Jennifer Philips, MD, PhD
Aditi Ramakrishnan, MD, MSc
HIP Seminars are designed to enhance mentoring and peer-to-peer connections among emerging HIV investigators, supporting their career development and helping them successfully obtain NIH funding.
This month’s presentations:
TBA - Jennifer Philips, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Division of Infectious Diseases and Theodore and Bertha Bryan Professor of Medicine at WashU
Long-acting Injectable PrEP Interest vs. Access in an Ending the HIV Epidemic Priority State - Aditi Ramakrishnan, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor at WashU
Speaker Bios:
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Jennifer A. Philips is the Co-Director of the Infectious Diseases Division. Dr. Philips is principal investigator of an NIH-funded lab that studies how Mycobacterium tuberculosis evades the host immune response. M. tuberculosis causes TB, one of the world’s most deadly infections. It has infected humans for millenia and is highly adapted to navigate the complexities of the human immune system. The discoveries in the Philips laboratory have delineated how Mtb blocks lysosomal trafficking, alters host metabolism, and impairs antigen presentation. Her laboratory has identified clinically available drugs that restore the ability of the host to clear M. tuberculosis, overcoming key immune evasion strategies of Mtb. These findings may lead to novel host-directed therapies for TB. In recent unpublished work, they showed that the abundance of an M.tuberculosis-host co-metabolite in sputum and plasma distinguishes Mtb-infected patients from uninfected controls. This may enable development of biomarkers to individualize TB treatment. Thus, by making fundamental discoveries in Mtb pathogenesis, her group hopes to enable better therapies, novel biomarkers, and effective vaccines for one of humankind’s greatest afflictions.
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Aditi Ramakrishnan is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She is an NIH-funded physician investigator with expertise in implementation science and HIV/STI prevention and treatment. Dr. Ramakrishnan completed her undergraduate degree at Yale University, an MA in Anthropology at Columbia University, MD at the University of Michigan, and her Infectious Diseases fellowship and MSc in clinical research at Emory University. She is a graduate of the HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Health Implementation Science Research Institute at Washington University and member of the WashU ICTS Implementation Science Academy. Additionally, she is a core faculty member of the CDC-funded St. Louis STI/HIV Prevention Training Center and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Implementation Science Communications and Open Forum Infectious Diseases. She is also a recipient of the 2026 IDSA Editorial Mentorship Fellowship for the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. In addition to her research, she attends on the inpatient Infectious Diseases consult service, teaching fellows, residents, and students, and serves as one of the primary HIV/PrEP/STI clinicians at Washington University.
To receive a recurring Outlook invitation, email the D-CFAR Admin Core. This is a free event, but registration is required.