For Release: October 10, 2007
Contact: DMS Communications 603-650-1492
HIV Researcher Receives National Young Investigator Award
Timothy P. Lahey, MD
HANOVER, NH—Dr. Timothy Lahey, an HIV specialist at Dartmouth Medical School, received a national award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America for his promising research on protecting immune cells from death during HIV infection.
He was one of the two winners in the country of the 2007 Astellas Young Investigator Awards, presented in San Diego during the annual meeting Oct. 4-7. The awards provide funding to young investigators who have demonstrated outstanding research in an area of current interest in infectious diseases.
Lahey is a DMS assistant professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology who works in the DHMC section of infectious diseases and international health. He will explore novel means of boosting immune responses to HIV while preventing critical responder cells from being eliminated during HIV infection.
This year, in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, he reported that triggering a particular molecule on the surface of immune cells helps strengthen immune responses while shielding responding cells from death during HIV infection. Expanding on these findings, he will now examine the impact of this protection on immune memory and HIV infection of immune cells. This work could lead to innovative means of forestalling the development of AIDS.
Lahey received his MD from Duke University School of Medicine, then trained in internal medicine at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, where he was elected chief resident. While completing fellowships in infectious diseases and HIV medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital, he earned a master's degree in medical science from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. C. Fordham von Reyn, professor of medicine at DMS, is Lahey's mentor.
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