Satish Gopal, MD, MPH
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has named Satish Gopal, MD, MPH as Director of the Center for Global Health.
Dr. Gopal is a physician-scientist who led the cancer program for the University of North Carolina (UNC) Project-Malawi, a research and care collaboration between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Malawi Ministry of Health, since 2012. Dr. Gopal has faculty appointments in the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases.
At the NCI, Dr. Gopal will provide oversight and the strategic vision for global research into the prevention and treatment of cancer, promote cancer control efforts in collaboration with nongovernmental partners, and work with U.S. federal agencies within and outside the National Institutes of Health to brief them on NCI activities with respect to global cancer.
The NCI Center for Global Health is a program with an annual budget of approximately $13 million. The center helps manage the NCI portfolio of grants and projects in 126 countries. Its key functions are to coordinate NCI’s international research collaborations, promote cancer control planning, set priorities, and implement and evaluate the NCI’s work in global health.
More on Dr. Gopal
Dr. Gopal received his medical degree from Duke University and completed residency training in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. When he finished residency, Dr. Gopal moved to Tanzania from 2007 to 2009 to care for patients with HIV, teaching and testing the viability of a future global health career abroad. Dr. Gopal returned to North Carolina to complete a fellowship in medical oncology and infectious diseases at the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
As Cancer Program Director for UNC Project-Malawi, Dr. Gopal lived in Malawi with his family from 2012 to 2019. He cared for patients at the Kamuzu Central Hospital Cancer Clinic and led a multidisciplinary cancer research program involving an international team of investigators.
