Robert J Alpern, MD
Ensign Professor of Medicine (Nephrology); Dean, Yale School of Medicine
Departments & Organizations
Internal Medicine: NephrologyBiography
Dr. Robert J. Alpern attended undergraduate school at Northwestern University, where he majored in Chemistry. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1976, and received residency training in Internal Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Following this, he performed a postdoctoral fellowship in Nephrology in the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1982, Dr. Alpern joined the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, and in 1987 he was recruited to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as Chief of the Division of Nephrology. At Southwestern Dr. Alpern held the Ruth W. and Milton P. Levy, Sr. Chair in Molecular Nephrology and the Atticus James Gill, M.D. Chair in Medical Science. In July 1998 Dr. Alpern was appointed Dean of Southwestern Medical School and in June 2004, he moved to the Yale University School of Medicine to become the Ensign Professor of Medicine and Dean of the medical school. Dr. Alpern’s research has focused on the regulation of kidney transport proteins. In addition Dr. Alpern has been highly committed to teaching and clinical medicine. In 2000 he was elected President of the American Society of Nephrology. He was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine and has served on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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Education
- B.A., Northwestern University, 1972
- M.D., University of Chicago, 1976
Selected Publication
- Laghmani, K., A. Sakamoto, M. Yanagisawa, P.A. Preisig, and R.J. Alpern. A consensus sequence in the endothelin B receptor second intracellular loop is required for NHE3 activation by endothelin-1. Am. J. Physio. 288:F732-F739, 2005.
Latest Honor and Recognition
- Phi Beta Kappa (1972)
Articles
Winter 2012
Surgeon general speaks at PA Commencement
Early in her career Regina B. Benjamin, M.D., M.B.A., was the only doctor in Bayou La Batre, a rural Alabama town where...
Winter 2012
Auction raises money for New Haven charities
The 19th Annual Hunger & Homelessness Auction raised more than $30,000 for New Haven charities in November. Proceeds...
Winter 2011
Levin describes the state of the university
About 15 minutes into his Town Hall meeting at the School of Medicine in February, President Richard C. Levin came to...
Winter 2011
Hunger and Homelessness auction raises $25,000
Offerings that included California wines, fencing lessons, movie tickets, and an incomparable evening of sports or...
Spring 2011
A federal grant moves plans to link med school with downtown a step forward
Nearly half a century ago, the area between the Yale School of Medicine and downtown New Haven was the bustling Oak...
Spring 2011
The high cost of a medical education
In the summer of 1957, Warren D. Widmann, M.D. ’61, HS ’67, earned his first year’s tuition for the School of Medicine...
Spring 2011
The best of times, but a worrisome future
“Things have never been better, and we’ve never been more worried about the future,” Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D.,...
Spring 2011
From a TV series, a physician offers a vision of “what makes us caregivers”
The fictional physician and title character in the television seriesHouse is no one’s idea of a role model. “He’s...
Autumn 2011
Lasker Award recognizes research on protein folding
More than two decades of research into protein folding have led to a Lasker award for Arthur L. Horwich, M.D., HS ’78,...
Autumn 2011
School of Medicine welcomes Class of 2015
The 101 members of the Yale School of Medicine’s Class of 2015 looked elated but also a little incredulous as they...
Autumn 2011
White Coat ceremony kicks off Bicentennial
The annual White Coat ceremony in Harkness Auditorium in August was the inaugural event of the School of Medicine’s...
Autumn 2011
Pioneer in genetic engineering and biotech wins Parker Medal
In the early 1960s, a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh wrote to Edward A. Adelberg, Ph.D. ’49, chair of...
Autumn 2011
Biomedicine in the New Century
In the signature event held on April 28 and 29 to celebrate the School of Medicine’s 200th year, 15 world-renowned...
Autumn 2011
2011-2012 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Autumn 2011
Is the physician-scientist an endangered species?
One of the challenges of interviewing Danny Balkin is that he keeps asking the questions—about the writing process, the...
Autumn 2011
“One of our own” returns to Yale as Farr lecturer on Student Research Day
George Lister, M.D. ’73, HS ’75, spent more than 20 years on the Yale faculty as a professor of pediatrics and...
