Bob Bollinger, MD, MPH
Dr. Bollinger is the Raj and Kamla Gupta Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. He holds joint appointments in International Health at the Johns Hopkins (JH) Bloomberg School of Public Health, and in Community Public Health at the JH School of Nursing. From 2005-2022, he was the Founding Director of the JH Center for Clinical Global Health Education (now CCGHE-ID), which was the home of the Johns Hopkins Division of Infectious Diseases research program in Pune, India until the establishment of the Center for Infectious Diseases in India (CIDI). He is Associate Director for Medicine of the JH Center for Global Health and is a member of the Faculty Steering Committee of the Johns Hopkins Gupta Klinsky India Institute. Is a member of the faculty advisory group for the JH Precision Medicine Center of Excellence for COVID-19 and the JH Center for Innovative Diagnostics in Infectious Diseases (CDID). He has served as a member of the US Presidential Advisory Council for HIV/AIDS (PACHA), the PACHA International Sub-committee, the Institute of Medicine Forum on Public-Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center Advisory Board.
Dr. Bollinger has worked for more than 40 years with partners in India on a wide range of public health, clinical research, and education programs, including projects focused on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, dengue, antibiotic resistant infections, COVID-19 and other emerging diseases. His research interests include identifying biological and behavioral risk factors for HIV and TB transmission; characterizing the clinical progression and treatment of HIV, TB and related infections; development/evaluation of novel point-of-care diagnostics and implementation of research projects to optimize equitable access to healthcare capacity and delivery in resource-limited communities.
In 1991, he initiated an NIH-funded Indo-US HIV research program in Pune, India, involving the National AIDS Research Institute/ICMR and the BJ Government Medical College. He has served as Principal Investigator for many NIH-supported studies and clinical trials in Pune, including the SWEN study, which led to changes in World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for treatment of infants born to HIV positive mothers to prevent mother-to-child transmission. Under his 26 years as leader of the Hopkins India Fogarty International Research Training Program, short-term and degree training was provided to more than 140 visiting Indian scientists at JHU, and in-country training provided to more than 2,000 Indian scientists. His commitment to education has been honored with the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine David M. Levine Excellence in Mentoring Award.
Dr. Bollinger is author of more than 220 peer-reviewed research publications and 15 book chapters, including the first and largest studies of risk factors for HIV transmission in India, the cloning and sequencing of the first HIV viruses from India, the only studies characterizing the primary immune response to HIV in India, and the demonstration of increased risk of HIV acquisition with recent HSV infection and lack of circumcision. Dr. Bollinger received an undergraduate degree from Haverford College, a Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Master of Public Health from JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed his internal medicine training at the University of Maryland Medical Systems, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in infectious diseases at JHU School of Medicine. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine and infectious diseases.