Ira M. Jacobson, MD

I became fascinated with biology as a child, when my elementary school teacher showed me the teeming life in a drop of pond water through a microscope. My ambition to become a doctor arose from medicine’s ideal combination of science and helping others.

Much later, I decided to specialize in gastroenterology because of the diversity of conditions doctors manage in this field, and the scientific and technologic advances that characterized its dynamic growth early in my medical career. I was particularly fascinated with the liver because of the central role it plays in hundreds of the body’s vital processes.

I devote much of my clinical time caring for people who have liver disease, including viral hepatitis and other liver conditions. For patients who require liver transplantation, I work closely with our surgeons at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. I am also actively involved in the broader specialty of gastroenterology and gastrointestinal endoscopy, including upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy.

As the director of hepatology at NYU Langone Health, I aim to expand and enhance the clinical, research, and educational programs in liver disease and mentor the exceptional group of hepatologists here. It’s an honor to work with such a wonderful hepatology team and to provide patient care alongside world-class experts in medicine, surgery, pathology, radiology, oncology, and other specialties.

The primary source of gratification in my professional life is patient care. I enjoy meeting my patients and their families and hearing about their lives, and I pride myself on spending as much time with my patients as they need. While I focus on their specific conditions, I do so in the broad context of their overall health.

I place an emphasis on accessibility in my practice—my patients can contact me at any time through secure electronic communication. I also emphasize clear communication during office visits. We live in an era of “evidence-based medicine,” but existing medical evidence must sometimes be combined with clinical experience and judgment for the best approach to care. To do this, I provide individualized care and focus on each person and how he or she is unique.

For more than 30 years, I have participated in hundreds of clinical trials on antiviral therapy for viral hepatitis, including hepatitis B and C, and I have also led a number of them. These studies have remarkably improved our ability to treat people with these conditions, including the capacity to cure nearly all patients who have hepatitis C. I have authored and coauthored more than 250 scientific papers, chapters, and reviews on these and other topics. I continue to be involved in studies on viral hepatitis, and am also involved in studies examining treatments for other liver diseases, such as fatty liver disease and primary biliary cholangitis.

I am a fellow of several major organizations, including the American College of Physicians, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the American College of Gastroenterology, and a member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Recently, I was honored to be elected to a fellowship at the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom. I am a past president of the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the New York Gastroenterological Association.