James Lorenzen Boyer, MD, FACEP, FAASLD
Ensign Professor of Medicine (Digestive Diseases)Cards
About
Titles
Ensign Professor of Medicine (Digestive Diseases)
Emeritus Director, Yale Liver Center
Biography
Dr. James L. Boyer is the Ensign Professor of Medicine and Emeritus Director of the Liver Center at Yale School of Medicine. He is a graduate of Haverford College (1958) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (1962). From 1982 until 1996 he directed a combined Digestive Disease Section in the Department of Medicine. He was the founding Director of the NIDDK funded Liver Center at Yale since 1984. and former Director of the NIEHS Center for Membrane Toxicity Studies at the Mt Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, ME where he was also Chairman of their Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2003 and again from 2011-2013. He is also past Chair, Board of Directors of the American Liver Foundation and a past member of Board of Mangers of Haverford College. Dr. Boyer has a broad interest in all aspects of basic and clinical hepatology. His laboratory's major efforts have been the study of mechanisms of bile formation and cholestasis , previously supported by MERIT awards from NIDDK. He is a member of the AASLD, ASCI, AAP,APS and ACCA and past president of both the American and the International Association for the Study of Liver Disease. He is the recipient of Distinguished Achievement Awards from the AGA, AASLD and American Liver Foundation .He is a member of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Society of Scholars and the 2020 recipient of the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease's International Recognition Award.
Appointments
Digestive Diseases
ProfessorPrimary
Other Departments & Organizations
- Autoimmune and Cholestatic Liver Disease Program
- Diabetes Research Center
- Digestive Diseases
- Gastrointestinal Procedure Center
- Hepatology
- Internal Medicine
- Liver Center
- Yale Medicine
- Yale Ventures
Education & Training
- Fellow
- Yale School of Medicine (1969)
- Resident
- Yale - New Haven Hospital (1967)
- Resident
- New York Hospital (1964)
- MD
- Johns Hopkins University (1962)
- AB
- Haverford College, Biology (1958)
Research
Overview
Dr. Boyer's laboratory has pioneered in establishing the molecular and cellular basis for bile secretory function of the liver. In the late 1970’s, he established that the sodium pump was localized to the basolateral membrane of the hepatocytes. This work placed the hepatocyte as a more typical polarized epithelium and allowed paradigms that were developed in other polarized epithelia to be applied to the liver. For example, this finding allowed Dr. Boyer’s lab to purify canalicular membranes away from the basolateral domain and thus introduce the use of membrane vesicle preparations for studying transport activity. The development of in-vivo models for studying bile secretory functions (the hepatocytes couplet and the isolated bile duct unit) initially from rats and later from mice was also a major technical advance for the field. These models have been widely used by many investigators for the study of hepatobiliary transport function in live cell preparations without the confounding effects of blood flow inherent in intact or isolated perfused rat livers. These models also permited the localization of specific functions to either hepatocytes or cholangiocytes. His laboratory was also the first to demonstrate and annunciate the concept that hepatobiliary transporters undergo adaptive regulation in response to cholestatic liver injury both in liver and in kidney. This is an area of investigation subsequently widely pursued by many laboratories . This work has led to studies of the role of nuclear receptors in the regulation of transporter expression and a search for novel therapies directed to stimulation of this adaptive response.The discovery of a novel heteromeric organic solute transporter, Ost alpha-Ost beta in the liver of the marine skate by Dr. Boyer and his colleague, Ned Ballatori has led serendipitoiusly to the finding that this is the missing link the basolateral ideal transporter)in the enterohepatic circulation of bile salts. This important discovery came from work at the Mt Desert Island biological Laboratory in Maine where Dr. Boyer and colleagues have pursued seasonal research using a comparative animal model approach with marine vertebrates for nearly 4 decades. Currently his lab is studying the mechanisms by which bile acids activate an inflammatory casade in hepatocytes and cholangiocytes and have pioneered in the development of human bile derived organoids to study the mechansimf of the disease, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. The impact of this body of work has been recognized by the Adolf Windaus Prize presented by the Falk Foundation in 1988, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Gastroenterology Association in 1989, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease in 1998 and the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the American Liver Association in 1999. In 2020, he received the European Association of the Study of the Liver's prestigious International Recognition Award.
- Mechansims of bile acid induced inflammatory injury and the role of innate immunity in cholestasis
- The use of biliary organoids for drug discovery in cholestatic liver diseases.
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Academic Achievements and Community Involvement
Clinical Care
Overview
James L. Boyer, MD, specializes in liver diseases, a field he decided to pursue during a stint with the U.S. Health Service in Calcutta, India, during his medical residency. He views each case as unique and approaches each patient with flexibility. “It is important to emphasize that each patient's condition is different and not necessarily as described classically in a textbook or online, and that there is a great deal that we can do to help,” he says.
A professor of medicine (digestive diseases) at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Boyer is also emeritus director of the Yale Liver Center, which he founded, and he has worked to improve care on a national level serving such organizations as the American Liver Foundation.
Dr. Boyer focuses his clinical practice on autoimmune and cholestatic liver diseases, which can lead to cirrhosis, and is optimistic about recent advances in the understanding of these ailments. “There are many new treatments in development that look promising,” he says. His most memorable patient was the first patient he recommended for a liver transplant. She was a young woman with cirrhosis who doctors predicted would die in several years. Under Dr. Boyer’s care, she lived another 46 years.
Clinical Specialties
Board Certifications
Internal Medicine
- Certification Organization
- AB of Internal Medicine
- Original Certification Date
- 1969
Links & Media
News
- September 15, 2022
Klatskin/Boyer Lecture Honors Yale’s Influential Hepatologists
- September 06, 2022
Meet Yale Internal Medicine: Dennis Shung, MD, MHS, PhD
- July 11, 2022
Dr. Carol Soroka Retires from YSM
- March 06, 2022
Liver Specialists from Around the World Celebrate Liver Disease Successes, Prepare for Challenges Ahead