Background
Dr. Richard E. Chaisson is a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He holds joint appointments in epidemiology and in international health, both in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His area of clinical expertise is infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Chaisson serves as the director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Tuberculosis Research, and is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for AIDS Research.
He received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts. He was an intern, resident, fellow and assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, prior to moving to Johns Hopkins.
From 1988 to 1998 he was director of the Johns Hopkins AIDS Service, leading the inpatient Polk Service on Osler 8, a subacute care unit at Bayview Medical Center, and the outpatient Moore Clinic. His cohort studies of HIV and with his colleague Richard Moore made major contributions to understanding the treatment and outcomes of HIV disease. In 1991 he was appointed Medical Director of the Baltimore City Health Department Tuberculosis Clinic, establishing it as a leading program in TB control. He founded the Center for TB Research in 1998, which is one of the world's leading academic center for basic, clinical, applied, and epidemiologic investigations in TB and its control.
Dr. Chaisson has conducted multiple trials of treatments and strategies to treat, prevent, and control TB, TB/HIV co-infection, and HIV. From 2002-2014 he led the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE), and from 2011-2018 he was inaugural chair of the TB Transformative Science Group of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. In 2022 he was awarded a $200 million cooperative agreement from USAID for SMART4TB, an international research consortium to study tools to end TB globally, working with partners from multiple institutions to implement research, strengthen local capacity, and drive policy change.
Dr. Chaisson has been recognized with numerous honors, including the HIV/AIDS Warrior Award from AIDS Action Baltimore in 2022, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease North American Region in 2021, election to the Association of American Professors in 2016, the Champions of TB Control Award from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2014 and the American Thoracic Society's World Lung Health Award in 2006.