Alan Krensky, M.D.

Deputy Director for Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives, July 8, 2007 - October 31, 2008

Dr. Krensky was the first Director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI) and a Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health. Before coming to NIH, Dr. Krensky was at Stanford University where he served as the Shelagh Galligan Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Dean for Children's Health, Associate Chair for Research, Chief of the Division of Immunology and Transplantation Biology and Executive Director of the Children's Health Initiative. A medical graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in 1977, he trained in pediatrics and nephrology at Boston Children's Hospital and immunology with Steven Burakoff at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After one year on the faculty at Harvard, he moved to Stanford as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in 1984. He was appointed Shelagh Galligan Professor in 1995 and joined NIH on July 8, 2007.

Dr. Krensky is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, Society for Pediatric Research, American Pediatric Society, American Society of Nephrology, American Society of Pediatric Nephrology, American Association of Immunologists and Transplantation Society. He has served as Councilor and President of the Society for Pediatric Research and Councilor and Secretary-Treasurer of the American Society of Nephrology. He has served on several Scientific Advisory Boards and holds nine patents. Dr. Krensky is a past recipient of the Society for Pediatric Research Young Investigator Award, American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Young Investigator Award, American Society of Nephrology Young Investigator Award, American Academy of Pediatrics Award for Excellence in Pediatric Research, E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics, and Novartis Established Investigator Award of the American Society of Transplantation. He presented the David Cornfeld Lecture at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the David Hume Lecture at the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Roche Visiting Professorship at Harvard Medical School, the Robert Haslam Lecture at the Hospital for Sick Children, and the John Capp Clark lecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been supported by the American Heart Association Clinician-Scientist and Established Investigator Awards, the Medical Foundation Fellowship, the Joseph A. Shankman Award of the National Kidney Foundation of Massachusetts, Basil O'Connor Award of the March of Dimes, Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Burroughs Wellcome Scholar in Experimental Therapeutics and a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health.

As Executive Director of the Children's Health Initiative and Associate Dean for Children's Health at Stanford, Dr. Krensky planned and implemented a $500 million investment in preeminence and sustainability of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. He helped develop six centers of excellence, five multidisciplinary cores, and the recruitment of more than forty faculty. In this role, he chaired the CHI Executive Committee, was involved in fund raising and served as a liaison between the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine. During his tenure, the endowment of the Packard Children's Hospital increased 500%.

Dr. Krensky's research program was continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health from 1984 to his assumption of the NIH post. He has made important contributions to understanding the role of human T lymphocytes in human disease and applying this information to the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to disease. He first identified the human lymphocyte function-associated antigens (1-3), the chemokine RANTES, the host defense molecule Granulysin, and the transcription factor KLF-13 (RFLAT-1). He has published more than 250 scientific articles and reviews and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Immunology (Associate Editor), Current Opinion in Pediatrics (Section Editor), Pediatric Nephrology (Assistant Editor), Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (Associate Editor), Pediatric Transplantation, Graft, and Annual Review of Medicine. Dr. Krensky has trained more than 46 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory and has a special interest in training undergraduate and high school students.

Dr. Krensky has enjoyed long service with several organizations, serving as Chairman of the Experimental Immunology Study Section at the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association National Peer Review Group, American Cancer Society Institutional Review Group, Medical Advisory Board of the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Translational Research Advisory Committee, and the Steering Committee of the Immune Tolerance Network (NIH-JDRF).

This page last reviewed on August 7, 2015