Research projects led by Igho Ofotokun, MD expand advances in clinical infectious diseases care

Emory’s Division of Infectious Diseases garners more than $50 million in research funding per year, more than any other division in the Department of Medicine. This achievement is made possible through the contributions of highly-skilled researchers known for their leading advances in clinical infectious diseases care.

Among these researchers is Igho Ofotokun, MD, professor of medicine and professor of behavioral science and health education. Ofotokun, an HIV researcher, and his team recently celebrated the completion of a particularly remarkable funding year. In addition to three active research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a K12 career development award, his team also achieved favorable outcomes on four new NIH grant applications.

One such grant is the Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) grant awarded to Emory University in fall 2018.

The SCORE grant is a U54 mechanism developed by the NIH Office of Research in Women’s Health (ORWH). This multimillion-dollar center grant with multiple cores and research projects is led by Ofotokun as the administrative principal investigator (PI) and Lisa Haddad, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, as the Co-PI. In the spirit of “One Emory: Engaged for Impact,” the grant brings together researchers from Emory’s Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing and Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and its goals are to promote the normalization of sex as a biological variable across all research domains and offer pilot funding to early stage and early established investigators studying sex differences.

“Our goal is to make Emory University a regional hub for studying the influence that biological sex plays in the prevention, presentation, treatment, and outcomes of disease in humans,” says Ofotokun.

During its first project period, the Emory SCORE’s research will focus on infectious diseases, using HIV as a working model, to highlight the global burden of these conditions in women, align with the priorities of the NIH ORWH, and capitalize on Emory’s deep strengths in HIV translational research, basic immunology and anti-viral drug development.

As a clinician-scientist, Ofotokun is also committed to mentoring the next generation of researchers. Through efforts led by Ofotokun and Nadine Rouphael, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory’s J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program was among three institutions nationwide selected to receive the highly competitive Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) award in 2018. The new initiative was created by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to increase research training opportunity for resident physicians with the goal of increasing the number of physicians who are engaged in biomedical research.

The MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), is a competitive renewal award led by Ofotokun as the administrative PI, and co-PI Anandi Sheth, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases. This longitudinal epidemiological cohort study, which started in January 2019, focuses on the long-term complications of HIV infection including age-related comorbidities among individuals living with HIV in the U.S. In the recently completed cycle of the award, several Emory investigators leveraged the cohort for their research, resulting in several high-impact publications and 31 intramural and extramural grant awards, most of which were awarded by the NIH.

Additionally, Ofotokun’s team leveraged experience with the NIH funded K12 Emory Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) to apply for a Fogarty D43 award to expand training in HIV-related women’s health research in sub-Saharan Africa. This award was funded in February 2019.

“Overall, I am incredibly grateful for these opportunities and for the enabling environment in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Emory University that has made these accomplishments possible,” says Ofotokun. “I look forward with great enthusiasm to the implementation of these projects. I believe that the completion of these projects will lead to the advancement of science and tremendous contributions to the academic and healthcare mission of Emory.”