Jonathan Karn, PhD

Dr. Jonathan Karn has made seminal contributions to studies of the transcriptional control of HIV. His current work focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying HIV latency in primary T-cells including the impact of sex hormones on the HIV reservoir. Complementary studies of HIV reservoirs in the CNS led to the unexpected discovery that neurons produce inhibitory signals that can lead to HIV silencing in microglial cells. Dr. Karn has been the Director of the CWRU/UH Center for AIDS Research since 2008. He served as a member of the NIAID Advisory Council (2011-2015) and the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors Basic Sciences (2015-2020). He was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Microbiology in 2011.