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RayKoff

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Raymond Koff is Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and undertook residency training in Internal Medicine at Barnes Hospital in St Louis.

Dr Koff joined the National Communicable Disease Center as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, studying viral hepatitis in a group of Boston hospitals. He then served as a trainee in gastroenterology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He has held academic appointments at Tufts University, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University. He was Chief of the Hepatology Section of the VA Medical Center in Boston and served in the same role at Boston University, where he was a Professor of Medicine and Assistant Dean. Most recently, he served as Chairman of the Department of Medicine of the MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Massachusetts and Chief of the Hepatology Section of the Medical Center. He has served as Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts since 1991.

Dr Koff's long-term research interests have been directed to viral hepatitis and its sequelae, with a special focus on the management of chronic viral hepatitis.

He has participated in a number of trials of interferon, pegylated interferons, and interleukins as therapy for chronic hepatitis C, as well as studies of the use of hepatitis B vaccine as a therapeutic agent. Additionally, he has been involved in studies of hepatitis vaccines in prophylaxis, in assessment of health-related quality of life in chronic hepatitis, and in cost-effectiveness analyses of treatment in chronic viral hepatitis and hepatitis vaccination. He maintains an interest in the epidemiology of hepatitis and vaccine development and delivery.

Dr Koff has authored 135 journal articles, which include original publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, the Annals of Internal Medicine, Hepatology, Gastroenterology, and the Lancet. He has written over 70 book chapters, two monographs, co-edited a third book, and is currently working on a fourth book.

Who was the teacher you admired the most?

David Seegal, MD, a master teacher and Haiku poet who I first met during a stint as a fourth-year medical student at Goldwater Memorial Hospital in New York. He made each student feel outstanding.

How do you relax?

Reading novels and history; the movies.

What is your favorite sport?

Tennis.

What is your best place in the world?

Paris.

What is your favorite film?

"Henry V" (Kenneth Branaugh version).

What car do you drive?

Saab 9-5.

What book are you reading at the moment?

"Mao Zedong" by Jonathan Spence.

Why did you get in involved in GastroHep.com?

Sounds exciting, conceptually, and good people are involved.