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Dr. Richard Koup

Dr. Richard Koup has accepted the position of Director of the Human Immunology Program for the Vaccine Research Center. In this role, Dr. Koup will be involved in the development of HIV vaccines and in the development of the infrastructure to analyze human immune responses during clinical trials of vaccine candidates associated with the center. He will also serve as a member of the Internal Executive Committee and participate in major decisions regarding priorities and the analysis of vaccine candidates, for both prophylactic and therapeutic trials.

Dr. Koup received a B.S. in Biophysics and a M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Connecticut. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Koup served an internship and residency in Internal Medicine with the Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University Medical School and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at UMass Medical School. He was then appointed as a staff investigator at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City before moving to Dallas where he was the Chief of Infectious Diseases and Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, and the Jay P. Sanford Professor of Infectious Diseases, at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Koup has been actively involved in HIV vaccine-related research. His studies have focussed on the role of HIV-specific cellular immunity in controlling HIV infection and he was the discoverer of a natural genetic mutation in the co-receptor for HIV that provides significant protection against infection. He has served on the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council to the NIH, and serves on the external advisory board for the Center for AIDS Research at Duke University Medical Center, and the scientific advisory committee of the New England Regional Primate Research Center. He serves on the editorial boards for Journal of Experimental Medicine and Journal of Virology, and is the pathogenesis section editor for AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.