David D. Ho, M.D.
Senior Physician; Irene Diamond Professor
Scientific Director; Chief Executive Officer
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center
E-mail: dho@rockefeller.edu
Dr. Ho’s laboratory has focused on the pathogenesis of HIV infection, with particular emphasis on the dynamics of HIV replication
in vivo. Currently, his group is investing substantial effort in the development of vaccines for HIV as well as in the development of
innovative prevention strategies. Dr. Ho is also heading a consortium of Chinese and American organizations to further address the
HIV/AIDS crisis in China.
Dr. Ho has been actively engaged in AIDS
research for 27 years and has published more
than 350 papers on the subject. Work in Dr.
Ho’s lab helped pioneer the fi eld of quantitation
of HIV in infected people. In the last decade,
his research team extended this work and revolutionized
the paradigm for AIDS pathogenesis
by demonstrating the highly dynamic nature of
HIV replication in vivo. Their studies of HIV
dynamics formed the foundation for combination
antiretroviral therapy, which Dr. Ho helped
to champion. Such treatment approaches have
led to dramatic reduction in AIDS-associated
mortality in developed countries.
Currently, a major focus of the Ho lab is
using vaccines to induce immune responses that
could block HIV or SIV transmission. Dr. Ho is
pursuing multiple vaccine strategies, including
DNA and viral vectors such as vaccinia and yellow
fever virus. His effort has been successful
in inducing high levels of cellular immunity in
animals, and Dr. Ho’s lab has moved two candidate
vaccines into clinical trials to assess vaccine
safety and immunogenicity. To supplement
these vaccine approaches, lab members are also
manipulating the viral envelope glycoprotein
to determine whether neutralizing antibodies
could be induced. Under a Vaccine Discovery
Center grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, Dr. Ho’s vaccine research and
development efforts include new strategies that
will target HIV and other viral antigens to dendritic
cells to elicit better immune responses.
The group’s latest focus is a novel approach
to HIV prevention. They are studying the passive
administration of a humanized monoclonal
antibody, known as ibalizumab, that potently
and broadly blocks HIV infection by binding
to domain 2 of human CD4. Ibalizumab
is already in clinical studies in HIV-infected
individuals, showing a good safety profile and
a well-documented antiviral effect. The role
of this monoclonal antibody as a prophylactic
against HIV infection in seronegative subjects
is now being actively studied, including in pivotal
clinical trials.
Dr. Ho is also involved in addressing the
spread of AIDS in China. The disease has
reached epidemic proportions in that country,
and Dr. Ho and his colleagues have established
a number of initiatives to address the problem,
including public education to raise awareness
and to fi ght stigma and discrimination.
In addition, they are involved in the delivery
of effective antiretroviral therapies and in the
implementation of measures to block motherto-
child transmission of HIV. His team is also
helping prepare a number of sites in the Chinese
province of Yunnan to conduct future HIV
vaccine trials.
CAREER
Dr. Ho received his undergraduate degree from
the California Institute of Technology in 1974
and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School
in 1978. He completed his residency in internal
medicine at the University of California, Los
Angeles, School of Medicine in 1982, and then
held a fellowship in infectious diseases at
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard
Medical School until 1985. He has held
academic appointments at Harvard Medical
School, the UCLA School of Medicine, and
the New York University School of Medicine,
where he also served as director of the Center
for AIDS Research from 1994 to 1996. Dr. Ho
has been scientific director and chief executive
officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research
Center since 1990 and was named professor
and physician at Rockefeller in 1996.
In 2006, Dr. Ho was a recipient of a Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation grant for HIV vaccine
research. Among his numerous honors, he
received the Edward Ahrens Award in Clinical
Investigation and the Friendship Award from
the State Council of the People’s Republic of
China in 2003, and was awarded the Presidential
Citizens Medal in 2001. Dr. Ho received
the Hoechst Marion Roussel Award (now the
Aventis Award) in 1999, the Squibb Award
from the Infectious Diseases Society of America
in 1996, the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in
Science and Technology in 1993 and the Ernst
Jung Prize for Medicine in 1991. He was a
scientific honoree of the New York Academy of
Medicine in 1998, and Time magazine’s Man
of the Year in 1996. He is also the recipient of
10 honorary doctorates. Dr. Ho is a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
Institute of Medicine and the Academia Sinica,
as well as a foreign member of the Chinese
Academy of Engineering.
