Alfred (Fred)  Sanfilippo

Fred Sanfilippo, MD, PhD career has been as a physician-scientist and academic leader.  He is the Director of the Emory-Georgia Tech Healthcare Innovation Program, which has been developed with support from the Woodruff Fund and in coordination with the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance (CTSA)  to enhance innovation in healthcare delivery research, education, and service.  

From 2007-2010 Dr. Sanfilippo served as Emory University Executive VP for Health Affairs, CEO of Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center, and Chairman of Emory Healthcare. He led the creation of new centers for Critical Care, Palliative Care, Pediatrics and Informatics, and strengthened the alignment of Emory Healthcare with the schools of medicine and nursing, as well as Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Grady Health System.  He created new VP leadership positions in Research and Global Health, instituted a Health Sciences strategic and facility plan, and co-led implementation of the university strategic plan. 

From 2000-2007 he served at Ohio State University as Senior VP for Health Sciences, CEO of the OSU Medical Center, Executive Dean for Health Sciences (2004-2007), and Dean of the OSU College of Medicine and Public Health (2000-2006).  He led the formation of the Ohio State Center for Personalized Health, serving as its first director, and the Center for Integrative Health.  From 2000-2007 he served as Board Chair of Managed Health Care Systems, Inc., which administered the OSU health plans and created Your Plan for Health (YP4H), a self-insured personalized health plan for all OSU faculty and staff. 

From 1993 to 2000, Dr. Sanfilippo was the Baxley Professor and Director of the Department of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University, and Pathologist-in-Chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He led the formation of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center, serving as its first Director of Research and the Johns Hopkins Medical Labs, serving as its first director.  Prior to Johns Hopkins, Dr. Sanfilippo was on the Duke University faculty from 1979-1993, rising to Professor of Pathology, Surgery, and Immunology.  At Duke he also served as Director of the Duke-VAMC Immunogenetics-Transplantation Laboratory, Director of the Duke Immunopathology Lab, and chief of the Renal and Transplant Pathology services. From 1985-87 he led the creation of the national Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients for UNOS and HRSA, which encompasses donor, recipient, and clinical follow-up data on all organs transplanted in the U.S., and is used to determine organ allocation and measure outcomes and quality of transplant programs.

As a leader, Dr. Sanfilippo has been active in academic medicine, transplantation, and pathology. He has published over 300 articles, served on the editorial board of 13 professional journals, been invited to speak at some 200 academic and scientific venues, and elected president of seven academic and professional organizations including the American Society of Investigative Pathology and the American Society of Transplantation.  He has been a consultant to over 80 university, government and corporate institutions.  As an educator, he has supervised and mentored over 60 graduate students and fellows, led the creation of numerous new courses, degree programs, departments, and centers at four institutions, and is the lead-author of a 2023 book titled “Lead, Inspire, Thrive: A Handbook for Medical School Department Chairs (And Other Leaders).” As a scientist, he has  been awarded three patents and granted over $30 million in personal research support as principal investigator of R01, P01, and U01 grants from the NIH, as well as from the VA and industry.  He has received numerous awards including Distinguished Alumnus Awards from Duke and Johns Hopkins Universities, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Academic Pathology, and the Gold Headed Cane from the American Association of Investigative Pathology. 

Dr. Sanfilippo earned his BS and MS degrees in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MD and PhD in immunology as a Medical Scientist Training Program Fellow at Duke University.  He did his residency training in Pathology at Duke University Hospital, receiving Board certification in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, and Immunopathology.