by Paul Govern
Kelly Dooley, MD, PhD, MPH, professor of Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, who joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center in September as director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, has received the Research in Action Award from the Treatment Action Group (TAG). The award ceremony was held Nov. 14 in New York City.
Formed in 1992, TAG is a community-based think tank that seeks to accelerate research into HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis-C. The organization’s Research in Action Award honors individuals who have made historic contributions toward ending these pandemics.
Some well-known past award recipients include chief White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci, Nobel Prize winner and former National Institutes of Health chief Harold Varmus, and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer. Honorees have also included artists, writers, and journalists: Terrence McNally, Sharon Stone, Anderson Cooper, Olympia Dukakis, and others.
Dooley’s award letter from TAG stated, “You have helped advance the science which makes it possible for some of the world’s poorest communities to achieve access to the latest and best treatment and prevention for HIV and tuberculosis. Your stellar leadership … illustrates the importance of making sure the hardest questions — such as modernizing treatment of TB meningitis or studying the interactions of new TB drugs bedaquiline and delamanid or new HIV cornerstone drugs like dolutegravir — are answered ethically, safely, and swiftly.”
The other honorees this year included Dooley’s former colleague Amita Gupta, MD, MHS, professor and director, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; TAG founding member and longtime board treasurer Laura Morrison; and longtime AIDS activist Ann Northrop, co-host of the national TV news program “Gay USA.”
Dooley’s contributions to science are in the areas of tuberculosis therapeutics, clinical pharmacology of anti-infectives, HIV-tuberculosis co-treatment, and evaluation of HIV and TB drugs.
Dooley received her medical degree from Duke University, her master’s in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her PhD in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins University. Before joining VUMC, she was professor of Medicine, and Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins.