J. Bradley Aust Named UB Distinguished Medical Alumnus

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- J. Bradley Aust, M.D., Ph.D., Dorn Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, will be honored as Distinguished Medical Alumnus by the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at a dinner in his honor on Thursday, Sept. 25, in The Buffalo Club.

Aust, a 1949 graduate of the UB medical school, was the first chair of the Department of Surgery at the San Antonio center, a position he held for 30 years until stepping down in 1996.

Born in Buffalo and raised in Niagara Falls, Aust graduated from Union College, Schenectady, and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota. He completed one year of his surgical residency there, then served two years as a Navy surgeon during the Korean conflict. He returned to the University of Minnesota in 1952 to complete his residency and fellowships in physiology, oncology and surgery.

Aust remained there for several years as a scholar of the American Cancer Society, pioneering new approaches in cardiac, vascular and transplantation surgery. He left the University of Minnesota in 1966 to become professor and chair of surgery at the newly developing University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio.

Aust’s research throughout his career has centered on endotoxin shock, cancer and immune tolerance to transplantation. He has published nearly 200 papers and book chapters and is the author of two books. Clinically, Aust has concentrated on major cancer surgery and chemotherapy. He has been president of a number of medical and surgical societies and was first vice president of the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Society.

He also has been chairman of the American College of Surgeons Board of Governors, director of the American Board of Surgery and a member of the residency review committee for surgery. He has given a number of named lectureships and has served on multiple National Institutes of Health review committees. In 1981, he received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the U.S. Army for his work as a consultant at Brooks Army Medical Center.