Amita Gupta, MD, MHS

Role: 
Faculty
Professor of Medicine and Public Health; Director, Division of Infectious Diseases
Amita Gupta, MD, MHS

Dr. Gupta is Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is also Faculty Co-chair of the Johns Hopkins Gupta-Klinsky India Institute, and Professor of Infectious Diseases at the JH School of Medicine. She has a joint appointment in International Health at the JH Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in infectious diseases, Dr. Gupta specializes in international public health, clinical research, and education in infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and antimicrobial resistant infections. Since 2003, her work has been focused primarily on India, where she leads several Indo-JHU research collaborations. She serves in leadership positions as Co-Chair of the Faculty Steering Committee of the Johns Hopkins Gupta-Klinsky India Institute, Center Director for the Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine Center for Excellence for COVID-19, the US chair for the Indo-US Vaccine Action Program sponsored RePORT India TB research consortium, which is funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the government of India, Department of Biotechnology. She also serves on the global RePORT International Executive Committee, a multilateral global consortia for TB research. She is Co-principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Baltimore-Washington-India HIV and Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials Unit (BWI-CTU), and she is an active clinical investigator in multi-country trials conducted by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) and the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Trials Network (IMPAACT), and has served as protocol chair for high impact studies that have resulted in publications in The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. She is Co-chair of the NIH and AmFAR funded IeDea HIV/TB Working Group and Scientific Committee co-Chair for IMPAACT TB. 

She has been awarded research grants from the NIH, CDC, UNITAID, and several philanthropic foundations to investigate infectious diseases of importance to India and beyond. In 2019, Dr. Gupta was appointed by the US Health and Human Services Secretary for a 4-year term to the NIAID Council, the chief advisory committee for National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In 2020, she was invited to the Governing Board of the Indo-U.S. Science & Technology Forum

Dr. Gupta is an author of more than 200 peer-reviewed research publications and 7 book chapters on prevention and treatment of HIV, TB, and other infectious diseases, primarily in low- and middle-income settings. She has also mentored more than 35 junior scientists in India and the US to run research studies and submit their own scientific findings to peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Gupta received an undergraduate degree from MIT, a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School, and a Master of Health Sciences in clinical investigation from JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her internal medicine training at San Francisco General Hospital-University of California, San Francisco, followed by a post-doctoral fellowships with the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases) and at the JHU School of Medicine (Infectious Diseases).

Publications on PubMed

Research Program Building and Leadership

  • 2007-present: Chair, IMPAACT P1078, A Randomized Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Safety of Immediate (antepartum-initiated) Versus Deferred Reduction in TB Incidence and Mortality Among HIV-Infected Women and Their Infants in High TB Incidence Settings
  • 2008-present: Protocol Vice-Chair of ACTG 5274, Reducing Early Mortality Among Patients with Advanced HIV Disease: A Randomized Strategy Trial Comparing the Safety and Efficacy of an Individualized Patient TB Treatment Approach to a Public Health Pre-emptive TB Treatment Approach in Resource-Limited Settings (REMEMBER)
  • 2008-2012: Co-investigator ACTG 5267, A Phase I, Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetic Interaction Study of Single-Dose TMC207 and Efavirenz in Health Volunteers
  •  2008-2012: Co-investigator ACTG 5253 Sensitivity and Specificity of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Screening and Diagnostics in HIV-Infected Individuals
  • 2009-present: Protocol Vice Chair ACTG 5279, Phase III Clinical Trial of Short-Course Rifapentine/Isoniazid for the Prevention of Active Tuberculosis in HIV-Infected Adults with Latent Tuberculosis Infection
  • 2010: Invited by NIAID, NIH to be a part of a NIH delegation to assess scope of TB research in India. Accompanied the Deputy Director of the Division of AIDS, the Associate Director of International Health Programs, NIAID and other NIH delegates on site visits to 15 Indian institutions throughout the country
  • 2011-2012: Selected to participate in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Office in Science and Medicine (OWISM) Leadership Program for Women Faculty
  • 2012-present: Member, ACTG TB Transformative Science Group
  • 2014-present: IMPAACT TB Scientific Committee Vice-Chair
  • 2014-present: Co-investigator IMPAACT 2001 Protocol Team, PK and Safety of INH and Rifapentine in Pregnancy
  • 2014-2016: US Co-chair, NIH-India Government, Regional Prospective Observational Research in Tuberculosis (RePORT)
  • 2014-present: Co-chair PHOENIX ACTG A5300/IMPAACT 2003 feasibility study and MDR TB contact prophylaxis trial
  • 2016-present: US Chair, TB Research Consortium, RePORT India
  • 2016-present: Member, Executive Committee, RePORT International
  • 2017: Selected to participate in the Johns Hopkins Leadership Development Program (LDP)
  • 2015-present: Member, Union Interest Group in Maternal-Infant TB working group
  • 2018: Participant, Technical Consultation on Advances in Clinical Trial Design for Development of New TB Treatments, WHO Report generation
  • 2018-present: co Chair, IeDEA TB working group
  • 2019-present: NIAID Council
  • 2020-present: Governing Board Member, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSTTF)
  • 2020-present: Co-Chair, Faculty Steering Committee, Johns Hopkins Gupta-Klinsky India Institute
  • 2020-present: Center Director, Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine Center for Excellence for COVID-19

 

Low Vitamin-D levels combined with PKP3-SIGIRR-TMEM16J host variants is strongly associated with tuberculosis and death in HIV-infected and -exposed infants

Post Date: 
2016-02-12
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PLOS One
Background: This study examined the associations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and specific host genetic variants that affect vitamin D levels or its effects on immune function, with the risk of TB or mortality in children. Methods: A case-cohort sample of 466 South African infants...

Prevalence and risk factors of micronutrient deficiencies pre- and post-antiretroviral therapy (ART) among a diverse multicountry cohort of HIV-infected adults

Post Date: 
2016-02-10
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Publication: 
Clinical Nutrition
Background & Aims: HIV-infected adults have increased risk of several individual micronutrient deficiencies. However, the prevalence and risk factors of concurrent and multiple micronutrient deficiencies and whether micronutrient concentrations change after antiretroviral therapy (ART)...

Toward earlier inclusion of pregnant and postpartum women in TB drug trials: consensus statements from an International Expert Panel

Post Date: 
2016-01-04
Publication: 
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Tuberculosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women of childbearing age (15–44 years). Despite increased tuberculosis risk during pregnancy, optimal clinical treatment remains unclear: safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic data for many tuberculosis drugs are lacking, and...

Cost effectiveness of isoniazid preventive therapy for HIV-infected pregnant women in India

Post Date: 
2016-01-01
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Publication: 
International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
Background: India has a high burden of active tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Pregnancy increases the risks of developing TB in HIV-infected women. Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) reduces progression to TB, but may increase costs and hepatotoxicity. The...

Pediatric tuberculous meningitis: model-based approach to determining optimal doses of anti-tuberculosis drugs for children

Post Date: 
2015-10-22
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Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Pediatric tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a highly morbid, often fatal disease. Standard treatment includes isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol. Current rifampin dosing achieves low cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations, and CSF penetration of ethambutol is poor. In adult...

RePORT International: advancing tuberculosis biomarker research through global collaboration

Post Date: 
2015-10-15
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Clinical Infectious Diseases
Progress in tuberculosis clinical research is hampered by a lack of reliable biomarkers that predict progression from latent to active tuberculosis, and subsequent cure, relapse, or failure. Regional Prospective Observational Research for Tuberculosis (RePORT) International represents a...

Soluble CD14: An independent biomarker for risk of HIV mother-to-child transmission in setting of pre- and post-exposure antiretroviral prophylaxis

Post Date: 
2015-10-06
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Publication: 
The Journal of Infectious Diseases
Elevated soluble CD14 (sCD14) concentrations, a marker of monocyte activation, predicts adverse outcomes in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected adults. To examine the association of sCD14 concentrations with the risk of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV, we nested a case-...

Economic and epidemiological impact of early antiretroviral therapy initiation in India

Post Date: 
2015-10-01
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Journal of the International AIDS Society
Introduction: Recent WHO guidance advocates for early antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation at higher CD4 counts to improve survival and reduce HIV transmission. We sought to quantify how the cost-effectiveness and epidemiological impact of early ART strategies in India are affected by...

Pre-cART elevation of CRP and CD4+ T-cell immune activation associated with HIV clinical progression in a multinational case-cohort study

Post Date: 
2015-10-01
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Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes
Background: Despite the success of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), a subset of HIV-infected patients who initiate cART develop early clinical progression to AIDS; therefore, some cART initiators are not fully benefitted by cART. Immune activation pre-cART may predict clinical...

Contraceptive use and factors associated with postpartum surgical sterilization among HIV-infected women in Pune, India

Post Date: 
2015-08-21
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Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services
The authors desire to better understand contraceptive practices and factors associated with surgical tubal ligation (STL) among HIV-infected women. Secondary data were obtained from HIV-infected women enrolled in a National Institutes of Health–funded clinical trial assessing the efficacy of...

Concurrent anemia and elevated CRP predicts HIV clinical treatment failure, including TB, post-antiretroviral therapy initiation

Post Date: 
2015-07-01
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Clinical Infectious Diseases
Background: Anemia is a known risk factor for clinical failure following antiretroviral therapy (ART). Notably, anemia and inflammation are interrelated, and recent studies have associated elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammation marker, with adverse human immunodeficiency virus (...

Efavirenz pharmacokinetics in HIV-infected persons receiving rifapentine and isoniazid for tuberculosis prevention

Post Date: 
2015-06-16
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Publication: 
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Background: Concomitant use of rifamycins to treat or prevent tuberculosis can result in subtherapeutic concentrations of antiretroviral drugs. We studied the interaction of efavirenz with daily rifapentine and isoniazid in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals receiving a 4...

Dengue and chikungunya co-infection associated with more severe clinical disease than mono-infection

Post Date: 
2015-04-15
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International Journal of Healthcare and Biomedical Research
Background: Dengue and chikungunya infections appear to be increasing in India. While Aedies aegypti is the transmitting vector for both viruses and co-infection occurs in the same communities, studies on the clinical significance of co-infection are limited. Materials and Methods: We conducted a...

Vitamin D deficiency and risk of postpartum tuberculosis among HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers in India

Post Date: 
2015-03-15
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International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
Some studies have associated low vitamin D levels with the risk of tuberculosis (TB), but its association in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected mothers in a TB-endemic region has not been well studied. We conducted a nested 1:2 case-control study among HIV-infected mothers in western...

Pre-antiretroviral therapy selenium status predicts WHO stages 3, 4 or death but not virologic failure post-antiretroviral therapy

Post Date: 
2014-11-13
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Nutrients
A case-cohort study, within a multi-country trial of antiretroviral therapy (ART) efficacy (Prospective Evaluation of Antiretrovirals in Resource Limited Settings (PEARLS)), was conducted to determine if pre-ART serum selenium deficiency is independently associated with human immunodeficiency...

Source case investigation for children with TB disease in Pune, India

Post Date: 
2014-08-27
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Tuberculosis Research and Treatment
Setting. Contact tracing is broadly encouraged for tuberculosis (TB) control. In many high-burden countries, however, little effort is made to identify contacts of newly diagnosed TB patients. This failure puts children, many of whom live in poor crowded communities, at special risk. ...

Impact of maternal hepatitis B virus coinfection on mother-to-child transmission of HIV

Post Date: 
2014-07-15
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HIV Medicine
Objectives: Despite high hepatitis B virus (HBV) endemicity in various resource-limited settings (RLSs), the impact of maternal HIV/HBV coinfection on infant health outcomes has not been defined. We aimed to assess the prevalence of HBV coinfection among HIV-infected pregnant women and its...

25-Hydroxyvitamin D insufficiency and deficiency is associated with HIV disease progression and virological failure post-antiretroviral therapy initiation in diverse multinational settings

Post Date: 
2014-07-15
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Publication: 
The Journal of Infectious Diseases
Background: Low 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) has been associated with increased HIV mortality, but prospective studies assessing treatment outcomes after combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) initiation in resource-limited settings are lacking. Methods...

Blood stream infections

Post Date: 
2014-07-01
Publication: 
BioMed Research International
Blood stream infection (BSI) is one of the most devastating preventable complications in Critical Care Units. It has far-reaching consequences resulting in prolonged length of hospital-stay, high costs to the individual and exchequer, and, in many instances, loss of life. Although exact rates...

Challenges to disclosure of HIV status to perinatally infected children: a study of caregiver perspectives in Pune, India

Post Date: 
2014-06-15
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Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Effective guidelines around disclosure of HIV status are lacking and limited data from India reveal low rates of HIV disclosure to perinatally infected children. This study, conducted in Pune, India, attempts to understand the experiences of caregivers of perinatally infected children around the...

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