Arun J. Sanyal, MD

Arun J. Sanyal, MD, was recently appointed as interim chair of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)/VCUHealth. He is a professor of medicine, physiology, and molecular pathology. He also serves as chairman of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) Clinical Research Network, the Non-Invasive Biomarkers of Metabolic Liver Disease (NIMBLE) consortium, and the Liver Forum for NASH and fibrosis. 

Dr Sanyal’s research interests include all aspects of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and NASH, as well as complications of cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. He is currently engaged in numerous clinical trials and leads several phase 2B and 3 trials for NASH and for complications of end-stage liver disease. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1995, and he has more than 350 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index of 116. He was recently ranked in the top 0.01% of medical scientists based on their impact on the field (PLOS Biology 2019).

He has served in several leadership roles, both nationally and globally, including chair of the Hepatobiliary Pathophysiology Study Section of the NIH, secretary and then president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, founding member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Transplant Hepatology Certification Program, and member of the World Health Organization advisory council on viral hepatitis. He is the cofounder and academic chair of the Liver Forum, which is a platform to bring regulatory agencies (the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency) with industry and academics to accelerate drug development for NASH and advanced liver disease. 

His contributions have been recognized by receiving the Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterological Association and the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the American Liver Foundation in 2017, as well as the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in 2018.