Eli Boritz, M.D., Ph.D.

The goal of the VPDS is to help develop means of targeting virus reservoirs and reducing disease progression in people living with HIV. One path toward this goal is to clarify the fundamental biology of HIV persistence during antiretroviral therapy (ART). Motivated by the genetic and functional diversity within key cellular reservoirs for the virus, we are developing high-throughput methods for characterizing large numbers of single cells and viruses in great detail. Topics under investigation include the unique genetic programs expressed by infected cells; heterogeneity among individual infected cells as measured using “omics” tools; and the use of virus genetic analysis to detect critical events that may not be directly observable in vivo. We are investigating these issues both in individuals treated with standard-of-care ART and in study participants receiving experimental HIV cure-directed therapies.

Dr. Boritz began his HIV research career in the mid-1990s as a summer student in the laboratory of Dr. John K. Rose. An interest in fundamental and translational studies of host-virus interactions then led him to pursue combined M.D./Ph.D. training at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. He completed his Ph.D. in the Immunology Program studying HIV-specific CD4 T-cell responses with Dr. Cara Wilson. After an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he came to NIAID as a fellow in infectious diseases. Following the clinical portion of his fellowship, he joined Dr. Daniel Douek's laboratory at Vaccine Research Center, where he worked to understand the cellular and molecular events that allow HIV reservoirs to persist in vivo. He joined the NIH faculty to establish the VPDS in 2017.