Winter 2010
Class of 2012 presents “Love in the Time of the Swine Flu”
The second-year class affectionately mocked faculty while carrying on a 61-year-old tradition.In a two-act play that...
Winter 2010
2009-2010 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Winter 2010
First-year class embraces study of medicine
Harkness Auditorium was aflutter with nervous excitement on August 25 as the Class of 2013—or “2014 or somewhere in...
Winter 2010
On the eve of class, a game of chance
On the last Wednesday in August, dozens of new medical students tried their luck against their classmates, second-year...
Winter 2010
A cardiologist’s last lesson in heart sounds
Lawrence S. Cohen, M.D., HS ’65, taught his last class on September 15 in “Learning Heart Sounds,” a module he has...
Spring 2010
Medical School Reunion Weekend June 4-6, 2010
Alumni lectures: — Robert Klitzman, M.D. ’85 —When Doctors Become Patients — Jerrold M. Post, M.D. ’60 —When Illness...
Spring 2010
2009-2010 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Spring 2010
Cushing's tumor registery opens to the public
The Cushing Center, new home to the Cushing Tumor Registry, opened its doors to visitors during the annual reunion in...
Spring 2010
Medical school “is doing great,” dean tells alumni
The School of Medicine continues to raise money, rank high in NIH funding, initiate new programs, and draw the best...
Spring 2010
New PA grads face a bright future
“It’s a great time to be a physician associate,” said Robert S. Galvin, M.D., in a Commencement address given in...
Autumn 2010
2010-2011 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Autumn 2010
Yale welcomes a new med school
Quinnipiac University in neighboring Hamden will open a new medical school—one that will focus more on teaching than...
Winter 2009
President and dean respond to economic downturn
Although the university and the medical school remain strong financially, the economic downturn requires some...
Winter 2009
Reform of premed education under way
In 1910, Abraham Flexner’s examination of the state of American medical education led to widespread reforms ...
Winter 2009
Robert J. Alpern, M.D.
Robert J. Alpern, M.D., dean and Ensign Professor of Medicine, received the John P. Peters Award from the American...
Winter 2009
As medical center grows, so grows the city
On Saturday, April 19, 2008, a month before she was to graduate from the School of Medicine, Mila Rainof, M.D. ’08,...
Winter 2009
At annual White Coat Ceremony, students kick off their medical careers
The 100 students in the Class of 2012 include 51 women and 49 men, 24 graduates of Harvard and Yale, 24 members of...
Spring 2009
A first term marked by progress and growth
When Robert Alpern was appointed dean in 2004, his vision for the School of Medicine was to build programs in...
Spring 2009
Recommendations for rest periods for residents meets with skepticism
For decades, doctors in training have endured long hours and sleepless nights during residency. Due to concerns that...
Spring 2009
Class of 1949: 60th Reunion
We were the oldest reunion class this year, which may explain some of our delight at receiving a copy of our class...
Spring 2009
Class of 1959: 50th reunion
The 50-year reunion of the Class of 1959 began in a gentle rain Friday evening. The Cocktail Tent set up on Harkness...
Spring 2009
Lung cancer expert to lead cancer center
Thomas J. Lynch Jr., M.D. ’86, a lung cancer expert at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School,...
Spring 2009
Alumni gather for 2009 reunion
This year's festivities include tours of West Campus and Smilow Cancer Hospital. Also, surgeons honor Robert Weiss.
Spring 2009
Distinguished Service Award to Robert Lyons
At the alumni meeting, Robert W. Lyons, M.D. ’64, the chief of infectious disease at Saint Francis Hospital in...
Spring 2009
At Commencement, the PA Program’s history
Alfred Sadler, the first director of Yale’s Physician Associate Program, described its early days in the 1970s.When...
Spring 2009
U.S. economy in free fall! Yale endowment down! Med school scrambles for $$$!
Carrying on a 60-year-old tradition, the second-year class mocked its teachers and mentors with irreverence and...
Autumn 2009
A new class embraces the study of medicine
The 99 members of the Class of 2013 donned white coats in August as a symbol of their entry into medicine.
