Vikas P. Sukhatme, MD, ScD
Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Medicine
Dean, Emory University School of Medicine
Chief Academic Officer, Emory Healthcare
Dean Sukhatme came to Emory in 2017 from Harvard Medical School, where he served for eight years as Chief Academic Officer and Harvard Faculty Dean for Academic Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He has an extensive background in collaborative research and is a strong proponent of translational medicine.
His focus is on removing barriers to medical innovation and finding new, meaningful ways to integrate research into education and patient care — with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes all over the world.
"The world we're living in today is becoming more and more fractured, but medicine has an incredible power to heal and to connect — across race, across religious beliefs, across everything."
— Vikas Sukhatme
Early Life and Education
- Born in India and raised in Rome, Italy
- Bachelor's and doctorate (ScD) in theoretical physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- MD in the Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School, 1979
- Residency in medicine and clinical fellowship in nephrology, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Fellowship in immunology, Stanford University
Positions and Faculty Appointments
University of Chicago
- Assistant investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 1985
Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- Chief of the renal division in the Department of Medicine, 1992
- Faculty appointment in the hematology-oncology division
- Founding chief of the Division of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Biotechnology
- Chief Academic Officer, Harvard Faculty Dean for Academic Programs, and Victor J. Aresty Professor of Medicine
Research
Sukhatme has made outstanding contributions in numerous areas of medicine in both basic science and clinical research. He has more than 200 scientific publications that have been cited more than 31,000 times. His longstanding interest in cancer currently centers around tumor metabolism and tumor immunology and on "outside-of-the-box" approaches for treating advanced cancer. He has conducted studies on genes important in kidney cancer and polycystic kidney disease.
Sukhatme's laboratory played a key role in the discovery of the cause of preeclampsia, a blood vessel disorder and a major cause of morbidity in pregnant women. His research also has provided insights into how blood vessels leak in patients with severe infections, and on how new vessels form to feed growing tumors. He has elucidated mechanisms by which statins can cause muscle damage.
Teaching
Sukhatme is known to be equally passionate about teaching medicine and educating communities outside of medical school. He initiated a course to bring MD/PhD students up to speed as they returned to the clinic after their graduate studies, as well as a mini-medical school series for the general public, and one for industry scientists highlighting unsolved clinical problems.
Entrepreneurship
Sukhatme also is an entrepreneur, having cofounded several biotechnology companies based on discoveries from his laboratory. Along with his wife, Vidula Sukhatme, he is co-founder of a not-for-profit organization, GlobalCures, that conducts clinical trials on promising therapies for cancer not being pursued for lack of profitability.