Terence R. Flotte, MD

The Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor
Dean, T.H. Chan School of Medicine
Executive Deputy Chancellor and Provost, UMass Chan Medical School

 

Terence R. Flotte, MD, is provost, dean and executive deputy chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School, the only public medical school in Massachusetts. Since joining UMass Chan in 2007, Dr. Flotte has forged a path of unprecedented growth and achievement for the research, education and academic missions of the campus.

An internationally known scientist, Flotte has conducted research on cutting edge molecular therapeutics that led to the first successful gene transfer with adeno-associated virus (AAV) in animals and the first ever human trial of an AAV. He also led the first human recombinant AAV trials in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and Tay-Sachs disease, with the latter showing promising clinical benefits.

He is the author of more than 280 scholarly papers and his research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Alpha One Foundation. Since 2015, Flotte has also been editor-in-chief of gene therapy’s oldest journal family, Human Gene Therapy.

His collaborative and imaginative leadership at UMass Chan has led to new and expanded departments or programs in bioinformatics, RNA therapeutics, systems biology, gene therapy, population and quantitative health sciences, and digital medicine; and new clinical departments of ophthalmology and visual sciences, neurosurgery, and urology, powering a rise in NIH funding among U.S. medical schools. Total research funding is now more than $400 million. A new nine-story research and education building is under construction on the Worcester campus, complementing the 512,000 square foot Albert Sherman Center that opened in 2013.

As dean of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Flotte led the initiative to increase enrollment from 100 to 162; stewarded two comprehensive curriculum revisions; and oversaw the creation of Learning Communities for medical student cohorts guided by faculty mentors. In 2016, the Medical School opened its first regional campus at Baystate Health in Springfield.

Flotte joined UMass Chan from the University of Florida, where he was the Nemours Eminent Scholar and chair of pediatrics for the College of Medicine. Flotte received his undergraduate degree in biological sciences from the University of New Orleans in 1982, and his medical degree from the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in 1986. After serving his residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, he completed a pediatric pulmonary fellowship and postdoctoral training in molecular virology there in 1992, before joining the Hopkins faculty for four years.

In 1996, Flotte joined the faculty of the University of Florida and was appointed associate director of their Powell Gene Therapy Center. In 2000, he was named director of the Powell Center and founding director of the newly established University of Florida Genetics Institute, a cross-campus multidisciplinary unit encompassing gene therapy, human genetics, agricultural genetics and comparative genomics.