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Biography
Myron S. Cohen, MD is the J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology and Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Associate Vice Chancellor of Global Health and the Director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at UNC. He also serves as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Cohen received a BS Degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, and an MD Degree from Rush Medical College, Chicago Illinois. He completed an Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Michigan, and Infectious Disease training at Yale University.
Dr. Cohen is the Director of the NIH STD Clinical Trials Unit, and the UNC HIV Prevention Trials Unit. He is Associate Director of the UNC CFAR and NIH STD Cooperative Research Center. Dr. Cohen is a Core Director of the NIH CHAVI. Dr. Cohen has received numerous awards and honors including distinguished alumni awards from Rush Medical College and the University of Michigan. He received the 2005 Thomas Parran Award for lifetime achievement in STD research. Dr. Cohen’s work focuses on the transmission and prevention of transmission of STD pathogens, including HIV.
Industry Expertise (3)
Research
Education/Learning
Medical/Dental Practice
Areas of Expertise (9)
Coronavirus
Immunology
Medicine
Epidemiology
Microbiology
Infectious Disease
Global Health
HIV / AIDS
COVID-19
Accomplishments (1)
Thomas Parran Award (professional)
Thomas Parran Award, named for Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., U.S. Surgeon General from 1936 to 1948 and the chief developer of modern STD prevention strategies. The American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association (ASTDA) bestows the award in recognition of “long and distinguished” contributions to STD research and prevention.
Education (4)
University of Michigan: Residency, Internal Medicine 1977
University of Michigan: Internship, Internal Medicine 1975
Rush University Medical College: M.D., Medicine 1974
University of Illinois: B.S., Psychology 1971
Affiliations (5)
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Journal) : Associate Editor
- Association of American Physicians : Member
- NIH CHAVI : Scientific Leadership Group
- NIH Prevention Trials Network : Executive Committee
- International AIDS Society Prevention : Track Chair
Media Appearances (5)
UNC researchers: Drug cocktails can stop sexual transmission of HIV
The News and Observer online
2015-07-20
The findings were announced Monday by AIDS researcher Myron Cohen at the eigth International AIDS Society Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Cohen, UNC’s chief of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, has headed the global research project for a decade and studied more than 1,700 couples...
GlaxoSmithKline, University of North Carolina Collaborate To Find Cure For HIV, AIDS
Yibada online
2015-05-12
According to Dr. Myron Cohen, head of UNC's infectious diseases program and a well-respected researcher, the collaboration is a "Manhattan Project-style effort to help find the cure for AIDS. The provocative idea is now mature enough for industry to say, 'We want to be in this and make the discovery.'"...
In UNC partnership, GSK does HIV/AIDS about-face
Triangle Business Journal online
2015-05-11
Partnering with UNC and putting the center in the Triangle makes sense. Some of the world’s leading HIV researchers call home here, probably most notably being Dr. Myron Cohen, whose HIV findings in 2011 were named the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year by the prestigious academic journal, Science. Leading HIV scientists from UNC have long partnered with peers at Duke University as well, making this a strong geographic choice for such an investment...
Orange County Health experts prepare for Ebola cases
Daily Tar Heel online
2014-11-10
“First of all, people wisely are afraid of communicable diseases,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, chief of the UNC Division of Infectious Diseases and director of the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases. “It is not a new idea for our species to be afraid.”...
Duke University bags $20M to advance HIV vaccines
Triangle Business Journal online
2015-04-06
Some of the most groundbreaking HIV/AIDS research has happened either here in the Triangle or from researchers that call this area home. In 2011, UNC researcher Dr. Myron Cohen announced research findings that showed they could eliminate transmission of the virus through a combination of treatments. The academic journal Science named the HIV prevention research the “Scientific Breakthrough of the Year,” in 2011...
Articles (5)
Prevention of HIV-1 infection with early antiretroviral therapy
New England Journal of Medicine
2011 ABSTRACT: Antiretroviral therapy that reduces viral replication could limit the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in serodiscordant couples...
Identification and characterization of transmitted and early founder virus envelopes in primary HIV-1 infection
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2008 ABSTRACT: The precise identification of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env) responsible for productive clinical infection could be instrumental in elucidating the molecular basis of HIV-1 transmission and in designing effective vaccines. Here, we developed a mathematical model of random viral evolution and, together with phylogenetic tree construction, used it to analyze 3,449 complete env sequences derived by single genome amplification from 102 subjects with acute HIV-1 (clade B) infection...
Brief but efficient: acute HIV infection and the sexual transmission of HIV
Journal of Infectious Diseases
2004 ABSTRACT: We examined whether viral dynamics in the genital tract during the natural history of acute human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection could explain efficient heterosexual transmission of HIV...
Sexual transmission of HIV
New England Journal of Medicine
1997 ABSTRACT: Transmission through sexual contact accounts for 75 to 85 percent of the nearly 28 million infections with the human immunodefficiency virus (HIV) that have occurred so far...
Reduction of concentration of HIV-1 in semen after treatment of urethritis: implications for prevention of sexual transmission of HIV-1
The Lancet
1997 ABSTRACT: Transmission of HIV-1 is predominantly by heterosexual contact in sub-Saharan Africa, where sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are also common. Epidemiological studies suggest that STDs facilitate transmission of HIV-1, but the biological mechanism remains unclear. We investigated the hypothesis that STDs increase the likelihood of transmission of HIV-1 through increased concentration of the virus in semen...
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