About

For the past 30 years, Dr. Cohen has focused on the transmission of STDs including HIV, and strategies for STD and HIV prevention. His laboratory has focused on studies related to the transmission, and prevention of transmission of HIV infection. He has studied HIV in genital secretions and identified inflammatory conditions-especially sexually transmitted diseases that increase the excretion of HIV in semen. His multidisciplinary research group has worked over many years to characterize the ability of different classes of antiretroviral agents to block HIV replication in the male genital tract, as represented by copies of HIV RNA detected in seminal plasma. He has also worked to characterize the relationship(s) between HIV in semen and blood, through detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis. Based on these results he was able to design and lead a multinational NIH clinical trial, HPN 052 that demonstrated that successful antiretroviral treatment of HIV can prevent the sexual transmission of HIV. Currently, he is co-PI of the HIV Prevention Trials Network. Most recently, he has played an active role in the development of COVID-19 prevention activities. He serves on the NIH ACTIV Committee, a public-private partnership to organize COVID-19 research, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the newly formed NIAID COVID Prevention Network (CoVPN). In this capacity, he led research on the use of monoclonal antibodies for the prevention and early treatment of COVID-19.

Awards and Honors

• North Carolina Award for Science- (2013)
• Joseph E. Smadel Lectureship Award, Infectious Diseases Society of America- (2013)
• O. Max Gardner Award for Medicine, Microbiology, & Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill- (2008)
• Distinguished Career Award Lifetime Achievement in STD/HIV Research, American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association- (2005)

In the news

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  Cohen Receives Faculty Award for Global Excellence

  Myron (Mike) Cohen is a physician-scientist and founding director of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases (IGHID). Barbara Stephenson, Director of UNC Global Affairs recognized Cohen “because of his decades of remarkable international work leading to scientific breakthroughs which have enhanced Carolina’s global reputation and made the world safer and healthier.” (UNC Global Affairs Excerpt) … Read more

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  At 75, Myron Cohen Isn’t Interested in Retiring

  Dr. Myron Cohen, who has been an infectious disease researcher and administrator at UNC Chapel Hill for more than four decades, was lauded worldwide in 2011 for leading a seminal study showing a stunning result:  Treating people with HIV with antiretroviral drugs could keep them from passing along human immunodeficiency virus, the pathogen that causes … Read more

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  How HIV Research Drives Health Innovation in Multiple Diseases

  In a commentary published by Nature Medicine, Dr. Myron Cohen and Dr. Joe Eron, leaders of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, identify numerous medical advances originating from U.S. federally funded HIV research. They say the future of HIV research and the U.S.’s scientific leadership depends on bold, sustained action in defense … Read more

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  Eron, Cohen Lead NIH Congressional Briefing on HIV Treatment and Prevention Research

  The National Institutes of Health held a congressional briefing July 9 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Joe Eron, chief of infectious diseases, kicked off the briefing session with an overview of HIV treatment and prevention research, recognizing … Read more

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