Sunil Kumar Ahuja (born March 13, 1961) is a professor of Medicine, Microbiology, Immunology & Biochemistry at the

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) is a public academic health science center in San Antonio, Texas. It is part of the University of Texas System. UT Health San Antonio is the largest health scie ...

and an expert on the role of immunogenetics on

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

pathogenesis. Ahuja is also the Director of the

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and ...

Research Center for AIDS and HIV-1 Infection. His most recent work, first published in the 2005 issue of

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

, involves the ethnic group-specific role of

CCR5 C-C chemokine receptor type 5, also known as CCR5 or CD195, is a protein on the surface of white blood cells that is involved in the immune system as it acts as a receptor for chemokines. In humans, the ''CCR5'' gene that encodes the CCR5 pro ...

haplotype and CCL3L1 gene copy number on the progression of HIV to AIDS.

Education

Sunil Ahuja received his medical degree from the Armed Forces Medical College India in 1983. Following work towards a

M.Sc. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree from the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

in Canada, Ahuja had his internship and residency at the SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn.

Publications

Sunil Ahuja's research has been published in many

peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed journals, including ''

The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. His ...

Nature Medicine ''Nature Medicine'' is a monthly Peer review, peer-reviewed medical journal published by Nature Portfolio covering all aspects of medicine. It was established in 1995. The journal seeks to publish research papers that "demonstrate novel insight int ...

Nature Immunology ''Nature Immunology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering immunology. It was established in 2000, as an expansion of the ''Nature'' family of journals. The editor-in-chief is Jamie D. K. Wilson. According to the ''Journal Ci ...

'' and ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...

''.

Honors

Ahuja has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including being named in 2001 the

Elizabeth Glaser Elizabeth Glaser (born Elizabeth Meyer; – ) was an American AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blo ...

Scientist and the Burroughs Wellcome Clinical Scientist in Translational Research. In 2005 he also was the recipient of the MERIT award from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. Less than 5% of NIH-funded researchers receive this award. In February 2008, Ahuja was listed as one of "35 People Who Will Shape Our Future" by ''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

'' magazine.

Scientific disagreements

Some of Sunil Ahuja's work has been questioned by the scientific community. In July 2008, Ahuja's group reported that the DARC gene influenced

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

susceptibility. This finding was then questioned by four other groups of scientists, reporting the failure to replicate. Ahuja's group responded in the same issue of '' Cell Host & Microbe'', and also in a subsequent study published in 2011.

References

External links

Faculty profile
at UT Health Science Center {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahuja, Sunil Kumar Living people 1961 births HIV/AIDS researchers Physicians from Texas American physicians of Indian descent Indian expatriates in Canada University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio faculty Indian emigrants to the United States University of Alberta alumni