David Ho Receives National Leadership Award from National AIDS Memorial
David D. Ho, MD, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University, will receive the National Leadership Recognition Award from the National AIDS Memorial on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also will be given the same award.
“I am extremely honored by this award from the National AIDS Memorial, especially sharing the recognition with my friend Tony Fauci,” says Ho, who is also the Clyde ’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
As leading health experts on the front lines of medical and scientific advancements during two global pandemics, Ho and Fauci will discuss the health, research, and long-term impacts of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 at the organization’s virtual forum on World AIDS Day, Tuesday Dec. 1, beginning at 1 p.m. ET. ABC News chief medical correspondent, Jennifer Ashton, MD’00, will moderate the conversation.
Ho has been studying and advancing therapies against HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic in the early 80s. His research has helped define our understanding of HIV and has changed the course of clinical care for AIDS patients around the world.
Under Ho’s leadership, researchers at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center unraveled the dynamic nature of HIV replication in patients, which revolutionized our basic understanding of the disease. This knowledge led them to champion treatment with combination antiretroviral therapy, which has resulted in unprecedented control of HIV in patients. Among other honors, Ho was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1996 and received a U.S. Presidential Medal in 2001.
When the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged in late 2019, Ho and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center used their vast knowledge of viral diseases to address this emerging threat and develop new solutions for testing, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19. Ho’s lab has isolated a diverse variety of neutralizing antibodies against the new coronavirus [as reported in July in the journal Nature], two of which have been licensed to commercial partners for clinical development as potential therapeutic and/or prophylactic products.