Timothy M. Block

Timothy M. Block, Ph.D. (Biochemistry), M.B. (Hon. Causes) is President and Co-founder of the Hepatitis B Foundation; its research arm, the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute; and the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center. His work, with Baruch S Blumberg, The  Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center, created with an unusual model in which it is managed by a non profit mission oriented research foundation, emphasizes “Academic Entrepreneurship” and has become one of the most successful life sciences incubators in the US, generating companies with collective peak values exceeding $2 billion, and generating therapeutics and medical devices that have been approved for use by the US and Chinese FDAs.  With Anand Mehta and Raymond Dwek, Prof. Block pioneered the use of glycoproteomics for detection of biomarkers of liver cancer, leading to the use of Golph2/GP73 and core fucosylated serum proteins as risk stratifiers for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma..  His work with Ying Su led to use of “microDNA” detected in the urine as a cancer marker.  More recently, he and his colleagues (Ju-Tao Guo, Hai-Tao Guo, Andy Cuconati) have identified small molecule inhibitors of hepatitis B virus, which are in clinical phase human testing, today.  He is scientific co-founder of several life sciences companies, co-inventor on 20 issued patents and 23 applications, has co-authored more than 290 scholarly papers, and was named a “Visionary in Hepatitis” by the World Hepatitis Alliance in 2017. He was elected (2017), US National Academy of Inventors,  awarded a “Med. Doctor”., Honorary Causes (1999) and in 2020, He and his wife, Joan, received the Distinguished Public Service Advocacy Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.  He is Adjunct Professor at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.