We are pleased to announce that Robbie B. Mailliard, PhD, has been awarded tenure at the rank of Associate Professor of Medicine effective April 1, 2024. This is a well-deserved honor and a great accomplishment for Robbie. The conferral of tenure provides confidence that Robbie will continue to make important contributions in the years ahead to the University environment and the field of Infectious Diseases. 

In 2009, Robbie was recruited to join the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (IDM) at the Graduate School of Public Health. Because of the growing success of Robbie’s research programs and collaborations with faculty in the Center for AIDS Research in the Division of Infectious Diseases (ID), Department of Medicine, he was strongly encouraged to change his primary appointment to the Department of Medicine, ID Division, which was completed in January 2023. 

Over the past 25 years, Robbie has been instrumental in research and development of a broad range of novel immunotherapies covering many medical disciplines in both the academic and private sector settings. He is recognized internationally as an expert in dendritic cell (DC) and NK cell biology. Most notably, Robbie is co-developer of the first clinically applicable type-1-polarized DC-based vaccine platform (commonly referred to as aDC1), which has been successfully produced for human study and continues to be explored in clinical trials for the treatment of cancers and HIV. In the HIV field, Robbie has made significant contributions to the understanding of HIV immunopathology, viral immune escape, and the latent HIV reservoir. The focus of his current research includes (i) developing dendritic cell-based strategies to expose and eliminate HIV cellular reservoirs; (ii) defining and exploiting the pleiotropic functions of NK cells in HIV infection and COVID-19; (iii) determining the impact of cross-reactive responses to adaptive T cell epitopes on HIV pathogenesis, viral immune escape, and immunotherapy; and, (iv) elucidating the role and therapeutic potential of gamma-delta T cells in controlling HIV and cancer. His applied knowledge and research of dendritic cell-based strategies to expose and eliminate HIV cellular reservoirs, NK cells in HIV infection and COVID-19, HIV pathogenesis, immunology, and immunotherapy are generating important data and devising new clinical and translational studies towards improving preventive and treatment strategies for cancer and HIV 

Congratulations, Robbie!