Chief of Hepatology
Director of Liver Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Associate Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
Nezam Hassan Afdhal, MD, is Chief of Hepatology and Director of the Liver Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Afdhal received his MD degree (1981) from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and did fellowship training at University College, Dublin, and at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Afdhal's clinical expertise focuses on the management of the complications of liver disease, including cirrhosis and portal hypertension. He is the Director of a clinical trials group with multiple Phase 1-4 studies on novel treatments of hepatitis B and C, ascites, encephalopathy, liver cancer, and diagnostic tests in chronic liver disease. He is the principal investigator of the national COPILOT study focusing on the prevention of cirrhosis and liver cancer from hepatitis C and NIH Centers focused on HCV in African Americans, silymarin in liver disease, and the pathogenesis of HCV-induced liver injury. Additional interests include basic research in gallstone disease, liver fibrosis, and biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma.
Dr. Afdhal has been on the editorial board of Gastroenterology and the advisory board of the American Liver Foundation and the Massachusetts Task Force for HCV. He has published more than 100 papers, 30 book chapters, and 2 books. Dr. Afdhal has spoken nationally and internationally on chronic liver disease and received many awards, including the American Liver Foundation Award for Excellence and the Mitchell Lectureship of the Royal College of Physicians. In 2003, he became a Fullbright Scholar to direct a joint US/Egyptian program on hepatitis C. He is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, and the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease.