Drawing upon more than 45 years of practiced experience in medicine and academia, Gordon L. Klein, MD, has been serving as a senior scientist and adjunct professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, since 2018. Alongside this endeavor, he has been a scientific staff member at the Shriners Hospital for Children since 2010. Prior to these appointments, he served the university as a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery from 2010 to 2018, member of the medical staff from 2010 to 2012, professor of pediatrics from 1995 to 2009, and associate professor of pediatrics and preventative medicine from 1986 to 1995. During the course of his career, he was involved with such prestigious institutions as the University of Kentucky Pediatrics Research Institute, the City of Hope National Medical Center, Tulane University School of Medicine and the University of California Los Angeles, among others.
To prepare for his career, Dr. Klein pursued formal education at several universities, receiving a medical degree in 1971. From there, he interned and completed a residency at Stanford University Medical Center until 1974, as well as an internship and residency in pediatrics at the International Center for Medical Research and Training in Colombia in 1973. Likewise, he served in a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatrics and nutrition at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1976 to 1978 and at the Nutrition Research Institute in Lima, Peru. Concluding his medical training in 1980, he lastly served as a postdoctoral fellow in pediatric gastroenterology at the University of California Los Angeles for two years.
Dr. Klein is certified in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition through the American Board of Pediatrics. Among his notable achievements, he is most renowned for the development of the Pediatric Bone Disease Initiative with the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the National Institutes of Health, as well as the development of the Food and Drug Administration’s rule governing aluminum contamination of intravenous solutions used for nutrition of hospitalized patients. Likewise, he directed the characterization of the toxic damage of aluminum to bones and liver and of bone loss following burn injuries. He also identified the mechanism of the prevention of burn-associated muscle loss by bisphosphonate medication and performed collaborative studies with the U.S. Army Institute for surgical research on the effects of combat injury on calcium and bone metabolism. Impressively, he further introduced bone density determinations into the routine diagnostic management of severely burned children.
As a testament to his success and longevity in the field, as well as his military service in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps as a lieutenant commander, Dr. Klein was the recipient of a Commanding General Medallion of Excellence from the 4th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army in 2006. Earlier in his career, he was nominated for the Howard Hughes Investigatorship in Translational Research in 2001 and won the Travel Award from the International Conference of Calcium Regulating Hormones in Melbourne, VIC, Australia, in 1995. The two-time recipient of the National Research Service Award from 1979 to 1980, he was also named a nutrition program fellow through Project HOPE in Nicaragua in 1992. He was additionally honored with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.
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