Profile
John R. Koethe, MD, MSCI
Program Director
Biography
Dr. Koethe is Associate Professor in Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Director of the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research, and a physician and scientist in the Veterans Health Administration. He completed his fellowship in infectious diseases and joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2010. He served as an NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellow in Zambia during the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy in Southern Africa, followed by a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation. Dr. Koethe’s research focus is the pathogenesis of cardiometabolic comorbidities in persons with HIV (PWH), and his work is supported by consistent NIH R01 and Veterans Affairs Merit funding. He leads several large studies to characterize the health consequences of obesity among persons with HIV, factors influencing weight gain on antiretroviral therapy, and how HIV-related changes in the subcutaneous adipose tissue immune environment contribute to insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and ectopic fat deposition in the viscera, liver and other organs. He has led multiple epidemiologic analyses in the IeDEA network demonstrating the rising burden of obesity among PWH and factors affecting weight gain on antiretroviral therapy, as well as clinical trials in the Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally (ACTG) network. Dr. Koethe has a strong commitment to the career development of early career investigators and served as the Program Director of the Vanderbilt Scholars in HIV and Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Research (V-SCHoLARS) K12 program. He has served as primary mentor to over 20 trainees, several of whom are now faculty at leading academic research institutions or members of the CDC and other government health agencies.
More About John R. Koethe, MD, MSCI
I am an Associate Professor in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Division of Infectious Diseases. Over 80% of my effort is devoted to clinical and translational research on cardiovascular and metabolic disease in HIV-infected (HIV+) persons on antiretroviral therapy. I came to Vanderbilt University as an infectious diseases fellow in 2007 and have been a faculty member since 2010. I first gained HIV/AIDS research experience as a NIH Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Zambia, followed by training in clinical research study design, methods, and biostatistics from the Vanderbilt Masters of Science in Clinical Investigation Program (2010-2012). I previously recruited a 100-person cohort study, supported by a career development grant from NIAID (K23AI100700), which highlighted the cardiometabolic health consequences of obesity in PLWH, and novel associations between body composition, plasma metabolite profiles, innate and cellular immune activation, and vascular function. Data generated from this K23 grant supported subsequent awards of a NIDDK R56 grant (R56DK108352) to study relationships between circulating T cell subsets and the risk of incident diabetes among 2300 HIV+ and HIV-negative Veterans in the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), and a R01 grant (R01DK112262) to recruit a 176-person cohort to explore relationships between adipose tissue T cell phenotypes, receptor clonality and cytokine expression (via single cell RNA sequencing), adipose tissue inflammation, and glucose tolerance in PLWH. I also have a strong commitment to the career development of junior investigators in the field of HIV research. I am co-PI and Program Director of the NHLBI-supported Vanderbilt Scholars in HIV and Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Research (V-SCHoLARS, K12). This program supports 5 trainees for 2-3 years of mentored clinical and translational research on the intersection of HIV and HLBS conditions. Finally, I am the Director of the Developmental Core of the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (TN-CFAR, supported by NIAID grant P30 AI110527), which is responsible for administering pilot grant awards, and mentoring young investigators and those new to HIV research