Since 1940, the annual Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum has showcased innovative academic research, with a particular focus on introducing new ideas, shaping future surgical practice, and engaging young surgeons.
This year, the Forum also will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award. This annual honor recognizes a surgeon who has shown outstanding achievements in surgical innovation and mentorship throughout their career. For his cutting-edge investigations into nitric oxide and advances in understanding the human injury response, Timothy R. Billiar, MD, FACS, the George Vance Foster Professor and Chair of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, is the 2026 honoree.
Wangensteen Connections
Owen Wangensteen, MD, FACS (1898–1981), an eminent surgeon and scientist, created the Wangensteen Scientific Forum. Dr. Wangensteen also helped establish the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis as an outstanding institution for surgical training; Dr. Billiar later began his surgical training there.
The two surgeon-scientists share other traits as well. Both were raised in small farming towns, where early experiences with animals shaped their future careers. Dr. Wangensteen credited his interest in medicine to helping sows give birth to piglets on his father’s rural Minnesota farm. Dr. Billiar’s father was a veterinarian in small-town Nebraska who involved his son in the veterinary OR from a young age. Dr. Billiar credited his father, as well as his mother, a nurse, with inspiring his ambitions.
Although the two men never met at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Wangensteen’s influence has resonated throughout Dr. Billiar’s career.
“He was a legend there, and we all knew of his transformative thinking around the training of surgeon-scientists. He added a very fundamental part to this, and that is dedicated time for research training,” Dr. Billiar explained. “That became the Minnesota model, which was ultimately adopted by a number of other places. Dr. Simmons and I built on this model in Pittsburgh.”
Notable Scientific Achievements
After beginning his surgical residency at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Billiar followed his mentor, prominent transplant immunologist and surgeon Richard L. Simmons, MD, FACS, to the University of Pittsburgh. Both men have remained there, with Dr. Billiar eventually succeeding Dr. Simmons as chair of surgery. Dr. Simmons, who received the Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award in 2001, remains chair emeritus.
Dr. Billiar has not only led improvements in trauma care but also built and led a prominent research laboratory. A trauma surgeon, he has investigated the mechanisms of organ injury and immune dysfunction in shock, trauma, and sepsis.
His scientific contributions include groundbreaking studies of nitric oxide in biological systems.
“Nobody anticipated that this small gaseous molecule, which is a component of air pollution, was actually a critical signaling molecule in the body,” he said. “We were able to definitively show that humans express one of the high-output pathways for producing this gaseous molecule, and then ultimately clone the human inducible nitric oxide synthase gene.”
Today, his laboratory focuses on multiomics approaches to understanding the physiological response to severe injury. “The thing that fascinated us was why some severely injured patients, say young, healthy patients in car accidents, do well, and others don’t. That remains a poorly understood area,” he said.
His laboratory has advanced this understanding through “the multiomics revolution, which is the measurement of thousands of molecules across different classes simultaneously in, say, the circulation,” he said.
“We dove into multiomics about a decade ago, and we’ve been one of the programs that has been at the forefront of studying the multiomics of severe human injury.”
Through biobanking, large databases, and advanced computational methods, the group has tracked thousands of proteins and metabolites simultaneously, enhancing the understanding of how the biology of trauma patients changes in multiple dimensions over time. “These massive datasets give us a global picture. You can now see all the biology simultaneously at the systemic level,” he said.
His accomplishments include 35 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, authorship of more than 900 peer-reviewed publications, and nine patents. His insights have informed trauma care and clinical practice across surgical disciplines.
Dr. Billiar has mentored surgical and scientific trainees, including many who have gone on to careers in academic medicine and leadership roles. “That’s one of the greatest pleasures of what we do: to see a person that we’ve been involved with, either directly or indirectly, succeed in this mission of performing meaningful research,” he said.
Highly Honored and Humble
Throughout his career, Dr. Billiar has received numerous awards, including several from the ACS.
This award is particularly meaningful, he said. It reflects a nomination by colleagues and recognition through a forum that shaped both his early career and his current professional environment. The most profound aspect, though, is the full circle represented by the award.
“I won an ACS Resident Research Scholarship in the late 1980s, and I was also a Traveling Fellow for the College as a resident. I also received the George Clowes Junior Faculty Award, the very first one,” he said, referring to the George H.A. Clowes Jr., MD, FACS, Memorial Research Career Development Award.
The Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award carries greater meaning in light of the earlier ACS funding support, he said: “It’s through the generosity and the vision of surgical leaders who have led those initiatives that people like me have had accelerated careers as surgeon-scientists. In a way, this is an award that the College should feel represents a success of its programs in supporting surgeon-scientists, by having someone who was supported so heavily early in their career by the ACS recognized this way.”
