Dr. Ofotokun’s career as a clinician-scientist is centered on providing care for persons living with HIV, particularly affected women, developing HIV clinical and translational research program, and mentoring the next generation of researchers. Within this context, his team studies the long-term complications of HIV and antiretroviral therapy and he leads large programs in HIV clinical and translational research, HIV focused women’s health research, clinical and translational research career development and research education. He co-founded the Emory Osteo-immunology Clinical and Translational research group that has attracted over $14M of extramural funding including four consecutive R01s (AG040013, AR059364, AR068157, and AR07009). He is the PI of the multimillion-dollar Atlanta Women’s Interagency HIV Study (U01AI103408), one of the largest longitudinal cohorts in the world aimed at studying age related comorbidities and other long-term impact of HIV among U.S. women. Together with Dr. Claire Sterk, President, Emory University, he led the team (as administrative PI and Program Director) that successfully competed for the NIH Office of Research in Women’s Health sponsored BIRCWH award (K12HD085850) aimed at building interdisciplinary research careers in women’s health at Emory. Dr. Ofotokun was one of the two AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) investigators that conceived the idea that led to the ACTG 52757 study for which he served as a co-Vice Chair; this 1,800-subject clinical trial conducted at 52 sites across the country was designed with a goal of evaluating antiretroviral therapy regimens that are suitable for HIV-infected women of childbearing age. More recently, he led (as the administrative PI) a team of multi-disciplinary scientists from Emory, Virginia Common Wealth University, Richmond, VA, and Cornell University, New York, to successfully apply for the Emory Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences (U54AG062334). He is also the administrative PI of the Emory Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (StARR) R38 Program (R38AI140299).
Dr. Ofotokun serves as a member of the FDA Antimicrobial Advisory Committee, as a member of the HIV Comorbidities and Clinical Studies NIH Study Section, as member of the governing boards of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA). He has served as a lead mentor for over 30 trainees, most of whom have remained in academic medicine. Several of his mentees have received extramural funding including NIH career development awards (HD078153, AI114407, HL131333 and AI124913) and independent research project grants (R01HD095741).
In recognition of his contributions to clinical and translational research, mentoring, research education, he was awarded the Emory Infectious Diseases Mentoring Award in 2010, the HIV Medicine Association National Research Award in 2013, the Emory Department of Medicine Silver Pear Mentorship Award in 2014, the Emory Department of Medicine Nanette K. Wenger Distinguished Service Faculty Award in 2017, and the 2017 Emory Infectious Diseases Division Paul Beeson’s Award.