J. Harold Helderman, M.D.

     After receiving an B.A. in History Summa Cum Laude from the University of Rochester and an M.D. Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York, Dr. Helderman trained in medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Research training in receptor chemistry began at the National Institutes of Health and was continued along with a transplantation fellowship at Harvard University in Brigham and Womens Hospital under C.B. Carpenter and Terry Strom. Dr. Helderman then joined the faculty of the University of Texas Southwestern as Director of the Transplant Immunology Laboratory in 1977 and then the Medical Director of the Renal Transplant program in 1983.  He left Texas to join the faculty as Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt University in 1989 and the founder and Medical Director of the multiorgan transplant program, the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. Dr. Helderman is Associate Editor American J Kidney Diseases, on the editorial board of several additional journals, member, Ad Hoc Study Section O’Brien Kidney Centers, President and Program Chair of the North American Society for Dialysis and Transplantation, member of the Board of Directors UNOS, President of the Council American Kidney Societies, and President of the American Society of Transplant Physicians. Dr. Helderman combines research interests in a basic understanding of lymphocyte activation, regulation of growth factor receptors on lymphocytes with an interest in the clinical problems of immunosuppression, diagnosis of rejection and the development of tolerance. Dr. Helderman adds to his research interests a busy practice schedule in organ transplantation medicine and a teaching role in the clinical and basic departments at the Medical School.

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