Simon Mallal, MBBS, is a physician-scientist and holds the Major E.B. Stahlman Chair in Infectious Diseases and Inflammation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He directs the Tennessee Center for AIDS Research, the Center for Translational Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Vanderbilt Technologies for Advanced Genomics. In addition to his primary appointment in the Department of Medicine, Dr. Mallal is also a Professor of Biomedical Informatics and a Professor of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology.
Dr. Mallal and his research team have significantly impacted clinical and healthcare practice and policy through discovering the association between HLA-B*5701 and abacavir hypersensitivity in 2002 and championing international collaborative efforts to guide pharmacogenetic screening through the T1 to T4 phases of translation. His efforts have promoted improvements in clinical practice in HIV and infectious diseases since the onset of the AIDS epidemic.
Additionally, Dr. Mallal's research efforts have crossed multiple areas of interest including:
- Reproductive endocrinology
- Genetic disease association studies
- Immune restoration disease in HIV
- Improved efficacy of antiretroviral therapy
- Mitochondrial toxicity and metabolic complications of antiretroviral therapy
- The utilization of pharmacogenetic tests to avoid drug hypersensitivity
- HIV and Hepatitis C adaptation to HLA restricted immune responses to support vaccine immunogen design and potential eradication approaches.