Julie E. Ledgerwood, DO
Photo: Julie E. Ledgerwood

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Elected 2019

Julie E. Ledgerwood, DO, is the Chief Medical Officer and Chief of the Clinical Trials Program at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), NIAID, NIH. She leads a team of clinical researchers and regulatory experts and has served as Principal Investigator, Protocol Chair, or Associate Investigator for more than 60 Phase 1-2b investigational clinical trials studying vaccines and monoclonal antibodies targeting pathogens such as HIV, influenza, Ebola, malaria, Chikungunya, and Zika in over 13 countries.

Over the past 16 years she has conducted clinical research with numerous US academic clinical research teams and has led international vaccine research collaborations for HIV, Ebola, Chikungunya and Zika. Regarding HIV prevention and treatment strategy assessment, Dr. Ledgerwood has skillfully led first in human evaluations of an extensive group of broadly neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies (bNAbs) to the HIV-1 envelope structure including VRC01, VRC07, VRC07-523LS, VRC01LS, and 10E8VLS. She has also led the Phase 1 clinical evaluation of a potent Ebola MAb (MAb114) and provided it under Expanded Access for treatment of subjects in the 2018 Eastern DRC Ebola outbreak. She was part of the initial isolation of this MAb from a Kikwit survivor, thereby being involved in the full cycle of discovery to implementation of a successful intervention. In her years of clinical research, she has authored text book chapters and over 85 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

For her work Dr. Ledgerwood has received numerous awards including The Politico 50: Thinkers, Doers and Visionaries Transforming American Politics in 2015, multiple NIH Director's awards. She serves as a member of the Clinical Infectious Diseases faculty at the NIH and as adjunct faculty for the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Department of Allergy and Immunology. She completed her internship at Oklahoma State University Medical Center in Tulsa, a residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore and a fellowship in allergy and immunology at the NIH in Bethesda. She is a graduate of Phillips University and the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board-certified in allergy and immunology by the American Board of Allergy and Immunology.