Dr. Abdul Rao And His Role At USF Health

Dr. Abdul Rao held the chair of Senior Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at USF Health and Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the College of Medicine. He has successfully helped to seamlessly bridge research across USF and USF Health campuses. He helped in leading the research for the three USF colleges which are of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health at USF health.

Stephen Klasko, M.D., M.B.A., Vice President for USF Health and Dean of the College of Medicine opines that Dr. Abul Rao is the next frontier on bringing complex scientific findings to bear on improving health. He had suggested that the health research of tomorrow could be transformed by bringing together all the colleges as well as scientists, educators and clinicians. According to him, Dr, Abdul Rao was perfect for this leadership position since he had the track record of creativity and entrepreneurship to make it all happen.

Addressing the issue, Dr. Abdul Rao had exclaimed that he was quite excited about the opportunity to work with faculty, staff and students at the USF Health institutes to enhance its research capacity and also to continue to improve its quality and graduate programs. He believed that there was enormous potential for growth of basic, translational and clinical research at USF Health. Furthermore, the prospect of developing productive collaborations between faculty and students in the college/schools at USF, the Moffitt Cancer Center, and the All Children's Hospital and a lot of local and regional affiliates. He was positive about being a part of the institute as a catalyst in the process of its transformation.

Dr. Abdul Rao is a brilliant personality who is known worldwide for his exceptional qualities. He did his medical degree from Dow Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan in 1983. After he completed his residency training in Orthopedic Surgery, he joined the Department of Physiology, Boston University School of Medicine and graduated in 1989 with a Masters in Physiology. After that he completed a year of Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School. He also joined the Nuffield Department of Surgery, University of Oxford, Oxford UK, as a Clinical Instructor from 1990-1993. Dr. Abdul Rao then graduated from the University of Oxford with a D.Phil (Doctor of Philosophy) in Transplantation Immunology in 1993.