Ian Frank

Dr. Frank is a Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the Infectious Diseases Division of the University of Pennsylvania. Ian was one of the original providers of HIV care in Penn’s Immunodeficiency Program Clinic when it was begun in 1987, and he is now the third longest dedicated practitioner of HIV medicine in Philadelphia. In 1989 he started Penn’s HIV clinical research program focusing on antiretroviral therapeutics, and he participated in early studies that established some of the basic principles of HIV combination therapy that continue to frame how HIV patients are treated today. More recently his work has shifted to HIV prevention. Currently he is Director of the Clinical-Therapeutics Program of the Penn Center for AIDS Research, the corresponding Principal Investigator of the Penn HIV Clinical Research Unit, and the Principal Investigator of the Penn Unit within the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and HIV Prevention Trial Network. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic he was asked to organize Penn’s COVID-19 clinical trials program, and he has directed Penn’s participation in efficacy trials of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, and early phase trials of vaccine candidates manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur.