Richard Peek, MD, director of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been elected vice president of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the specialty’s primary and most influential international organization.
Peek, the Mina Cobb Wallace Professor of Immunology and professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, will serve successive one-year terms as AGA vice president, president-elect, president in 2027-2028, and then past president.
He will be recognized along with other newly elected members of the AGA Governing Board during the association’s annual Digestive Disease Week May 3-6 in San Diego.
“I am extremely honored and humbled to have been elected to this leadership position,” Peek said. “It is a direct reflection of the unparalleled opportunities I have been given during my career at Vanderbilt.”
“I am thrilled to hear about Dr. Peek’s election,” said Jane Freedman, MD, Gladys Parkinson Stahlman Professor of Cardiovascular Research and chair of the Department of Medicine. “This is a great honor and demonstrates his central role and commitment to the fields of gastroenterology and hepatology.”
A graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Peek completed residency and chief residency training in internal medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a clinical and research fellowship in gastroenterology at VUMC before joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1995.
Peek and his colleagues, who prioritize team science, have made pivotal discoveries regarding the role of the bacterium H. pylori in the pathogenesis of gastric cancer. Their findings have significantly influenced disease management and informed the study of other inflammation-driven cancers.
Currently Peek directs a National Institutes of Health-funded multidisciplinary Program Project Grant, three Research Project (R01) Grants, including one that has multiple principal investigators, and a P30 Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Grant that includes 88 members from 10 departments.
An active mentor for trainees and junior faculty, Peek also directs a broad-based, NIH-funded T32 Training Grant that includes 40 preceptors (clinical teachers) from 10 departments.
Peek is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Clinical and Climatological Association, and he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2024 he received the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Charles R. Park Award for Basic Research.
Peek’s professional contributions include chairing the AGA Council, serving as co-editor-in-chief of the association’s flagship journal, Gastroenterology, and serving on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the NIH.
As a leader of the AGA, Peek said his vision will be to build upon its foundational strengths, “to establish new strategic initiatives to advance fundamental and clinically relevant scientific discoveries, create a robust training pipeline, support outstanding clinical care in gastroenterology and hepatology, and improve dissemination and implementation of research results.”
