David R. Nelson MD

David R. Nelson, M.D., serves as senior vice president for health affairs at the University of Florida and president of UF Health. Dr. Nelson oversees operations for all components of UF Health, the university’s academic health center, with campuses in Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Central Florida. A professor of medicine and an expert in liver disease, Dr. Nelson’s record of academic achievement includes more than $120 million in research funding, more than 250 publications and multiple leadership roles in his area of expertise. He has co-authored the U.S. treatment guidelines for hepatitis C, the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium guidelines for the use of genomic-guided hepatitis C therapy, and represented the United States on the World Health Organization HCV guidelines committee. As a principal investigator on basic science, translational research and training grants, he developed an international real world data network, a collaboration between clinician investigators, the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This transformed drug development pathways and led to faster and safer development of HCV therapies, resulting in his recognition by the FDA with the Regulatory Science Excellence Honor in 2018.