PBC Stars Awards
At our conference dinner on Friday, April 12th, we were pleased to honor three outstanding individuals who have been with us since the early years of our organization – Doctors Keith Lindor, John Vierling and Eric Gershwin.
Keith Lindor, M.D. was a major leader in the clinical trials for ursodiol, which ultimately became an FDA approved treatment for PBC. He continued to work in the PBC field, training so many physicians who are in the PBC field today. Dr. Lindor has continued to publish on PBC, and has spoken at many of our conferences over the years.
John Vierling, M.D. is another long-time supporter of our organization. Like Dr. Lindor, he has a long list of PBC-related publications to his credit and has presented at many conferences, including the 2024 conference. He has always made himself available when we ask for an explanation of any new developments or to answer a patient’s question.
Eric Gershwin, M.D. is well-known for his PBC research at UC Davis. One of his most important milestones was the development of the mouse model with PBC, which he provides to PBC researchers at no cost. This mouse model has made possible much of today’s PBC research. Dr. Gershwin has the distinction of presenting at every PBC conference but one (and he would have been there but for a travel glitch ).
Given how much our honorees have contributed to PBC research and PBC patients, it was difficult to decide what we could do to express our gratitude. Somehow, a plaque didn’t seem like enough. So we reached for the stars!
When the PBCers celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2006, we honored Linie Moore by naming a star for her. After some thought, we realized that this would be an excellent gift for our honorees, each a star in his field. We purchased a star for each doctor in the same area as Linie’s star, a constellation called Draco next to the scoop of the Big Dipper, which is the prominent part of the Ursa Major constellation. Ursa Major is Latin for “Great Bear”, making this a very appropriate location considering that the connection to our medication URSO is synthetic bear bile!
In the star chart above, you can see where these stars are located. In addition, we have purchased a fifth star representing the PBC Community to honor all those affected by PBC – current patients and those who have lost their battle, as well as families and friends. When Linie created this organization, she wanted us to “never feel alone.” So any time you may be having a bad day, have lost someone to PBC, or just need a little something, look up in the sky and remember that “you are not alone” – there is a whole PBC community, always there.
