Bruce R. Bacon, MD, MACG
Master of the American College of Gastroenterology
Bruce R. Bacon, MD, MACG, is Professor of Internal Medicine and the inaugural holder of the James F. King, MD Endowed Chair in Gastroenterology at Saint Louis University. He was the Director of the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology from 1990 to 2010. Currently, he is the Co-Director of the Abdominal Transplant Program at Saint Louis University Hospital, and Co-Director of the Saint Louis University Liver Center.
Dr. Bacon’s undergraduate work was done at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, and his medical degree and training were obtained at Case Western University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Bacon is a former President of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in 2004 and he received their Distinguished Service Award in 2010. Dr. Bacon has been the Chair of the AASLD Foundation since 2013. He is the former Chair of the Subspecialty Board on Gastroenterology for the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the former Chair of the Subspecialty Board on Transplant Hepatology for the ABIM.
Dr. Bacon has had an extensive research interest in hepatic iron metabolism and was a member of the research team which discovered the gene for hemochromatosis, HFE, in 1996. He has had extensive experience in a variety of laboratory research protocols involving experimental iron overload, iron-induced hepatotoxicity, iron-induced organelle damage, and the role of iron in fibrogenesis. He was continuously funded by the NIH from 1982 to 2007 for work on iron-induced hepatotoxicity and hepatic fibrogenesis. His primary focus at the present time is predominantly in clinical hepatology in the field of hemochromatosis and iron overload, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and chronic hepatitis B and C.