Department of Surgery

Timothy R. Billiar, MD

  • George Vance Foster Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery
  • Distinguished Professor of Surgery
  • Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for UPMC
  • Associate Senior Vice Chancellor For Clinical Academics, University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences
  • Associate Medical Director, UPMC International and Commercial Services Division

Timothy R. Billiar, MD, has served as the George Vance Foster Professor and Chair in the Department of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine since 1999. He completed his surgical residency at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Billiar’s contributions have been recognized with membership in the National Academy of Medicine.

Education & Training

  • BA, Natural Sciences, Doane College
  • MD, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine
  • Surgery Residency, University of Minnesota Hospitals and Clinics
  • Surgery Residency, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Representative Publications

Dr. Billiar's publications can be reviewed through PubMed.

Research, Clinical, and/or Academic Interests

Dr. Billiar is past president of the Society of University Surgeons, Surgical Infection Society, SHOCK Society, and the International Nitric Oxide Society. He is currently President-elect of the International Federation of SHOCK Societies. In the past, he  served as a standing member of the Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Trauma NIH Study Section and as a member of the Surgical Residency Review Committee of the ACGME. Dr. Billiar has been an editor of the last four editions of the Schwartz Textbook of Surgery. He has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1989 and is currently funded by NIH R35 and T32 grants. He holds eight US patents associated with his research.

The Billiar laboratory has had a long-standing interest in the mechanisms involved in organ injury and immune dysfunction in acute inflammatory states such as shock, trauma, and sepsis.  His laboratory has made seminal observations in the study of nitric oxide in a number of disease conditions.  Most recently, his laboratory has focused on immune dysfunction and the use of multi-omic strategies to study the human injury response.

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