Dr. Alp Sener has newly joined the Division of Urology at The University of Western Ontario as an Assistant Professor of Surgery after a two year fellowship in multi-organ transplantation at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore Maryland. While in Maryland, he was trained in kidney and pancreas transplantation by pioneers in the fields of surgery, nephrology and immunobiology. During his fellowship, he was awarded the prestigious American Society of Transplant Surgeons/Novartis Fellowship in Transplantation research award for his work on CD4 T cell responses to polyclonal antibody based immunosuppression. He is currently based out of University Hospital where he joins Dr. Patrick Luke as part of the Multi-Organ Transplant Program.
His persistent efforts in both clinical and basic sciences research have culminated in Dr. Sener receiving the 2009 Schulich Clinician Scientist Award which is supported jointly by the Department of Surgery and The University of Western Ontario. As the recipient of this accolade, Dr. Sener will be establishing an independent research program where he and his team will carry out both basic sciences and translational research on CD4 T-cell mediated graft rejection and in developing methods of mitigating kidney and pancreas ischemia-reperfusion injury following transplantation. He is looking forward to establishing new relationships both within the Division of Urology as well as in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, as he believes that a collaborative approach to science is the key to success. Dr. Sener's ultimate objective is to establish protocols which can prolong and optimize graft survival so as to minimize the strains on our diminishing transplantable organ pool. In addition to his research, Dr. Sener will continue to build up a general Urology and kidney/pancreas transplant directed clinical practice and maintain his interests in teaching to medical students, residents and fellows. Dr. Sener hopes that having an active translational lab will entice his students and trainees to complement their clinical Urology/Transplant training with bench research.
Dr. Sener has been building up to a career in academic medicine for over 15 years. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin, he obtained a PhD in renal physiology followed by his MD from the University of Calgary. Subsequently, Dr. Sener completed his Urology residency at The University of Western Ontario and became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2007.