Autumn 2009
Officials outline plans to reconfigure Route 34
In the 1950s city officials believed that New Haven needed a highway link to the towns of the Lower Naugatuck Valley....
Autumn 2009
Yale’s Physician Associate Program nears 40
As it approaches its 40th year, the PA Program fills a niche in American medicine.
Winter 2008
2007-2008 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
OfficersJocelyn S. Malkin, M.D. ’52, HS ’54, FW ’60 PresidentHarold Bornstein Jr., M.D. ’63 Vice PresidentRobert W....
Winter 2008
New building on Amistad Street: a place “where great science is done”
Taking a page from theoretical physics, scientists at the School of Medicine’s newest building will shorten the...
Winter 2008
Three faculty named to IOM in 2007
Three Yale faculty members were named to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in October, bringing the total from the...
Winter 2008
A tale of two doctors
John Elefteriades and Larry Cohen have worked together at Yale for 30 years, as student and mentor, as colleagues and,...
Winter 2008
Yale system remains a strong draw
Kwame and Kofi Atsina went to different colleges and have different interests, but when it came time to apply to...
Winter 2008
Response to patients matters most, neurosurgeon tells Physician Associate grads
Twenty years ago Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, M.D., was a 19-year-old illegal immigrant who spoke no English and picked...
Spring 2008
2007-2008 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Spring 2008
Yale alumnus funds new cancer hospital
Since his graduation from Yale College in 1954, Joel E. Smilow has made donations to his alma mater that have endowed a...
Spring 2008
How the West was won
The acquisition of the former Bayer HealthCare facility, now known as West Campus, resolves long-standing space needs...
Spring 2008
Of gangstas, capos and accreditation inspectas
Following a tradition dating back to 1949, the Class of 2010 presented The Unaccreditables, its second-year show, in...
Autumn 2008
2007-2008 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Autumn 2008
Seldin and Giebisch’s The Kidney: Physiology and Pathophysiology, 4th ed.
edited by Robert J. Alpern, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and Ensign Professor of Medicine (nephrology), and the...
Autumn 2008
A student’s warm heart and “amazing” smile
As the 96 members of the Class of 2008 processed to Old Campus for Commencement on May 26, they paused at the corner of...
Autumn 2008
New financial aid policy geared toward middle-income families and students
Some students opening acceptance letters from the School of Medicine this spring had another reason to celebrate. While...
Autumn 2008
1978 - 30th Reunion
The Class of 1978 reconvened in New Haven this June for their 30th reunion. Sightings included Rich Baron, Duke and...
Autumn 2008
Reunion 2008
This year’s reunion was a jaw-dropping experience for the scores of alumni who toured Yale University’s new West Campus...
Winter 2007
New funding paradigms reshape research
Flat funding and a new research paradigm have turned federal funding of medical research on its head. After the recent...
Winter 2007
University hopes to build on success in campaign for “Yale Tomorrow”
Nearly a decade after the close of its last major fund-raising campaign, Yale has begun a five-year drive to raise $3...
Winter 2007
Stem cell program gets under way at Yale with arrival of cell biologist
One of the nation’s leading stem cell biologists arrived at Yale last summer to lead a new program that will explore...
Winter 2007
Immunobiologist named to IOM
Richard A. Flavell, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, and chair of immunobiology was named to the Institute...
Winter 2007
“You are the guardians of your profession,” speaker tells new Physician Associates
Twenty-nine students in the Physician Associate Class of 2006 received their degrees at Commencement in September,...
Spring 2007
2006-2007 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Spring 2007
Training physicians—new ways of teaching in a changing medical landscape
For the past 32 years, Yale faculty from the Department of Internal Medicine have taught at 10 hospitals throughout...
Spring 2007
Hunger and Homelessness Auction raises $36,000 for community agencies
The student-run Hunger and Homelessness Auction raised $36,313 in November for seven community agencies in New Haven,...
Autumn 2007
2006-2007 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Autumn 2007
Armenian rector visits Yale
Gohar P. Kyalyan, M.D., rector of Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia, met with Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., in...
Autumn 2007
1957 - 50th Reunion
The Class of 1957 held its 50th reunion with a record number of classmates returning—about 60 percent of the living...
Autumn 2007
Special advisor leaves dean’s office post
Lawrence S. Cohen, M.D., HS ’65, the Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Medicine, has stepped down after 16 years in the...
Autumn 2007
Reunion 2007
Reunion 2007 opened on June 1 with the traditional reception and clambake—but in a departure from past years, the...
Spring 2006
Chase leaving to study what makes good doctors
In December the medical school’s deputy dean for education, Herbert S. Chase Jr., M.D., announced that he would be...
Spring 2006
PA grads urged to keep learning
At their Commencement in September the 29 members of the Physician Associate Program’s Class of 2005 heard words of...
Autumn 2006
2006-2007 Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine
The Executive Committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine directs association activities, links the School...
Autumn 2006
Meet the new dean of public health
At first glance, Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D., might seem an unorthodox choice to be dean of public health.
Autumn 2006
1946 - 60th reunion
Short of a conference call to the entire class, let this synopsis serve to update our SVHO (sometimes vigorously...
Autumn 2006
The Chase years
Six years ago, Herb Chase came to Yale to improve medical education. As his tenure ended this summer, he left behind a...
Autumn 2006
Back on Cedar Street
This year’s reunion kicked off on the evening of Friday, June 2, in the Medical Historical Library with welcoming...
Autumn 2006
Always put the patient first
The pressures of the real world will challenge their graduation-day idealism, Herbert S. Chase Jr., M.D., told the 101...
Autumn 2006
"UnderRated" skewers rankings and—as ever—the med school faculty
When the School of Medicine dropped to number 11 in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings for best research...
Summer 2005
For stem cell researcher, Connecticut’s initiative offers a new avenue for progress
In her Yale laboratory in 2001, Diane S. Krause, M.D., Ph.D., surprised the scientific community with her discovery...
Summer 2005
Boffo reviews for Golden Probe!! Raves for Alpern!! Überstein rocks Harkness!!
The excitement was palpable at the First Annual Golden Probe Awards, the Class of 2007’s entry in the ever-popular...
Spring 2005
Gordon receives the Peter Parker Medal for years of service
Martin E. Gordon, M.D. ’46, has taken on many roles in his varied career. Of late the semiretired gastroenterologist...
Spring 2005
A new hospital pavilion, set to open in 2008, will house $430 million cancer facility
Services for cancer patients are currently scattered at six sites across the Yale-New Haven Medical Center, but that...
Spring 2005
New finance officer crosses country to assume post at Yale
Jaclyne W. Boyden, a senior administrator at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has been named deputy...
Spring 2005
Three named to endowed professorships
The university named three members of the faculty at the medical school to endowed professorships in 2004.Robert J....
Spring 2005
Good doctors and great doctors
Stitched through the threads of the physician’s white coat are emblems of both power and responsibility, Robert J....
Autumn 2005
Nostalgia of another kind
In 1980, years after the last troops returned home from Vietnam, the military and medical establishments put a name on...
Autumn 2005
A call to professionalism
At the beginning of the White Coat Ceremony in August, Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., assured the 100 members of the...
Autumn 2005
Reunion 2005
Although the reunion in June officially kicks off with a Friday evening dean’s reception followed by the clambake on...
Autumn 2005
Marna Borgstrom named to lead Yale-New Haven Hospital and Health System
Since she joined Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) as a junior adminstrator in 1979, Marna P. Borgstrom, M.P.H. ’79, has...
Autumn 2005
A year at the helm
Since he arrived at Yale in 2004, Dean Robert Alpern has led faculty to a new vision of the medical school, with a...
Summer 2004
A down-to-earth leader who gets things done
Texas dean Robert Alpern, a distinguished nephrologist, takes the reins at Yale.When Donald W. Seldin, M.D. ’43D, HS...
Fall/Winter 2004
Chinese university leaders visit Yale
Leaders of 12 of China’s most prestigious universities spent two weeks at Yale in August, including one day at the...
Fall/Winter 2004
Recreating the residency
Under new rules, residents may not work more than 80 hours a week. This change has forced physicians to rethink the...
Fall/Winter 2004
Reunion 2004
Even as all the traditional trappings of reunion—the Friday evening clambake, the Saturday morning symposium and the...
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