Bruce R. Bacon, MD

James F. King, MD Endowed Chair in Gastroenterology
Professor of Internal Medicine
Director, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
St. Louis, Missouri

Bruce R. Bacon, MD is the James F. King, MD Endowed Chair in Gastroenterology, Professor of Internal Medicine, and Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Bacon earned his medical degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency and fellowship training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. He then joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University, where he was promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine. In 1988, he became Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport, moving to Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 1990.

Dr. Bacon’s research has largely been in iron metabolism in the liver, and he was a member of a research team that discovered the gene that is abnormal in patients who have hereditary hemochromatosis. He was honored for his research with the 1989 Marcel Simon Award for best research in hemochromatosis by a young investigator. In 1993, he was elected into the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Liver Foundation as Vice Chair for Medical Affairs. Dr. Bacon was a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Section that reviews grants in the area of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and served as Chairman of the Grants Review Committee for the American Liver Foundation.

Dr. Bacon has served on several editorial boards, including Hepatology, and he was the Senior Associate Editor for the Liver Disease Section of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Dr. Bacon’s basic research is funded by a 5-year grant from the NIH to examine signaling pathways in hepatic stellate cells. He has written more than 240 original articles, reviews, and book chapters, is co-author of Essentials of Clinical Hepatology, and is co-editor of Liver Disease: Diagnosis and Management. Dr. Bacon was the 2001–2003 Chair of the ABIM Subspecialty Board for Gastroenterology.

Dr. Bacon was the President of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in 2004.