USF Health Recruits Internationally Renowned Physician-Scientist Shyam Kottilil to Lead Clinical Research Expansion
Key Insights
Shyam Kottilil, MD, PhD, joins USF Health (search) as vice dean for Clinical Research, bringing decades of experience in chronic viral diseases, liver disease (search), and virus-associated cancers.
His work contributed to transforming hepatitis C (search) therapy, including studies showing cure in as little as six weeks with oral antivirals and treatment delivery by primary care providers.
USF Health (search) aims to triple clinical research funding over the next decade by expanding trials, industry partnerships, and multidisciplinary research programs.
Shyam Kottilil, MD, PhD, an internationally recognized physician-scientist whose work helped transform the treatment of chronic viral diseases, has joined USF Health (search) as vice dean for Clinical Research, the institution announced. Dr. Kottilil will also serve as director of the newly established Center for the Study of Liver Disease (search), clinical director of the Institute for Translational Virology and Innovation (ITVI), and professor of medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.
"Dr. Shyam Kottilil is an internationally respected physician-scientist whose career exemplifies the very best of academic medicine, scientific excellence, clinical innovation and collaborative leadership," said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, executive vice president of USF Health (search) and dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. "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."
A Career Shaped by Translational Science
Dr. Kottilil's career trajectory was set in motion during medical school, when he read a New England Journal of Medicine paper describing the use of the body's own immune cells to treat metastatic melanoma. "I wanted to do something similar, to develop therapies that could cure diseases once thought incurable," he recalled.
That ambition led him through a career spanning the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Human Virology (search) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and numerous international collaborations. 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. He earned his medical degree from Government Medical College in Thrissur, India, and his PhD in immunology from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada.
Transforming Hepatitis C Treatment
Over the course of his career, Dr. Kottilil has helped transform the treatment of chronic viral diseases. His work contributed to advances in hepatitis C (search) therapy, including studies showing that patients could be cured in as little as six weeks using oral antiviral medications and that treatment could be successfully delivered by primary care physicians and nurses, expanding access beyond specialty clinics.
He served as scientific director of the NIH-District of Columbia Partnership for AIDS Progress and was one of the founding members of the U.S. National Hepatitis C (search) Treatment Guidance Panel. His work has directly contributed to advances in the treatment of HIV (search) and viral hepatitis, diseases that affect millions of individuals globally.
One patient interaction early in his career proved formative. During an early hepatitis C (search) clinical trial, a woman facing substance use and mental health challenges was preparing to enroll in a promising study. A treatment-related complication delayed her participation, and she died before she could begin therapy. "It taught me how vulnerable our patient population is," Dr. Kottilil said. "It reinforced for me the urgency of treating populations in need."
Building a World-Class Clinical Research Enterprise
Dr. Kottilil joins USF Health (search) at a pivotal moment. Over the past decade, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine has seen overall annual research funding and NIH research funding increase more than threefold, placing it 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. Clinical trial funding has also tripled over the same period.
The institution's 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 USF Health (search) colleges and Tampa General Hospital.
"Clinical research has become increasingly complex," Dr. Kottilil said. "Our ability to translate discoveries into better care remains one of our greatest challenges. I see translational research becoming even more important in the years ahead, and I believe institutions like USF Health (search) have an opportunity to lead that effort."
Artificial Intelligence and Future Priorities
Among Dr. Kottilil's early priorities is applying artificial intelligence to improve liver disease (search) surveillance by identifying patients at risk for hospitalization and detecting liver cancer earlier. He also sees opportunities to build on Tampa General Hospital's AI-enabled clinical care infrastructure to advance monitoring and predictive care for patients with liver disease and cancer, and infectious disease surveillance of multidrug-resistant microorganisms.
His arrival builds on a longstanding professional relationship with Robert C. Gallo, MD, founding director of the USF Health (search) Institute for Translational Virology and Innovation, who co-discovered HIV (search) as the cause of AIDS and led the development of the HIV blood test. The two previously worked together at the Institute of Human Virology (search) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
"I've known Shyam for many years, first as a colleague at the Institute of Human Virology (search) and now as we begin this next chapter together at USF," said Dr. Gallo, who is also James P. Cullison Professor of Medicine at USF Health (search) and chair of the Scientific Leadership Committee of the Global Virus Network. "He is an outstanding physician-scientist with exceptional clinical judgment, scientific insight and integrity. He is also a gifted mentor and collaborator who never loses sight of the patient."
Dr. Kottilil's research program at ITVI and the TGH Cancer Institute will continue focusing on HIV (search), hepatitis B (search), hepatitis C (search), liver disease (search), virus-associated cancers, and emerging infectious diseases. 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. He also received the Hinda and Richard Rosenthal Award from the American College of Physicians for innovative contributions that have improved clinical care.
Asked what he hopes colleagues will say about his impact at USF five years from now, Dr. Kottilil offered a succinct vision: "Transformational leadership with outside-the-box thinking and full transparency."