User:Abdul Rao

ABDUL S. RAO, M.D., M.A., D.PHIL

Current Appointment

Dr. Rao currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director, and Chief Research Officer for the Institute of Women’s Health of North America, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with campuses in five cities in the State of Florida. After a competitive Nation-wide search, Dr. Rao was appointed to this position by the Board in March 2009. He is also a Professor at Strayer University and teaches Biology, Health Services Organization & Management and Health Economics to undergraduate and graduate students.

Education

After obtaining his medical degree (MD) from Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan in 1983, he proceeded to complete his residency training in Orthopedic Surgery. In 1984, his overwhelming interest in teaching and research resulted in his appointment as a Demonstrator in the Department of Physiology, Dow University of Health Sciences. In 1985, he joined the Aga Khan University College of Medicine as one of the founding faculty in the Department of Physiology. In 1987, Dr. Rao joined the Department of Physiology, Boston University School of Medicine and graduated in 1989 with a MA in Physiology. After completing a year of post-doctoral Research Fellowship in the Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, he proceeded to join the Nuffield Department of Surgery, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK where he served as a Clinical Instructor from 1990-1993. During this period, he was also enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Oxford from which he graduated with a DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) in Immunology in 1993.

University of Pittsburgh

After completing his doctoral education at Oxford, Dr. Rao joined the University of Pittsburgh in 1993 where he served as the Director and Chief of the Section of Cellular Transplantation and the Section of Medical Informatics, Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. During his stay at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Rao also served in the capacity of an Associate Director for Translational Research, Vice Chair of the Human Subject Research, Protocol Review Committee, and the Executive Secretary of the Executive Committee, Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.

Drexel University

In 2000, he joined MCP Hahnemann University, School of Medicine as the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Biomedical Graduate Studies and Professor in the Departments of Surgery, and Microbiology and Immunology. He subsequently became the Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at Drexel University College of Medicine and in 2003, was promoted to the position of the Senior Associate Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies at Drexel University. In that capacity, he facilitated the development of the University's strategic plan and authored the "business" plan for the implementation of this University-wide plan. During his tenure at Drexel, he was the principal investigator of over $2.5 million in funding from the National Center for Research Resources, NIH. He also served as a principal investigator of a training grant from National Institute of Heart, Lung, and Blood, NIH aimed at enhancing the involvement of underrepresented minorities in biomedical research.

Middle Tennessee State University

In 2004, he joined the Middle Tennessee State University; the largest comprehensive institution of higher education in the Tennessee Board of Regents System (the Nation’s sixth largest higher education system) where he served as Vice Provost for Research and Dean, College of Graduate Studies. In this role, he continued to serve the research and the undergraduate and graduate educational needs of an institution with primary focus on arts, humanities, and social sciences. Working in concert with the faculty of various Colleges and Schools, he established many new Master’s and Doctoral programs in English, Physics, Economics, Business, Biology (iSciences), Mass Communication, Recording Industry, etc. While in Tennessee, he also served as the Co-chair of the statewide committee to develop a vision for research and graduate education in all educational institutions affiliated with the Tennessee Board of Regents. This document now serves as the blue print for the strategic planning in these institutions.

University of South Florida

In 2006, Dr. Rao joined University of South Florida Health (USF Health) as Professor of Surgery and Molecular Medicine. He was the Senior Associate Vice President at USF Health and served as the Chief Research Officer for this academic entity. USF Health has at its core the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health. Also included are the schools of Biomedical Sciences and Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences. He was also the Vice Dean for Research, Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in the College of Medicine, Founding Director of the School of Biomedical Sciences, and Medical Director for Research at the Tampa General Hospital – a Trauma Level I teaching hospital with >900 acute beds.

Accomplishments at USF

Working with the leadership at USF Health and with its faculty, staff, and students, Dr. Rao initiated a systemic program to enhance research capacity and to continue to improve the quality of graduate and post-doctoral programs in the Institution. He established the School of Biomedical Sciences with the vision to coalesce all basic and translational sciences in a single cohesive model thus promoting and enhancing interdisciplinary instruction and research. During his tenure at USF Health, he was credited for establishing more than fifteen state-of-the-art core facilities which were non-existent prior to his arrival at that Institution. Basic Science Departments were reorganized and new Chairs were appointed with clear expectations for goals and objectives, He also established interdisciplinary “Signature” research programs in the areas of neurosciences, cardiology, allergy, immunology & infectious diseases, women’s health, etc. He initiated a systematic process to competitively recruit NIH-funded faculty, created an environment for continued sustenance and professional growth of junior faculty, enhance faculty, staff and student accountability, established bridge funding program to support faculty in between Federal funding, enhanced the Sabbatical program, created a mentoring program for junior faculty, and established many inter-departmental and inter-collegiate programs with enhanced collaboration and synergy. He was also tasked with improving the productivity of Centers and Institutes at USF Health and for enhancing their integration into the academic fabric of the Institution. Reporting directly to his office were the Diabetes Center, Eric Pfeiffer Suncoast Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Gerontology, Depression and Anxiety Research Institute, Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, Center for Brain Aging & Repair, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the Center for Research Outcomes.

