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Gustav Paumgartner receives Award of Recognition from the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)

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(Vienna, 7 April 2017) Gustav Paumgartner, emeritus director of the Department of Medicine II at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and currently visiting professor at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at MedUni Vienna, is to receive the Award of Recognition at this year's EASL conference in Amsterdam (19 – 23 April). The prize is in recognition of his life's work in the field of research into liver diseases.

The main focus of Gustav Paumgartner's scientific and clinical work is bile secretion and its disorders. These primarily include metabolism, transport and function of the bile acids. Bile acids as therapeutic agents such as e.g. urodeoxycholic acid for treating chronic cholestatic liver diseases played a particularly important role. Additionally, he has always been involved in studying and treating gallstone disease.

The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) is Europe's largest association for research into liver diseases. The association, which was founded in 1966, has around 3,500 members. It is responsible for the content of the Journal of Hepatology published by Elsevier. Its current General Secretary is Laurent Castera.

About Gustav Paumgartner
Gustav Paumgartner was born in Neumarkt in Styria in 1933. He studied at the universities of Princeton, Graz and Vienna and gained his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna. Thereafter he worked at the Pharmacological Institute and the Department of Medicine II of the University of Vienna and also at the New Jersey College of Medicine, N.J., USA.

He moved from Vienna in 1971 to the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology of the University of Berne, where he gained his postdoctoral qualification in pharmacology and hepatology and was appointed associate professor and vice director of the institute.

In 1979 he followed a call to be an ordinary professor for internal medicine and director of the Department of Medicine II at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Following his retirement in 1999, he chaired the Ethics Committee of the medical faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich up until 2010. In 2013 he was appointed visiting professor at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Department of Medicine III at the Medical University of Vienna.

Gustav Paumgartner has been a European member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine, associate editor of Hepatology and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hepatology. Within the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) he has served as General Secretary, President and Honorary President. As a clinical scientist, he has always tried to combine basic research and clinical research.