Institute Of Human Virology (IHV) Welcomes Renowned Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Shyamasundaran Kottilil

BALTIMORE, Sept. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Robert C. Gallo, MD, director of the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM), and UM SOM Dean E. Albert Reece MD, Ph.D., MBA, announced today that Shyamasundaran Kottilil, MBBS, Ph.D., a world-renowned expert in infectious disease, has joined the faculty as Co-Director of IHV's Clinical Research Unit and Associate Director for Clinical Research in the Institute's Division of Clinical Care and Research.

Dr. Gallo, who is the Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine at the UM SOM, made the appointment along with Robert Redfield, Jr., MD, who is Associate Director and Clinical Care and Research Director at IHV and Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UM SOM.  Dr. Kottilil, whose expertise focuses specifically on Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C (HCV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), becomes a Professor in UM SOM's Division of Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine.

"Dr. Kottilil will be an important addition to both IHV's scientific and clinical contributions," said Dr. Gallo. "We are very happy to have him with us."

Since 2003, Dr. Kottilil has conducted research at the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, he built a robust clinical research program focused on HBV, HCV and HIV, including HBV and HCV pathogenesis and treatment.  In 2009, he assumed the role of the Scientific Director of the NIH-District of Columbia Program for AIDS Progress, a program targeting HIV, HCV and HBV treatment and prevention in the nation's capital.   During his tenure at NIAID, Dr. Kottilil established himself as an international leader in the development of new therapeutic strategies to treat and manage chronic viral diseases.  This year, he was named NIAID's Outstanding Mentor of the Year.

"Dr. Kottilil excels in the tripartite areas of clinical care, clinical research, and the education of medicine," said Dean Reece, who is Vice President of Medical Affairs for the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko Bowers Distinguished Professor at the UM SOM.  "In addition to treatment and research, he will be directly involved in medical education of medical students, residents, and fellows in all campus clinic locations, as well as junior faculty mentorship.  He will be an outstanding addition to the Institute of Human Virology and to the Department of Medicine, serving as a senior member of the Division of Clinical Care and Research, and the Division of Infectious Diseases

"I am confident that Dr. Kottilil will rapidly expand the Institute of Human Virology's therapeutic clinical research program, especially in the area of Hepatitis B and C, as well as strengthen our clinical research on HIV and related diseases," said Dr. Redfield.

Dr. Kottilil received a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from the Medical College in Trichur, Kerala, India in 1991. He completed his postgraduate training at the Medical College in Calicut, Kerala, India in 1993, and received a Doctor of Philosophy in Immunology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada in 1997. He completed an internal medicine residency program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 2000.

About the Institute of Human Virology 
Formed in 1996 as a partnership between the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, the University System of Maryland and the University of Maryland Medical System, IHV is an institute of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is home to some of the most globally-recognized and world-renowned experts in all of virology. The IHV combines the disciplines of basic research, epidemiology and clinical research in a concerted effort to speed the discovery of diagnostics and therapeutics for a wide variety of chronic and deadly viral and immune disorders - most notably, HIV the virus that causes AIDS. For more information, www.ihv.org and follow us on Twitter @IHVmaryland.

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine
The University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 and is the first public medical school in the United States and continues today as an innovative leader in accelerating innovation and discovery in medicine.  The School of Medicine is the founding school of the University of Maryland and is an integral part of the 11-campus University System of Maryland.  Located on the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine works closely with the University of Maryland Medical Center to provide a research-intensive, academic and clinically based education.  With 43 academic departments, centers and institutes and a faculty of more than 4,000 physicians and research scientists plus more than $400 million in extramural funding, the School is regarded as one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the U.S. with top-tier faculty and programs in cancer, brain science, surgery and transplantation, trauma and emergency medicine, vaccine development and human genomics, among other centers of excellence.  The School is not only concerned with the health of the citizens of Maryland and the nation, but also has a global vision, with research and treatment facilities in more than 30 countries around the world.  For more information, visit www.medschool.umaryland.edu.

SOURCE Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine