Dr. Anand S. Iyer Receives Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award In Aging

From the University of Alabama at Birmingham:

September 28, 2020

By Adam Pope

Anand S. Iyer, M.D., assistant professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, is the first UAB recipient of the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging in its 25-year history.

The award is a collaboration of the National Institute on Aging, the American Federation of Aging Research and the John A. Hartford Foundation to develop talented scientists who will take on active leadership roles in aging and geriatrics to improve health care outcomes for older adults. Only seven to 10 Beeson Scholars are named each year nationwide.

Iyer is a pulmonologist, intensivist and health outcomes researcher. He works to bridge the fields of pulmonary medicine, geriatrics and palliative care and conducts patient-centered outcomes research in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.

The five-year, $1.2 million K76 award will support Iyer’s career development as a leader in aging and geriatrics as it relates to pulmonary medicine and will help him conduct a randomized controlled pilot trial of a geriatrics-palliative care intervention for older adults with COPD and their families.

“I am grateful for the years of support from my family and my village at UAB,” Iyer said. “The population of older adults is growing fast, and we all need to be thinking outside the box on ways to help them live well with complex chronic diseases that limit their quality of life.”

Iyer says he is looking forward to learning from international leaders in the field of aging to transform the pulmonary specialty through geriatrics and palliative care and revolutionize care for older adults with pulmonary diseases.

This press release was produced by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The views expressed here are the author’s own.