Witte Lecture
The 2026 Bruce Witte Lecture, “What is the Role of Antivirals in Hepatitis B Cure?” presented by Mark Sulkowski, MD
Mark Sulkowski, MD
Mark Sulkowski, MD, is a professor of medicine and the senior asssociate dean for clinical trials at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he is also the founding director of the Office of Clinical Trials. In July 2026, he became director of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, having served as director of its Division of Infectious Diseases from 2019 to 2026. He is the medical director of the Viral Hepatitis Center in the Divisions of Infectious Diseases and Gastroenterology/Hepatology, which he established in 1998 as one of the first clinics in the world dedicated to people with HIV and viral hepatitis co-infection. He received his B.S. in biology, summa cum laude, from Lehigh University and his M.D. from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia. He trained in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, where he served as assistant chief resident, and completed his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Sulkowski directs a multidisciplinary clinical and translational research program related to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and steatotic liver disease in persons with and without HIV co-infection. His current work centers on hepatitis B cure, including trials of the antisense oligonucleotide bepirovirsen in people with and without HIV and of siRNA- and monoclonal antibody-based regimens; he is an investigator in the NIAID-funded Hepatitis B and HIV Cure Consortium and a principal investigator of an NIDDK-funded study of steatotic liver disease in adults with HIV. He has led over 200 clinical trials, serving as the global principal investigator for the vanguard study of combination therapy with direct inhibitors of the HCV NS5A and NS5B non-structural proteins, and from 2020 to 2023 he directed the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Clinical Research Center. He is the past chair of the Hepatitis Transformative Sciences Group of the NIH-funded ACTG (Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally) network, where he led translational studies of liver disease in people with HIV. The author of more than 350 peer-reviewed original research articles, with an h-index of 106, he was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher each year from 2017 through 2022.
Dr. Sulkowski has helped shape national treatment guidance for viral hepatitis, as chair of the hepatitis B and C sections of the DHHS Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents, as a member of the AASLD–IDSA Hepatitis C Guidance Panel, and currently as a member of the AASLD–IDSA Hepatitis B Guidelines Panel. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Viral Hepatitis and a past chair of the AASLD Hepatitis C Special Interest Group. As the past recipient of the NIH K24 Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research, Dr. Sulkowski has mentored more than 50 investigators globally and is committed to training the next generation of clinical researchers. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
About the Witte Lecture:
The Witte Lectureship was established by Hepatitis B Foundation Cofounders, Janine and Paul Witte, in remembrance of their son, Bruce, to allow for a distinguished leader in the field to visit the Hepatitis B Foundation and Blumberg Institute to make a presentation and meet with scientists and public health leaders. It is the HBF's most important named lecture. Previous Witte Lecturers include: Harvey Alter (Nobel Prize laureate), Frank Chisari, Charles Rice (Nobel Prize laureate), John Taylor, John Gerin, Raymond Schinazi, Raymond Dwek, Rafi Ahmed, Adrian Di Bisceglie, Steve Locarnini, Dennis Liotta, John Martin, Stanley Lemon, Marion Peters and Barbara Rehermann. The full list is here.
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2024 Witte Lecture |
2025 Witte Lecture |
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Witte Lecture 2021 |
Witte Lecture 2022 |
Witte Lecture 2023 |