Joel N. Blankson is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases.Infectious Diseases Society of America
IDSA guide to infectious diseases training programs. Blankson is an expert on HIV infection, particularly HIV latency and long-term control of HIV infection. He is a lead investigator in studies on these topics"'Elite' HIV wife may hold secret to AIDS vaccine"
Maggie Fox, Reuters, August 12, 2008. and is frequently interviewed in the scientific and popular press. Blankson also practices internal and infectious diseases medicine in

Lutherville Lutherville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 6,504. Prior to 2010 the area was part of the Lutherville-Timonium CDP. Within its borders lies the Luther ...

, Maryland.

Training and career

In 1995, Blankson received an MD he earned at the Cornell University Medical School, now known as Weil Cornell, in New York City,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. His

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

was awarded by

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

in 1996 as part of a joint MD-PhD program with Cornell and

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

. At Rockefeller, Blankson conducted immunology research with

Stephen S. Morse Stephen S. Morse (born November 22, 1951) is an American epidemiologist, influenza researcher and specialist on emerging infectious diseases, who has served as an adviser on the epidemiology of infectious diseases and on improving disease early warn ...

. Blankson completed residencies in infectious diseases and internal medicine at Johns Hopkins. He has practiced medicine in Delaware and Maryland. He is currently a professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, and has an appointment in the Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology.

Research

After his PhD research on immunology and residencies at Johns Hopkins, Blankson investigated HIV at Johns Hopkins with Robert Siliciano. Their work together has included research on HIV pathogenesis, immune reconstitution, control of viremia, and HIV viral reservoirs. They also reviewed the concept of "structured therapeutic interruption." More recently, Blankson has led investigations of ''elite suppressors'' of HIV-1 infection. Elite suppressors are people who are infected with HIV-1 but naturally suppress the amount of virus in their blood to very low, almost undetectable levels without use of antiretroviral drugs. Only 1 HIV-positive person out of approximately 300 is in this category. Blankson and other investigators suggest the biological mechanisms of this rare phenomenon may hold the key to new treatments for HIV. As of 2019, Blankson had published more than 50 scientific articles related to elite suppressors, and he has been interviewed extensively in the popular and scientific press.italiainformazioni.com (in Italian)
"Forse c'è una speranza per debellare l'Aids. I medici "studiano" il caso di una donna affetta da 10 anni senza sintomi" ("Possible hope in the fight against AIDS. Doctors study the case of a woman infected for ten years without symptoms"), ''Italia Informazioni,'' August 13, 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blankson, Joel N. American infectious disease physicians American medical researchers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Johns Hopkins University faculty People from Lutherville, Maryland Weill Cornell Medical College alumni