A front-row seat to discovery
UF President Dr. Stuart Bell tours College of Medicine research enterprise
College of Medicine Dean Brian Hoh, M.D., M.B.A., with UF President Stuart Bell, Ph.D., and Azra Bihorac, M.D., the college's senior associate dean for research affairs
Photo by Zachary Krauss
Sept. 18, 2026 — On an Aug. 12 walking tour ranging from brain imaging suites and gene therapy labs to the future home of one of the university’s newest institutes, University of Florida President Stuart Bell, Ph.D., got a firsthand look at the breadth and momentum of research happening at the College of Medicine. Hosted by College of Medicine Dean Brian Hoh, M.D., M.B.A., and Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., the senior associate dean for research, the 90-minute tour was sampler of where the College of Medicine stands and where its research leadership is steering it next.
The opportunity to bring new leadership together could not have come at a better time: the UF College of Medicine has spent the last five years climbing in national research rankings, with National Institutes of Health funding increasing 67% since fiscal year 2020. The college’s NIH ranking jumped from No. 52 to No. 40 overall, and two programs now rank in the top 10 for public institutions. The tour allowed the college’s own investigators to make that trajectory tangible, one lab at a time.
Neuroscience at the McKnight Brain Institute
Photo by Zachary Krauss
The tour opened at the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute, one of the nation’s leading neuroscience and neuromedicine research centers, where Gordon Mitchell, Ph.D., deputy director of the institute, walked the group through a 300-plus-investigator enterprise spanning acquired neural injury, cognition and sensation, and neurological disease. From there, Matthew Merritt, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, introduced Bell to the Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy facility, a National High Magnetic Field Laboratory core that supports roughly 20% of UF’s NIH funding and hosts everything from advanced human 3T MRI systems to an 800 megahertz nucelar magnetic resonance suite. Future plans for the space include an even more powerful 7T human MRI/MRS system, the emerging standard in translational imaging, which would allow UF to reach next-level neurologic and metabolic imaging capabilities.
Gene therapy and spatial biology
Nearby, Matthew Gentry, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Manuela Corti, Ph.D., P.T., an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics, showed off the UF Powell Gene Therapy Center, an internationally recognized program that has produced more than 8,200 adeno-associated virus, or AAV, vectors and over $100 million in grant funding since its founding — work that traces back to UF’s foundational role in establishing AAV gene-transfer technology. The center’s five-stage pipeline, from discovery through vector production to patient impact, now feeds directly into UF advanced therapeutics, a new hospital-based clinical program treating rare and genetic diseases.
One floor up, Ramon Sun, Ph.D., previewed a capability few universities can run at production scale: spatial metabolomics. Using a bank of instruments that map thousands of metabolites, lipids and glycans directly within tissue, the Center for Advanced Spatial Biomolecule Research has produced four Nature-family papers in 18 months — including a recent glucosamine-dementia finding that went national within 48 hours of publication. The technology is disease-agnostic, meaning the same instruments serve cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and beyond. More than 250 active projects and 37 partner institutions, from Harvard to the University of Califorina Los Angeles, send samples to Gainesville.
The future home of AI for health
At Communicore, the group paused inside 21,640 square feet of space under active renovation: the future headquarters of the UF AI for Health Institute, established in 2025 under Bihorac, the founding director. UF has built a full pipeline from AI-model validation to statewide deployment. AI research awards across UF’s health science colleges have grown from $48 million in 2021 to $186 million in 2025, and tools like MySurgeryRisk and PRIME-AI sepsis detection, which use AI to supplement clinicians and improve patient outcomes, are already running in the hospital setting. The institute’s ambitions extend to graduate AI programs in medical and health sciences, one of a few programs of their kind nationwide, and an AI Passport credentialing effort reaching clinicians statewide.
From brain tumors to a possible universal cancer vaccine
Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., and President Bell at the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy.
Photo by Zachary Krauss
At the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., and Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., shared what may be the tour’s most striking result: a series of Nature-family studies showing that cancer patients who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines alongside immunotherapy saw survival times nearly double in some cases. The finding, built on a decade of UF research, is now advancing through a national Phase III trial and has generated more than 30 UF patents — work that was cited on the floor of the U.S. Senate last November.
Closing at the UF Diabetes Institute
The tour concluded at the Biomedical Sciences Building, where Todd Brusko, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine and director of the UF Diabetes Institute, and Holger Russ, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, introduced the UF Diabetes Institute’s work in living and donor biobanking, stem cell and immunoengineering research and AI-enabled precision immunotherapy — all in service of the institute’s mission of a diabetes-free world.
UF is also home to the Network for Pancreatic Organ donors with Diabetes, or nPOD, the world’s largest biorepository of pancreatic tissue used in Type 1 diabetes. The ability to study high-quality samples of human pancreatic tissue from donors at varying stages of the disease has enabled breakthroughs by scientists in Gainesville and worldwide.
The bigger picture
UF College of Medicine is home to a top-tier neuroscience institute, a gene therapy center that helped pioneer the field, and a spatial biology program running world class technology. It’s producing cancer research with the potential to change how the world treats the disease, building one of the nation’s most ambitious AI-in-healthcare pipelines, and running a diabetes program working toward a cure. Its NIH funding has grown 67% in five years, six of its programs now rank in the public top 10, and its research proposal pipeline has swelled past $2 billion.
