Congratulations to Ali Zarrinpar, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Division of Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery, on being named the recipient of the 2026 Basic Science Established Investigator Award (Senior Career) from the International Liver Transplantation Society!
The prestigious award, designed to honor society members who have made outstanding academic contributions to basic and translational science, recognizes Zarrinpar’s long-established record of bridging the gap between laboratory discovery and patient care.
Although the award will be formally presented this May in Geneva, Switzerland at the society’s international congress, the April announcement dovetails with Donate Life Month’s call to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation. The work done in Zarrinpar’s lab —and the way that work translates to improved patient care—is one of the reasons UF Health Shands Hospital is consistently evaluated at the highest levels by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.
“My work in general has to do with individualized care,” Zarrinpar said. “Our lab is driven by one core mission: finding the right drug combination in the right doses for the right patient at the right time.”
Zarrinpar said his lab uses leading-edge blends of computational and quantitative approaches to optimize and individualize therapy. He describes his work as a comprehensive approach that moves from the lab to the clinic and then back again.
Much of this work is predicated on patient participation in clinical trials and studies. Robust study enrollment has allowed Zarrinpar’s lab to produce a constant stream of data, driving a number of promising studies in the transplant space.
“We’re so thankful for the generosity of patients who volunteer to become part of what we do,” he said. “They know these studies may not personally help them in their own medical journeys but could potentially help those who come after them.”
Zarrinpar, who was also recently named to the board of directors of the Association for Academic Surgery Foundation, credited the University of Florida’s collaborative environment for much of his success.
That collaboration is evident in his wide-ranging work, from developing novel drug combinations for liver cancer and therapy to developing new computational models of the human immune system.
Looking forward, Zarrinpar said he’s excited to continue finding ways to help patients through discoveries in his lab and to continue calling attention to the efforts of the scientists who complete the day-to-day work in labs like his.
“Basic scientists sometimes end up getting the short end of the stick because they’re not as visible,” he said. “The nice thing about being a physician-scientist is that I can bridge the two worlds and I have the opportunity to highlight the work they do.”
Zarrinpar doesn’t intend to slow down, either, stressing that much of the research currently in progress has the potential to lead to new tangible clinical tools such as patents and novel therapies.
“We’ve got a lot of really cool stuff in the pipeline,” he said. “We love developing solutions to everyday clinical problems.”