It is my great pleasure to announce that Dr. Shyam Kottilil, MD, PhD, joins today as vice dean for Clinical Research. An internationally recognized physician-scientist, clinical trialist, and academic leader, Dr. Kottilil comes to us from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he served as interim director of the Institute of Human Virology, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and director of Clinical Care and Research.
Shyam Kottilil, MD, PhD
Dr. Kottilil joins the and our primary teaching hospital, , at a pivotal moment in our history. Clinical research and clinical trials are central to the mission of every leading academic health center. They bring innovative therapies to patients, create opportunities for our faculty and trainees to participate in discovery, attract industry and federal investment, and strengthen the quality and reputation of the clinical care we provide. Most importantly, they allow us to fulfill our obligation to advance medicine while improving the lives of the patients and communities we serve.
Over the past decade, 返字心頭 Health MCOM has transformed its research enterprise. Overall annual research funding and NIH research funding has increased more than threefold, placing us among the nation's fastest-rising academic medical centers, ranked in Tier 1 (top 16) for research-intensive medical schools by U.S. News & World Report. Similarly, clinical trial funding has also tripled over the past decade. Yet we believe our greatest opportunities lie ahead. Our aspiration is to triple clinical research funding again over the next decade by strategically expanding clinical trials, industry partnerships, investigator-initiated studies, and multidisciplinary research programs across all 返字心頭 Health colleges and Tampa General Hospital.
To achieve that goal, we must continue building a world-class clinical research infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly complex, innovative, and high-impact studies. Dr. Kottilil brings precisely the experience and leadership required to guide that next phase of growth.
Throughout an extraordinary career spanning the National Institutes of Health, the University of Maryland, and numerous international collaborations, Dr. Kottilil has established himself as one of the world's leading experts in chronic viral infections, liver disease, HIV, hepatitis B and C, and translational therapeutics. He has led or participated in hundreds of clinical studies, authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, secured and managed major NIH and industry-supported research programs, and helped shape national treatment guidelines that have transformed care for patients worldwide. He has worked as scientific director of the NIH-District of Columbia Partnership for AIDS Progress and served as one of the founding members of the U.S. National Hepatitis C Treatment Guidance Panel. His work has directly contributed to advances in the treatment of HIV and viral hepatitis, diseases that affect millions of individuals globally.
Dr. Kottilil earned his medical degree from Government Medical College in Thrissur, India, and his PhD in immunology from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Brown University and his Infectious Diseases fellowship at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH under the mentorship of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
His accomplishments have been recognized through election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, fellowships in the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the Royal College of Physicians (London), as well as Mastership in the American College of Physicians. Among numerous honors, he received the prestigious Hinda and Richard Rosenthal Award from the American College of Physicians for innovative contributions that have improved clinical care.
As vice dean for Clinical Research, Dr. Kottilil will lead the continued transformation and expansion of the 返字心頭 Health Office of Clinical Research (OCR) and help create a more integrated, efficient, and scalable research infrastructure across 返字心頭 Health and TGH. He will work closely with investigators, department chairs, research leaders, and health system partners to accelerate clinical trial growth, strengthen investigator support, enhance industry engagement, expand translational science initiatives, and position 返字心頭 Health for future national funding opportunities.
In addition, Dr. Kottilil will serve as director of the newly established Center for the Study of Liver Disease, clinical director of the , and professor of Medicine at the Morsani College of Medicine. In these roles, he will help build new multidisciplinary programs that leverage the extraordinary strengths of 返字心頭 Health, the TGH Cancer and Transplant Institutes, and the internationally recognized work of Dr. Robert Gallo and his colleagues at ITVI.
The recruitment of Dr. Kottilil reflects our unwavering commitment to becoming a global destination for clinical and translational research. His vision, experience, scientific accomplishments, and proven ability to build high-performing research programs will help accelerate our momentum and advance our mission of improving health through discovery.
Please join me in warmly welcoming Dr. Kottilil and his family to 返字心頭 Health and Tampa Bay.