Dr. Wu leads a multi-disciplinary team with collaborators from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, JHU Whiting School of Engineering, and JHU Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. She conducts ongoing investigations with the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study and Women’s Inter-agency Health Study. Her lab’s goals are to develop, implement, and validate novel imaging-based metrics of cardiac structure and function to improve risk prediction and stratification at the individual patient-level. Research Focuses: Predictors of Sudden Cardiac Death by Magnetic Resonance Imaging Subclinical myocardial disease in people living with HIV Individualized risk prediction Cardiac structural and mechanical modeling

Research in the Larry Chang Lab focuses on innovative, multidisciplinary and pragmatic approaches to impacting the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Our research investigates ways to improve HIV/AIDS care in low- and middle-income settings through strategies that include quantitative methods, qualitative methods, community-based trial designs, and behavioral science and economic evaluations. In addition, we research mobile technologies for health (mHealth) strategies for improving global public health and clinical care, including novel applications for intimate-partner violence intervention, dengue surveillance, and HIV care, surveillance and prevention.

The Lana Lee Lab works to create successful patient-centered care strategies for young individuals living with HIV. We focus in particular on decision making in HIV treatment for youth and on the availability of services for young people living with HIV in the United States and Uganda.

The research activities of the Neuroimmunopathology Laboratory focus on studies of immunological and molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of neurological disorders. Our main areas of research include studies of neurological complications of HIV infection and AIDS, multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, autism and epilepsy. We seek to explore and identify immunopathological mechanisms associated with neurological disease that may be the target of potential therapeutic interventions. The laboratory collaborates with other researchers and laboratories at Johns Hopkins and other institutions in projects related with studies of the interaction between the immune and central nervous systems in pathological processes leading to neurological dysfunction.

The Ken Witwer Laboratory investigates extracellular vesicles and RNA in the context of HIV infection and inflammatory disease. We are also actively assessing the effects of diet on extracellular RNA as a potential therapeutic approach.

The Kathryn Carson Lab investigates ways to improve medical research, particularly in the areas of brain and thyroid cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension, HIV and lupus. Our team seeks to help researchers optimize their studies through better study design, protocol and grant writing, data cleaning and analysis, and publication writing. We work with investigators from a wide range of departments through the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

Work in the Maunank Shah Lab focuses on infectious disease modeling and health economics, and seeks to investigate new strategies for diagnosing HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in areas with limited resources, both domestically and abroad. Our primary focus is TB diagnostics, with studies examining the diagnostic test accuracy, cost-effectiveness and programmatic impact of emerging diagnostics. We have developed mobile health initiatives to incorporate video-based therapy for TB treatment, and we have a longstanding interest in interventions that help to reduce or prevent HIV transmission.

The Stivers Lab is broadly interested in the biology of the RNA base uracil when it is present in DNA. Our work involves structural and biophysical studies of uracil recognition by DNA repair enzymes, the central role of uracil in adapative and innate immunity, and the function of uracil in antifolate and fluoropyrimidine chemotherapy. We use a wide breadth of structural, chemical, genetic and biophysical approaches that provide a fundamental understanding of molecular function. Our long-range goal is to use this understanding to design novel small molecules that alter biological pathways within a cellular environment. One approach we are developing is the high-throughput synthesis and screening of small molecule libraries directed at important targets in cancer and HIV-1 pathogenesis.

Research in the Michael Melia Lab focuses primarily on nocardia infections, Lyme disease and hepatitis C. Our studies have included key topics such as risk factors for incident infections during hepatitis C treatment, racial differences in eligibility for hepatitis C treatment and misdiagnosis of Lyme arthritis using the Borrelia burgdorferi immunoblot testing method. We also have a longstanding interest in medical education and work on curriculum to improve the quality of education for medical students and interns.

The Johns Hopkins Brain Health Program is a multi-specialty team of experts from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.