April 6, 2006
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Robert R. Rich, M.D., senior vice president and dean of the UAB School of Medicine, has appointed the Mayo Clinic’s Keith A. (Tony) Jones, M.D., chair of the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Department of Anesthesiology.
He will succeed James R. Boyce, M.D., on July 1. Boyce has served as acting chair of the department since March 2005.
Jones, 45, has strong ties to Alabama. Born in Anniston, he received his B.S. from the University of Alabama in 1982 before going on to earn his M.D. from the UAB School of Medicine in 1986. He will be the first African-American to receive a permanent appointment as department chair in the UAB School of Medicine.
A widely published expert on smooth cell physiology, Jones joined the Mayo Clinic faculty in 1991 after completing residency and postgraduate work there, including a postdoctoral National Institutes of Health research fellowship. He has been program director of Mayo’s Smooth Muscle Physiology Laboratory since 2001, and was promoted to the rank of professor in 2004.
In addition to his many teaching, mentorship and clinical activities, Jones is a prolific researcher with interests centering on the cellular and biochemical mechanisms by which volatile anesthetics inhibit airway smooth muscle function and by which reactive oxygen species inhibit smooth muscle function. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 scholarly works. His studies have been consistently supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Smooth muscle is responsible for the contractility of hollow organs such as the lungs, bladder and gastrointestinal tract. Compared to skeletal muscle, relatively little is known about smooth muscle. Better understanding of its unique functions may have important implications for treating diseases such as asthma.
“We are very pleased to be able to welcome Dr. Jones back to his native Alabama,” Rich said. “His many talents and accomplishments as a clinician, teacher and researcher, coupled with a strong track record of leadership within academic medicine, are certain to well serve the people of his home state and region. We are confident that under his leadership the UAB department will be recognized as one of foremost departments of anesthesiology in the country.”
Jones is an editorial board member and former associate editor of the Journal of Applied Physiology and associate editor of Anesthesiology. He is board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology.
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