Donald Jensen is an American

hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, a ...

researcher and clinician, and Richard B. Capps Chair Emeritus,

Rush University Medical Center Rush University Medical Center (Rush) is an academic medical center in the Illinois Medical District neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship hospital for the Rush University System for Health, which includes Rush Oak Park Hospital a ...

. He attended high school in Springfield, IL, and was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. He attained his MD degree from the

University of Illinois College of Medicine The University of Illinois College of Medicine offers a four-year program leading to the MD degree at four different sites in Illinois: Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, and formerly Urbana–Champaign. The Urbana–Champaign site stopped accepting n ...

, and completed an internal medicine residency and chief medical resident at Rush University. He was subsequently a liver research fellow at

King's College Hospital King's College Hospital is a major teaching hospital and major trauma centre in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH". It is managed by ...

in London, UK, before returning to Rush as a faculty member. In 1999, he was appointed as the Richard B. Capps Professor of Medicine and chief of the section of hepatology. In 2005, he moved to the University of Chicago School of Medicine as professor of medicine and director of the Center for Liver Disease. In 2016, he assumed the position of Professor of Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. In early 1990s he was a clinical investigator at Rush University who helped to develop a drug

interferon Interferons (IFNs, ) are a group of signaling proteins made and released by host cells in response to the presence of several viruses. In a typical scenario, a virus-infected cell will release interferons causing nearby cells to heighten the ...

for hepatitis C, and in 1998 assisted in the development of the combination of interferon and ribavirin for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C. In 2007, Dr. Jensen was featured as the Top Doc in Chicago Magazine. In May 2011, two new antiviral agents for which he performed investigations, have been released:

telaprevir Telaprevir (VX-950), marketed under the brand names Incivek and Incivo, is a pharmaceutical drug for the treatment of hepatitis C co-developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson. It is a member of a class of antiviral drugs known as ...

and boceprevir. In 2022, he was the recipient of the

American Liver Foundation The American Liver Foundation (ALF) is a non-profit organization that promotes liver health and disease prevention Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for the purposes of disease prevention.Hugh R. Leavell an ...

Legacy Award. He is a Fellow of the

American College of Physicians The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of internists, who specialize in the diagnosis, treatment, and care of adults.Sokanu "What is an Internist?" Retrieved October 20, 2014 With 161,000 members, ACP is the largest ...

and of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

References

Living people 1946 births American hepatologists University of Chicago faculty University of Illinois alumni American medical academics American medical researchers Fellows of the American College of Physicians {{US-physician-stub