Jonathan Karn, Ph.D.

Biographic Summary

Dr Karn is an internationally-recognized virologist who has made seminal contributions to the study of transcriptional control in HIV. Dr Karn’s current research focuses on epigenetic control mechanisms that regulate HIV transcription and latency in T-cells and microglial cells. Understanding these mechanisms is central to current efforts to induce or suppress latent viruses as part of an HIV eradication strategy.

As Chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Case Western Reserve University, he oversaw a period of dramatic enhancement of the research portfolio, increasing the NIH funding base over 4-fold between 2002 and the present.

He has also been Director of the CWRU/UH Center for AIDS Research since 2008, which he successfully renewed in 2009 and 2014. Dr. Karn was responsible for greatly expanding both basic research and HIV Cure research by the CFAR, including initiating Cure-related research at the CFAR’s international site in Kampala, Uganda.

Dr. Karn has extensive national service experience including service as a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Counsellors (2015-Present), the NIAID Advisory Council (2012-2015) and the MRC Physiological Medicine and Infections Board (1994-1998).  Dr Karn was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2011.