Murphy Reflects on Distinguished Career at UB

He’s a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, where he first began in 1981 as an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. He’s senior associate dean for clinical and translational research, director of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and founding director of the Community Health Equity Research Institute.

This past summer, President Satish K. Tripathi presented Murphy with the President’s Medal, confirming what everyone who has ever worked with Murphy knows: “Tim always works on others’ behalf,” Tripathi said, while being “one of the most humble, down-to-earth, genuine people you will ever be fortunate to meet.”

In addition to his multiple roles, Murphy has also taken on many additional duties outside of his official ones, including those that reflect his deep commitment to working closely with all aspects of the Western New York community.

He has done all this while maintaining a demanding and productive research agenda. With continuous National Institutes of Health funding for 40 years, Murphy is an internationally recognized expert in respiratory infections. His work has transformed the understanding of bacterial infections in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He has also developed vaccines to treat otitis media (ear infections) and COPD. He holds 13 patents and has published hundreds of major papers and authored chapters in major textbooks.

When Murphy reflects on his career as an infectious disease physician, he says some of the most important years in his career were his first 15 at UB, beginning in 1981. That’s when he spent his time treating patients — first at the Erie County Medical Center and then at the VA Western New York Healthcare System.

In the late 1980s, he and his colleagues started seeing more cases of a devastating new disease: HIV-AIDS. He remembers the bewildering experience of trying to care for these patients. “You could try and treat the infections, but the immune system of these patients was so dysfunctional,” he recalls. “It was a time when you basically watched people die.” 

Murphy says he’ll never forget the sheer helplessness he felt during those years, nor will he forget the quantum change that happened once effective anti-retroviral drugs were developed in the mid-to-late 1990s. “Once all those medications were developed, then AIDS patients were coming in looking perfectly healthy,” he says. “They were even holding full-time jobs. I’d say, ‘Having any problems?’ And they’d say, ‘nope.’ That’s biomedical research; that’s translational research. Now AIDS is a chronic, manageable disease,” he says in amazement, “and it happened during my lifetime.”

That experience was part of the reason Murphy felt compelled to be a physician-scientist, spending time in the lab to develop solutions to the problems he sees his patients struggle with every day.

It’s a passion he has instilled in his students and trainees, leading the effort to obtain funding for the highly competitive, NIH-funded clinician-scientist summer training program. Designed to get health sciences students interested in pursuing research projects, it’s aimed at reversing an alarming shortfall. In the 1980s, nearly 5% of physicians said research was a significant part of their work, whereas in 2019 just 1.5% were engaged in research.

In 2022, UB was awarded its third of these grants; under Murphy’s leadership the NIH gave a rare and perfect score of 10, along with funding of nearly $300,000 for five years for the program that UB runs with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Murphy’s understanding of the power of research is also why he said yes, back in 2009 when Michael E. Cain, MD, then the Jacobs School dean and vice president for health sciences, asked Murphy to lead UB’s application for a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the NIH.

“It was a national opportunity,” Murphy says. “It would bring NIH money into the area and was a great opportunity for UB to break into this top tier of research universities.”

UB was successful in 2015 when it received $15 million. “We applied three times,” says Murphy. “That’s part of the journey. It’s how you break into the club.” It was followed in 2020 with a second CTSA for $21.7 million, and last January with a third for $28.4 million, bringing UB’s total CTSA funding to just over $65 million.

“I credit Dr. Cain for getting me into the CTSA world — OK, sometimes I blamed him,” he jokes. “It really changed what I spent my time doing. I was in my infectious disease comfort zone for so long and I had to learn about clinical trials and regulatory things, informatics and statistics.”

The CTSA has catalyzed a transformation of the clinical and translational research environment, with a tripling since 2015 of actively recruiting clinical trials at UB. The award also drew Murphy into the community, since a focus was on the social determinants of health — the ways in which the conditions that people live in every day powerfully impact their health. He joined the African American Health Equity Task Force, which formed in response to the striking health disparities experienced by African Americans in Buffalo, where he met community members who he still regularly meets with today.

“That really changed my life and my view of the world, quite frankly,” says Murphy. “For the first couple of years, I hardly said a word. I just listened and listened and wow, did I learn things. Now I see almost everything I do through a health equity lens.”

That work led to UB establishing the Community Health Equity Research Institute in 2019, with Murphy appointed as founding director.

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, sums up his career this way: “Dr. Murphy doesn’t just support the Jacobs School’s mission to improve community health … he lives it. Every role he’s taken on reflects that commitment.”

In retirement, Murphy is looking ahead to spending more time with family, pursuing hobbies and continuing his work in the community.

“I have not had a garden in 35 years, so I am definitely going to have one now, and I can go to plenty of my grandchildren’s games and dance recitals,” he says. “During my time with the CTSI, I have made such great partnerships and relationships with community groups, and my passion for working in the community and trying to contribute to make things better for the community is not going to go away.

“I want to work at a more grassroots level and continue to be a liaison and ambassador between the community and the university.”