The Gastroenterology and Hepatology communities are deeply saddened by the unexpected passing of Dr. Paul Angulo. Paul was an exceptional clinical researcher who earned international prestige for his work on autoimmune and fatty liver disease.
He obtained his Medical degree at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hídalgo in Mexico, followed by a research fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City. He subsequently did his fellowship in Internal Medicine, where he was Chief Resident during the last year and also finished his Gastroenterology fellowship in the same Institute.
He then relocated to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to start a postdoctoral research fellowship under the tutelage of Dr. Keith Lindor, where he became first an Assistant and eventually an Associate Professor. At the time of his death, Paul was a full Professor of Medicine and Section Chief of Hepatology at the University of Kentucky.
Paul was highly prolific. He wrote over 100 published papers, most of them in top-ranked journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine,1 Gastroenterology,2 Hepatology3 and the Journal of Hepatology,4 among many others. One of his major achievements was the development of fibrosis scores that currently constitute the more accepted non-invasive tool for predicting fibrosis (www.nafldscore.com)5 and outcomes in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.6 Paul was also invited to give numerous international presentations that included the Digestive Disease Week sponsored by the American Association of Gastroenterology, the Liver Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the International Liver Congress of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Moreover, he always maintained a close relationship with the Asociación Mexicana de Gastroenterología, participating as a keynote speaker at several meetings and serving as part of the editorial board of the Revista de Gastroenterología de México, the official journal of our association. Those of us who had the opportunity to work with Paul7,8 had the privilege of benefitting from his powerful personality. As a mentor, his sincerity was constant and he deeply valued all of his undergraduate and postgraduate students. He was always there to help them out with any issue, major or minor. He was unceasingly enthusiastic regarding research, and his excitement was contagious and energizing. Our sorrow from the irreparable loss of a great clinical researcher is assuaged through the remembrance of his achievements obtained at his young age that will prevail in benefit of liver disease management for future generations.
“Every man dies. Not every man really lives” (William Ross Wallace).
Please cite this article as: Montano-Loza AJ. En memoria del Dr. Paul Angulo (20 de abril de 1965 - 25 de febrero de 2015). Revista de Gastroenterología de México. 2015;80:175–176.