Cotter Research Group

Dr. Thomas Cotter is a clinician-scientist committed to a research career focused on strategies to improve outcomes for patients with liver disease, including metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic and alcohol-associated liver diseases. Dr. Cotter is a native of Ireland where he graduated in Medicine from National University of Ireland, Galway, before completing his internal medicine residency at Mayo Clinic Rochester and his gastroenterology and transplant hepatology fellowships at the University of Chicago Medicine. During his fellowship, Dr. Cotter pursued formal research training on the NIH T32 research track through which he earned a Master of Science in Public Health Sciences degree.

Throughout his training, Dr. Cotter developed a keen interest in the care of patients with alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) and regularly managed ALD and alcohol use disorder (AUD). A particular area of interest for Dr. Cotter is exploring the intersection between hepatology and addiction medicine in order to improve care for patients with ALD patients with AUD. Dr. Cotter began his clinical research in hepatology under the guidance of Dr. Michael Charlton, a renowned hepatologist and PI of multiple NIH grants on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, and with whom he completed several research projects including highlighting the changing trends in ALD practice and outcomes in liver transplantation (LT). In September 2021, Dr. Cotter joined the faculty at UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases on the research-oriented clinical scholar track. Since starting at UTSW, Dr. Cotter has forged collaborations several leading experts in liver disease including Drs. Mack Mitchell, Amit Singal and Helen Hobbs – internationally recognized experts and model researchers. Over the past few years, Dr. Cotter has gained valuable experience in conducting large data analyses, retrospective and prospective cohort studies, and meta-analyses. This work has culminated in presentations at national and international conferences and several peer-reviewed original publications in high-impact journals including Hepatology, Gut, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Liver Transplantation, American Journal of Transplantation, and Transplantation.

Dr. Cotter currently has active society (2023 AASLD CTORA) and NIH (NIAAA - K23AA031310) funding, as well as serving as a co-investigators two other NIH grants studying the pathogenesis and treatment of alcohol-associated hepatitis (U01AA026975) and early liver transplantation in ALD (R01AA030956). Dr. Cotter has been an active AASLD member since 2018 and has served on the AASLD Clinical Practice Special Interest Group steering committee.