New CTSI Director Sanjay Sethi, MD

On October 4, Sanjay Sethi, MD, began his new role to oversee the CTSI, as Director. Sethi, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research, and Chief, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is not new to the CTSI. He served since 2020 as Associate Director and since 2015 as the Director of the CTSI Clinical Research Facilitation Core concurrent with his position as Director of UB’s Clinical Research Office.

An internationally recognized physician scientist and an active clinical investigator, Sethi has directed and participated in many multicenter clinical trials, including NIH and industry-funded trials on innovative therapies in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He has over 250 publications, has given invited lectures globally, has served on many Data and Safety Monitoring Boards for clinical trials and has been recognized as one of the top five physicians in COPD nationally (Expertscape). As Director of the Clinical Research Office, he has implemented process improvements that have markedly enhanced clinical research at UB and Buffalo Translational Consortium partners.

SUNY Distinguished Professor and inaugural CTSI director, Timothy F. Murphy, MD, notes, “Dr. Sethi brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in clinical and translational science to his new role as Director of the CTSI. It has been a privilege to work closely with Sanjay for more than three decades in an enjoyable and enormously productive research collaboration and for 10 years in contributing to the CTSI. He has been instrumental in its successes. I look forward to watching the CTSI rise to greater heights under his leadership.”

“The CTSI is in an excellent place thanks to the tireless efforts of Dr. Murphy,” Sethi says. “I see it as my job to build on the last 10 years of success. I am excited about trying some of my ideas to enhance clinical and translational science in our consortium to benefit our community. However, at this stage I am listening and learning, and there is a lot to learn. Dr. Murphy and I always questioned established paradigms in our own medical research, and that has been our approach to clinical and translational research support and community involvement at UB.”

With Sethi’s move to Director, Daniel Woo, MD, MS, Professor and Irvin and Rosemary Smith Endowed Chair of Neurology, Jacobs School, an accomplished clinical and translational researcher in stroke and intracranial hemorrhage, will become CTSI Associate Director.

The news of the appointments of Sethi and Woo was shared by UB's Office of the Vice President of Health Sciences on October 15.

“Dr. Sethi and Dr. Woo bring exceptional expertise and vision to CTSI leadership,” says Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, Vice President for Health Sciences and Dean of the Jacobs School. “Their appointments build on Dr. Murphy’s remarkable legacy and position UB to further advance research that improves lives.”

See the October 15, 2025, edition of the CTSI’s Translational Spotlight newsletter to read Dr. Sethi’s first CTSI Director’s Message.