Profile
David W. Haas, MD
Co- Program Director | Administrative Core
Co- Program Director |Â Clinical Sciences Core
Executive Committee Member
Biography
David W. Haas, MD serves as Co-Director of the Tennessee CFAR, as well as Co-Director of the CFAR’s Clinical Sciences Core. He is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also a Professor of Pharmacology, Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine at Meharry Medical College. He is also board-certified in infectious diseases. He is a national leader in human pharmacogenomic research focused on medications used to treat HIV and tuberculosis, including drug disposition, efficacy, toxicity, and drug-drug interactions. He has led the design and implementation of HIV clinical trials since the early 1990s, and leads Vanderbilt’s Clinical Research Site for the at ACTG network (Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally for HIV/AIDS and Other Infections). He has led the ACTG’s pharmacogenomics program since 2000, and since 2008 has been contact multi- Principal Investigator of an R01 grant from NIAID entitled “Pharmacogenomics of HIV Therapy.” He is highly engaged in collaborative, multidisciplinary research and team science.Â
More About David W. Haas, MD
During the early years of my academic career, my research focused on transcriptional regulation of protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells. More recently, and for more than 15 years, my research has largely sought to decipher the importance of human genomic differences for HIV outcomes, especially drug toxicity, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics. Since 2000 I have led the pharmacogenomics program of the NIAID-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), and led the effort to create the ACTG Human DNA Repository, which represents >17,000 study participants. I have designed pharmacogenomics analyses across many trials, observational cohorts, and other databases. I have also designed and led many intensive General Clinical Research Center–based studies. Since 1994, I have directed Vanderbilt’s HIV Therapeutics Clinical Research Program. My work led to the seminal observation that a CYP2B6 variant predicts delayed clearance of efavirenz, which largely explains increased plasma exposure among individuals of African descent, and helps to predict central nervous system side effects. From 2009 to 2011, I was chair of the NIH NeuroAIDS and other End Organ Diseases (NAED) Study Section. To help translate pharmacogenomics into clinical care, I recently chaired two Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium guideline teams. I am highly engaged in collaborative, multidisciplinary research with an emphasis on the importance of human genomics for antiretroviral disposition, efficacy, and toxicity. I have been extensively involved designing and implementing prospective clinical trials and will enthusiastically continue to serve as the Director of the Clinical Sciences Core and Associate Director of the Tennessee CFAR.