AAAAI Foundation and I. Leonard Bernstein, MD, FAAAAI Memorial Lectureship

I. Leonard Bernstein, MD, FAAAAI, served as president of the AAAAI (then known as the American Academy of Allergy) in 1982. He was admired for his encyclopedic knowledge of the field of allergy and asthma, and was a founding member of the committee that conceived and wrote the first practice parameters for our specialty. 

Dr. Bernstein was an expert in environmental and occupational allergies, and published extensively. He was devoted to training future allergists, and developed a Fellowship program at the University of Cincinnati through which he trained more than 60 physicians.

Dr. Bernstein’s contributions to our specialty were vast, and he especially valued good research done in the interest of improving outcomes for our patients and growing the field of Allergy/Immunology. The AAAAI Foundation exists to fund research that leads to the prevention and cure of asthma and allergic and immunologic disease, which was a cause near and dear to his heart. 

2020 marks the 4th year of the AAAAI Foundation and I. Leonard Bernstein, MD, FAAAAI Memorial Lectureship. It will be presented in Plenary Session 4101: Rhinoviruses, Atopy, and Asthma Exacerbations: Implications for Management in an Era of Biologics and Precision Medicine: Mechanisms of Exacerbations on Monday, March 16, 2020 at 8:50 am - Convention Center, 200 Level, Hall D

Matthew Altman, MD

Dr. Altman received his undergraduate training at Stanford University, and graduate and medical training at Cambridge University in England and Harvard Medical School. He completed residency at Brigham and Women’s hospital, and Allergy Immunology training at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington, and also an Associate Scientist at the Benaroya Research Institute in the Systems Immunology Division.

He is a physician-scientist focused on the use of unbiased systems immunology and computational biology approaches to study allergic and immunologic diseases in particular pediatric asthma. Much of his work has focused on the use of whole genome transcriptional profiling, network analysis, and increasingly multi-omics approaches to better understand disease mechanisms. For the last several years he has been working very closely with the NIAID Inner City Asthma Consortium led by Dr. Jim Gern, Dr. Dan Jackson, and Dr. Bill Busse in translational studies to pinpoint the immunologic mechanisms relevant to the development, progression, and exacerbation of pediatric asthma within the Inner City Asthma Consortium’s translational clinical trials. Their work is now helping to understand the mechanisms of response and non-response to immunologic therapies towards a goal of “personalized” asthma management. He is a member of the Microbes in Allergy and Asthma Committee and a 2019 recipient of the AAAAI faculty development award.