Dr. Talal is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and an Associate Attending Physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. His research focuses on identifying biomarkers of liver disease progression and of treatment outcome, and the treatment of viral hepatitis among special populations including HCV/HIV co-infected patients.

Dr. Talal graduated from Brown University with Honor's in 1986, obtained his M.D. degree at the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio, and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa. He completed a research and clinical fellowship and a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. From 1996-2000, he was a Rockefeller University Clinical Scholar in the laboratory of Dr. David Ho at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, where he investigated HIV pathogenesis in the gut-associated lymphoid tissue and participated in several early studies of combination antiretroviral therapy. Since 2000, he has been the director of the Laboratory for Translational Research at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and in Gastroenterology/ Hepatology.

Dr. Talal has been recognized nationally as an authority on viral hepatitis in HIV-infected individuals and was the recipient of a Clinton Global Initiatives award from the W.J. Clinton Foundation in 2006. He founded the Viral Hepatitis Clinic and the Liver Clinic of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, both specializing in the care of HCV/HIV co-infected patients. He also created and continues to direct the Center's database as well as its serum and tissue repository.