Marschall S. Runge, MD, PhD, Dean, University of Michigan Medical School, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, U-M and CEO, Michigan Medicine announced that Kathleen L. Collins, MD, PhD, has been appointed director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) in the Medical School. She is a professor of microbiology and immunology and internal medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and associate director of the Cellular and Molecular Biology Program.
She is an expert in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) biology and the mechanisms of HIV disease pathogenesis. The long-term goal of her research program is to provide improved treatments for people with HIV/AIDS, which has killed millions of people and continues to infect about 40,000 people each year in this country. Her laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying HIV persistence. To provide better therapies, her team is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of viral persistence within cellular reservoirs.
Dr. Collins earned her MD and PhD degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Medical Scientist Training Program. She received clinical training in internal medicine at Harvard University’s affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Thereafter, she was trained as an infectious disease fellow in a combined Harvard-affiliated program and did postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She joined the U-M faculty in 1998 as part of the University of Michigan Biological Sciences Scholars Program. She earned promotion to associate professor in 2005 and full professor in 2011. She is board certified in infectious disease and attends on the Infectious Disease Clinical Service at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital. She also holds the Internal Medicine Collegiate Professorship of HIV Research.
A recipient of Taubman Institute Scholar award, she is an active member of the Taubman Institute Executive Committee. An elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), she serves as editor-in-chief of the ASCI journal, JCI Insight, and as an officer on ASCI Council. She is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and National Academy of Medicine. She also is a member of the Medical School League of Research Excellence, and in 2019 received the Basic Science Research Award through the Dean’s Awards Program.
Please join us is congratulating Dr. Collins on her new leadership role, and thanking Ronald J. Koenig, MD, PhD, for his leadership as MSTP director since 1995.
