NSU names Founding Dean of College of Allopathic Medicine

Johannes W. Vieweg, M.D., FACS

NSU President Dr. George Hanbury announced the appointment of Johannes W. Vieweg, M.D., FACS, as founding dean of NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine at the university’s Board of Trustees January meeting. The new college is aiming to welcome its first class of M.D. candidates in 2018, subject to achieving accreditation.

Vieweg joins NSU from the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, where he served as the Wayne and Marti Huizenga Endowed Research Scholar’s Chair, director of the UF Prostate Disease Center and chairman of the Florida Prostate Cancer Advisory Council.

“Dr. Vieweg has a stellar reputation as a physician leader and researcher, and with his guidance, NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine will be home to a strong M.D. program that complements NSU’s existing D.O. program in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and helps meet the growing need of physicians both in our community and on a regional and national level,” said President Hanbury.

NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine will be the eighth college in NSU’s Health Professions Division, including the colleges of osteopathic medicine, dental medicine, nursing, health care sciences, medical sciences, pharmacy, and optometry. NSU will be the only university in the Southeastern United States and the first in Florida to house both an osteopathic (D.O.) medical school and an allopathic (M.D.) medical school.

The establishment of NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine coincides with NSU’s additional growth plans, including the spring 2016 opening of a 215,000-square-foot Center for Collaborative Research (CCR) and the future relocation of Plantation General Hospital to NSU’s main campus in Davie, Fla., by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) East Florida. The hospital will serve the surrounding community and eventually be a teaching and research facility integrated with NSU’s research centers and clinical trials.

Vieweg is board certified by the American Board of Urology and recently completed a five-year term as chair of the American Urological Association’s Research Council. He received his medical degree from the Technical University of Munich, Germany in 1978. After relocating to the United States, he spent three years as a post-doctoral research fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Duke University in Durham, N.C. In 1999, he completed the Duke residency-training program in urology and, subsequently, enjoyed a highly productive nine-year tenure as vice chair for research in the Duke Department of Urology. In 2006, Vieweg joined UF as the inaugural chairman of the Department of Urology from 2006 to 2015.

Much of  Vieweg’s career-long scientific activity has centered on the investigation and clinical testing of genetically engineered tumor vaccines, the discovery of universal tumor antigens and the modulation of immunosuppressive T cells and myeloid cells. He also made significant contributions to the biomedical sciences by discovering novel pathway-targeted interventions and developing prediction models for therapeutic response.

Vieweg’s more recent research interests are aligned with the field of public health, prevention medicine, implementation science and comparative effectiveness research, applied in academic and community-based settings. His scientific work has received uninterrupted funding by the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and is well documented in more than 150 publications, books, commentaries and review articles.

Additionally, in February 2015, Vieweg was awarded a Jefferson Science Fellowship by the National Academy of Sciences and, in that capacity, serves as a senior science and technology advisor to the U.S. Department of State (DOS) in the development of foreign policy. He primarily focuses on the management and implementation of scientific, technological and medical agreements established between the DOS and foreign governments, interacting with numerous DOS offices and other governmental agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation on issues of global health and human security.