clinical observations. One in particular, originating from his UK experience and reported in Transplantation (1981), foretold the future: it was a description of surgical therapy for hypertension after kidney transplantation (1). After arriving at UAB, John’s work describing the relationship between hypertension and native kidneys, transplanted kidneys, the renin-angiotensin axis, and immunosuppressants generated 10 yr of NIH/SCOR funding, and numerous publications of significance. The classic 1983 New England Journal of Medicine paper, “Remission of essential hypertension after renal transplantation,” established in humans the primacy of the kidney in influencing BP responses (2). During the 80s and 90s, the UAB group published seminal papers regarding pathogenesis and treatment of posttransplant hypertension, and characterized the impact of the novel immunosuppressant, cyclosporine, on renal function and BP. These papers appeared in Lancet, the American Journal of Medicine, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and remain definitive works in the field. As important as these direct contributions was the overall impact of this effort, demonstrating that the study of medical issues in transplant recipients could be a fertile, productive, and rewarding avenue for clinical investigation and academic careers. John helped break the ground that led to meaningful careers for many of us. Beyond Dr. Curtis’s groundbreaking research has been his commitment to education. John instituted a training program in transplant nephrology at UAB in 1988. Since then, 24 fellows have progressed to meaningful careers in transplantation, including James Rice at Galveston; Sonny Sanders at Tampa; Todd Pesavento at Ohio State; Shirley Schlessinger at Mississippi; Greg Knoll at Ottawa; Roberto Kalil at Iowa City; Ben Hippen at Charlotte; and (among others) Clifton Kew, Vineeta Kumar, and me at UAB. In recognition of all these achievements, John Curtis was voted the 2009 recipient of the American Society of Transplantation’s highest honor, the AST/Roche Ernest Hodge Distinguished Achievement Award. Given John’s commitment to research and education, how better to acknowledge his heritage than a festschrift? Robin Luke served as moderator, offering his unique perspective on John’s life and career. In attendance were over 100 current and former coworkers and trainees from throughout the country, including several surgical colleagues (Arnold Diethelm, John Whelchel, Bruce Lucas, Mark Deierhoi, Devin Eckhoff, and Carlton Young), whose presence emphasized the value of John’s contributions to the entire field of transplantation. With one exception, each speaker was a former fellow of Dr. Curtis, presenting work directly or indirectly influenced by the precedents John helped initiate (Table 1). That exception was Matthew Weir, whose career in hypertension continues to develop themes established by John Curtis. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Bill Bennett, editor-in-chief of CJASN, in recording several of the presentations from the festschrift in the Moving Points section of the journal. We hope you enjoy reading these pieces, all current in content, yet very much indebted to the inspiration of John Curtis in their origin. Congratulations, John, on reaching this milestone in your academic career. However, all who participated in your festschrift expect to continue seeing fresh iteraPublished online ahead of print. Publication date available at www.cjasn.org.