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The prestigious honor for David Margolis, MD, Sarah Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Epidemiology, recognizes his distinguished contributions to the field of virology, particularly for key discoveries on the mechanisms of HIV latency and devising new strategies to pursue a cure for HIV.


David Margolis, MD, Sarah Graham Keenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, Epidemiology, has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The prestigious honor recognizes distinguished contributions to the field of virology, particularly for making key discoveries on the mechanisms of HIV latency and devising new strategies to find a cure for HIV infection. He will be honored at an upcoming AAAS Annual Meeting.

Dr. Margolis has a long history of translational HIV research investigating basic molecular, virological, and immunological phenomenon, and leveraging insights to develop new interventions in HIV disease. His work has involved many aspects of HIV science and medicine, and for the last two decades a central focus has been the study of molecular mechanisms of HIV proviral latency and persistence despite potent antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Margolis is the principal investigator for CARE (Collaboratory of AIDS Researchers for Eradication), a research group continuously funded by the NIH since 2011 that seeks to develop the tools to bring an HIV cure from the bench to the clinic. He and his colleagues have implemented numerous translational studies, combining drugs designed to reverse viral latency with biologics designed to clear persistently infected cells. He directs the UNC HIV Cure Center, created to support novel and impactful research needed to advance towards therapies to induce an HIV remission, and is the scientific director of Qura, a public-private partnership between UNC and ViiV Healthcare, that will bring a new HIV latency reversal agent into the clinic to test at UNC this year.

Three other UNC-Chapel Hill researchers were elected as AAAS fellows: Amy Gladfelter, Stephen Frye, and Alexander Victorovich Kabanov.

Learn more about all the AAAS honorary fellows.