UCLA Pediatrician Honored with Special Career Award

Newswise — Dr. E. Richard Stiehm, distinguished professor of pediatrics at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA, received the 2009 Special Recognition Award from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) in Washington D.C. on March 14.

Stiehm was unanimously chosen for the award which recognized his exemplary career devoted to immunologic disorders in children, particularly for his well-known textbook on the subject, with emphasis on human intravenous immune globulin, stem cell transplantation, the immunology of malnutrition and AIDs, all of which have benefited the scientific and patient communities.

Among his many accomplishments, Stiehm identified the first case in the United States of HIV transmission by breast feeding in his patient Ariel Glaser, and helped the child's mother, Elizabeth, establish the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. His work in Ghana and Kenya delineated the immune defects in protein-calorie malnutrition. His studies on primary immunodeficiency included the use of bone marrow transplantation in patients with DiGeorge syndrome and cord blood transplantation. Stiehm has authored more than 450 articles, chapters and books. He is the chief editor of the text Immunologic Disorders in Infants and Children, editions I to V, and is the editor for clinical immunology for UP-TO-DATE, the on-line compilation of current medical information.

Stiehm served as chief of the division of pediatric allergy, immunology and rheumatology at UCLA from 1969 to 2003. He received his bachelor's and M.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and completed his residency in pediatrics at Babies Hospital at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He completed fellowships in physiological chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and in medicine and pediatrics at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco.