Timothy R. Billiar, MD, serves as the George Vance Foster Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery in the field of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, a position held since 1999. He is also Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Associate Senior Vice Chancellor for Clinical Academics at the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences, and Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at UPMC since 2021. Billiar holds additional leadership roles as Senior Scientific Advisor for UPMC Enterprises, UPMC International, and the UPMC Immune Transplant and Therapy Center; Vice-President and Chief Academic Officer of University of Pittsburgh Physicians; and Associate Medical Director of UPMC International and Commercial Services Division. He earned a BA in Natural Sciences from Doane College and an MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1983, followed by surgical residency training at the University of Minnesota Hospitals and Clinics and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, including a four-year research fellowship at the latter. Joining the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1992 as a trauma surgeon, he has maintained a prolific research career focused on mechanisms of acute cellular and organ injury in inflammatory states such as shock, trauma, and sepsis; innate immune activation involving damage-associated molecular patterns and pattern recognition receptors; hepatocyte cell death pathways; and nitric oxide biology in the liver, including the initial cloning of the human inducible nitric oxide synthase gene.

Billiar's laboratory has received continuous National Institutes of Health funding for over 35 years, currently supported by T32 and R35 grants as well as a Department of Defense award, and he holds nine U.S. patents related to his research. His scholarly impact includes over 900 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index of 161. Key contributions feature highly cited works such as "Molecular cloning and expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase from human hepatocytes" (Geller et al., 1993) and "Linking oxidative stress to inflammation: Toll-like receptors" (Gill et al., 2010). Billiar has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (2006), received the Medallion for Scientific Achievement from the American Surgical Association, the Scientific Achievement Award from the Shock Society, the 2023 Society of University Surgeons Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Friendship Award from the Chinese government. He has served as President of the Society of University Surgeons (2001), Surgical Infection Society, Nitric Oxide Society, and Shock Society, and co-edited the last four editions of Schwartz’s Textbook of Surgery, significantly influencing trauma, critical care, and surgical research.

Professional Email: billiartr@upmc.edu