Clinical and Research Background
Dr. Alpers is the former Interim Chair of the Department of Pathology, former director of the University of Washington Medicine Renal Pathology Service, and a UW professor of pathology and medicine. He is an expert in diagnostic and experimental renal pathology. Dr. Alpers’ clinical research has focused on growth factor molecules that control the expression of kidney diseases, on the kidney injury that occurs in patients with diabetes and on kidney injury that occurs in patients infected with Hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency viruses. His research lab utilizes model systems to identify mechanisms of diabetic renal injury and glomerulonephritis and to test therapies that can reverse these diseases.
Dr. Alpers earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his M.D. from the University of Rochester School Of Medicine (N.Y.) in 1978. Following medical school, he trained as an intern and resident in internal medicine at Boston University. He subsequently did a residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of California, San Francisco, and a fellowship in diagnostic and experimental kidney pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. After completing his fellowship training, Dr. Alpers joined the faculty of the UW in 1986 to assume directorship of the Renal Pathology Service and the Electron Microscopy Laboratory of the UW Medical Center. The Renal Pathology Service is the largest in the Northwest, and is the leading referral center for renal biopsy diagnoses for patients from Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Nevada.
For multiple years, Dr. Alpers has been listed as a “Best Doctor” by Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. Dr. Alpers is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served as president of the Renal Pathology Society. He has served as associate editor of the American Journal of Pathology and of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and served as pathology editor for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. He is the author of the chapters on kidney disease in the 7th, 8th, and 9th editions of Robbins and Cotran’s Pathologic Basis of Disease, and Robbins Basic Pathology, the two most widely used textbooks of pathology used by medical students world-wide.
Board Certifications
Board Certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology
Academic and Medical Appointments
Academic Appointments
Interim Chair, Department of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 2016-2020
Acting Chair, Department of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 2007-2008; 2009-2010
Vice Chair, Department of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 2007-2020
Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA,1997-Present
Professor of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA,1997-Present
Associate Professor of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 1991-1997
Assistant Professor of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 1986-1991
Medical Appointments
Head, Renal Pathology Service, University of Washington Medical Center, 1994-2017
Director, Renal Pathology Fellowship, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1994-2015
Acting Director, Anatomic Pathology, University of Washington Medical Center, 2000-2001
Consultant in Pathology, Department of Laboratories, Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, Seattle, WA, 1989-Present
Head, Electron Microscope Laboratory, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA, 1986-2016
Autopsy Pathology, 1986-1997
Renal Pathology, 1984-Present
Education and Training
Training
Research Fellow in Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 1984-1986
Resident in Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 1983-1984
Fellow in Surgical Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 1982-1983
Resident in Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 1980-1982
Intern and Resident, Internal Medicine, University Hospital, Boston, MA, 1978-1980
Education
Medical Doctorate, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY, 1978
Bachelor of Arts, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1973
Publications
Latest publications from PubMed