Girish Vyas
Professor
UCSF School of Medicine
USA
Biography
Girish N. Vyas, Ph.D. (Univ. of Bombay, 1965), F.R.C.Path. (London, 2012), completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Case-WRU in Cleveland, Ohio in 1967. Then he joined UCSF School of Medicine as a Lecturer in Hematology and Immunology Unit of the Department of Medicine. He moved to Department of Laboratory Medicine as an Assistant Professor and served as Director of Blood Bank at UCSF Medical Center from 1969-89. During his sabbatical leave in 1972-73 he worked as a visiting scientist at Weizmann Institute in Israel and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia. In 1980 he got an American Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to work with Pierre Tiollais on molecular biology of HBV at the Pasteur Institute, Paris. During his four decades of faculty service at UCSF he trained 18 graduate and 46 postdoctoral scholars. His seminal contributions to our current knowledge about IgA deficiency and anaphylactic transfusion reactions, HBsAg structure, HBV vaccine and immune globulins in perinatal prevention of mother to child transmission of infection, screening and elimination of transfusion-transmitted HBV, HCV, HIV to enhance transfusion safety, and sustained commitment to immune prevention of HIV/AIDS. These contributions earned him the honor as a "Pioneer and Pathfinder in Transfusion Medicine" in 2008. He has edited 12 books and monographs and published 225 original papers. He has served on several committees of NAS-NRC, NIH, CDC, FDA, WHO, AABB, ASH, and UNDP and as the Editor-in-Chief of Biological. Currently he is an Emeritus Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF and full-time CEO of TheraBiol, Inc., a start-up biotech company launched in 2012 for R&D of antibodies for prevention and treatment of persistent infections, HIV being the first target.
Research Interest
Virology, Immunology, Transfusion Medicine, Pathology