Leadership Transitions at OAR
Leadership at the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) has changed hands: Dr. Maureen M. Goodenow moved from her positions as NIH associate director for AIDS research and OAR director to a new role as senior advisor in the NIH Office of the Director.
Dr. Bill Kapogiannis, an NIH leader in HIV research for nearly 18 years, will serve as acting NIH associate director of AIDS research and acting OAR director while a nationwide search for a new director is conducted.
Goodenow led OAR for nearly seven years and is the first woman to serve in the position since its establishment in 1988. She coordinated an HIV research budget increase of more than $250 million over the last five years, bringing the total NIH HIV research funding to more than $3.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2023. She also developed and implemented a five-year NIH Strategic Plan for HIV and HIV-Related Research FY 2021–2025 and helped NIH garner recognition of the importance of HIV research in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy 2022–2025 by working with the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.
Goodenow will continue to serve as chief of the molecular HIV and host interactions section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The section focuses on the molecular virology and immunology of HIV infection in youth and pediatrics and the modulation of HIV-associated inflammation by substance use.
Kapogiannis joins OAR from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where he led the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions. That multicenter U.S.-based research program evaluates interventions for treatment and management of HIV infection and its complications among youth, as well as for the prevention of HIV transmission in the adolescent population, including HIV vaccine, microbicide, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) studies.
At NICHD, Kapogiannis served as scientific director of the Prevention and Treatment through a Comprehensive Care Continuum for HIV-Affected Adolescents in Resource-Constrained Settings Consortium, which is researching optimal strategies to identify youth at risk of HIV infection and those living with HIV, and to enroll them into medical care programs across sub-Saharan Africa and in Brazil to improve their health outcomes. Kapogiannis directed the NIH RADx-rad PreVAIL kIds Program, which is developing cutting-edge approaches for understanding factors influencing the spectrum of conditions in children infected with SARS-CoV-2.
A board-certified infectious disease specialist in pediatrics and internal medicine, he earned his M.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, where he completed his residency in internal medicine/pediatrics. He completed a combined fellowship in infectious diseases in internal medicine and pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.