Core D: Laboratory Sciences

Director: Savita Pahwa, M.D.

Dr. Pahwa, professor of microbiology and immunology, pediatrics, and medicine serves as the Miller School’s director of the HIV Pathogenesis Program. She is trained in clinical and laboratory immunology and has held numerous scientific and administrative leadership positions.

Dr. Pahwa has been involved in HIV/AIDS treatment and research from the beginning of the epidemic and was one of the first to describe the spectrum of clinical and immunological defects in pediatric patients with HIV disease in the Journal of American Medical Association. As director of UM D-CFAR, Dr. Pahwa is responsible for guiding, facilitating, and coordinating an experienced team of investigators and has executive responsibility for the overall center administration and scientific direction with guidance of the advisory bodies.

The D-CFAR core aims to:

  • Provide specialized, innovative, and standardized immunologic and virologic analyses for HIV-1 patient-oriented investigations. Immunology services will focus on innate and adaptive immunity for quantifying immunologic function, such as flow cytometry-based assays of natural killer and dendritic cell function, assays for evaluating antigen specific memory and effector T cell responses, regulatory T cells, output of naïve cells from the thymus, molecular assays including real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) for gene expression and specialized virology services.
  • Facilitate collaborative projects between laboratory-based and behavioral or clinical scientists, and to provide training for new fellows or investigators undertaking D-CFAR-supported investigations with a laboratory component. 
  • Develop and maintain a repository for specimens from patient cohorts provided through collaboration with the Clinical Support Core. Coordinates and provides oversight and quality assurance (QA) for collection and processing, storage, retrieval and testing of study specimens.