During his tenure at USF, he also served as the Institutional Official for the entire system and for the Tampa General Hospital. In this capacity, he was responsible for all aspects of compliance with human subject research and the humane use of animals in research. It was his leadership that resulted in full accreditation of the animal care and use program at USF by AAALAC International in 2008. The same year, with the changes he had instituted in the Division of Research Integrity & Compliance at USF, full accreditation of the human subject research program at the University was granted by the AAHRPP; an organization that had previously denied accreditation of this program prior to his joining the University.

During his tenure at USF, he also established a Division of Distance Learning within the Office of Graduate and Post-doctoral Affairs the primary purpose of which was to continue to develop new and enhance the quality of existing distance learning programs in the Institution. As a consequence, a number of online undergraduate and graduate programs where initiated notable among which is the Master of Medical Sciences program that is offered to >100 students each semester. Additionally, a number of new traditional graduate programs were also initiated during his tenure which included Certificate and Master’s programs in Molecular Medicine, Women’s Health, Neurosciences, etc.

Research Interests

His area of research interest largely focuses on bench to bedside (and reverse) translation of novel therapeutic strategies aimed at alleviating a clinical problem. In the area of clinical research, he and his group have worked on the protocol for induction of donor-specific tolerance in organ allograft recipients (funded by NIH); cellular therapeutic treatment of refractory posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders (funded by CTRF); islet cell transplantation to reverse type I insulin-dependent diabetes (funded by NIH and the JDFI); transmission of infection following animals to humans (funded by an extramural grant) organ and cell transplantation. Additionally, his group has also been actively involved in basic cellular and molecular biology research in the following areas: induction of tolerance, islet cell transplantation, NK cell immunobiology, post-transplant vasculopathy (chronic rejection); liver-derived growth factors; generation of transgenic pigs and xenotransplantation. His recent research interests involve prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, cervical cancer, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and other communicable diseases.

To his credit are >130 publication in peer-reviewed journals and numerous book chapters. He has presented or has been invited to present >170 lectures on various issues related to his area of expertise. He has served on the editorial board of the journal Transplantation and Graft. He has served as the reviewer for Immunology, Life Sciences, Nature Medicine, Liver Transplantation Surgery, and Surgery. He has served as a mentor for >25 junior faculty and post-doctoral fellows, and >20 pre-doctoral candidates. For his team's innovative discoveries, he has been interviewed by the CNN, Discovery Channel, and many local, national, and international television, radio, and print media.

He has also served as an external reviewer for the Israel Science Foundation and the International Human Frontier Science Program. Additionally, he has also served as a reviewer on the Surgery Trauma and Anesthesiology study section at the NIH, and on numerous Special Emphasis Panel established by the NIH. He has served as the member of the advisory board of the Vth International Congress for Xenotransplantation, Nagoya, Japan, November 11-12, 1999. He also served as the Co-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee, Fifth Congress of the International Liver Transplantation Society, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA., August 26-29, 1999. He is a member of many national and international organizations including; American Society of Transplantation, The Transplantation Society, the Cell transplantation Society, Association of American Medical Colleges and others.

Awards and Recognition

He has received numerous honors and commendation, which included an award from the British Vice Chancellor's Committee; Professor Ad Honorem, Universidada de Antioquia, Medellin, Columbia; Distinguished Professor Award, The Institute of Kidney Diseases & Research Center, Ahmedabad India. Dr. Rao's biographical profile has been recognized in Marquis Who's Who in the East, Marquis Who's Who in Science & Engineering, Marquis Who's Who in America, and Marquis Who's Who in the World.

For his contributions to science, teaching, public service and for his scholarly distinction, in 2005, Dr. Rao was also selected as a Senior Scholar by Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest, largest, and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines.