Robert T. Schooley, MD, is the Division Head and Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Schooley received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1974 and completed his medical house staff training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1976. He completed fellowships in infectious diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and at the Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1981.

Dr. Schooley began his research career studying the immunopathogenesis of herpesvirus infections in immunocompromised patients (1) but shifted his focus to AIDS in 1981 when the first cases of this syndrome began to appear in Boston. His research group was among the first to delineate the humoral and cellular immune responses to HIV infection (2,3). Over the next 15 years he became increasingly involved in the discovery and development of antiretroviral chemotherapeutic agents including reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors and entry inhibitors (4,5). He was recruited to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in 1990 to serve as Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases. While at Colorado he was elected to serve as Chair of the NIAID’s AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) which he headed from 1995 – 2002. During his tenure as Group Chair the ACTG expanded to include research sites in Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia and Africa and is now the largest and most productive multinational clinical and translational research organization focusing on the pathogenesis and therapy of HIV and its complications.

He was recruited to the University of California, San Diego in 2005 where he now serves as Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases. His relocation to UCSD was stimulated by the breadth and depth of the science at UCSD, the opportunity to shift his research focus to global heath and to develop a multidisciplinary HCV research program. His current research interests include HIV and HCV pathogenesis and therapy and infections that cause morbidity and mortality in resource limited settings. Working with Dr. Emilia Noormahomed, he (together with Drs. Benson and Smith) provides leadership to the UEM-UCSD Medical Education Partnership Initiative. This Partnership forms the basis of an extensive collaboration between UCSD and Mozambique’s major universities. This partnership supports education and research in multiple medical specialties, bioinformatics and engineering.

 Dr. Schooley's personal research interests include HCV, influenza and HIV pathogenesis and therapy and the diagnosis and management of infections that cause morbidity and mortality in resource limited settings