Sunil Kumar Ahuja, M.D. (born March 13, 1961) is a professor of Medicine, Microbiology, Immunology & Biochemistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is an institute of health science education and research, located in the South Texas Medical Center....

 and an expert on the role of immunogenetics on HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 pathogenesis. Dr. Ahuja is also the Director of the Veterans Administration

United States Department of Veterans Affairs

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...

 Research Center for AIDS and HIV-1 Infection. His most recent work, first published in the 2005 issue of Science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, involves the ethnic group-specific role of CCR5

CCR5

C-C chemokine receptor type 5, also known as CCR5, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CCR5 gene. CCR5 is a member of the beta chemokine receptors family of integral membrane proteins...

 haplotype and CCL3L1

CCL3L1

Chemokine ligand 3-like 1, also known as CCL3L1, is a protein which in humans is encoded by the CCL3L1 gene.-Function:This gene is one of several chemokine genes clustered on the q-arm of chromosome 17. Chemokines are a family of secreted proteins involved in immunoregulatory and inflammatory...

 gene copy number on the progression of HIV to AIDS.

Education

Sunil Ahuja received his medical degree from the Armed Forces Medical College India in 1983. Following work towards a M.Sc. degree from the University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

 in Canada, Dr. Ahuja had his internship and residency at the SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn.

Publications

Sunil Ahuja's research has been published in many high-profile peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Nature Medicine

Nature Medicine

Nature Medicine is an academic journal publishing research articles, reviews, news and commentaries in the biomedical area, including both basic research and early-phase clinical research. Topics covered include cancer, cardiovascular disease, gene therapy, immunology, vaccines, and neuroscience...

, Nature Immunology

Nature Immunology

Nature Immunology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on immunology. The journal was founded in 2000, as an expansion of the Nature family of journals.-External links:**...

 and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Honors

Sunil Ahuja has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including being named in 2001 the Elizabeth Glaser

Elizabeth Glaser

Elizabeth Glaser, born Elizabeth Meyer, , was a major American AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion in 1981 while giving birth...

 Scientist and the Burroughs Wellcome Clinical Scientist in Translational Research. In 2005 he also was the recipient of the MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

. Less than 5% of NIH-funded researchers receive this award.

In February 2008 Dr. Ahuja was listed as one of 35 people that will shape our future by Texas Monthly

Texas Monthly

Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...

 magazine.

Scientific disagreements

Some of Sunil Ahuja's work has been questioned by the scientific community. In July 2008 Sunil Ahuja's group reported that Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines (DARC (gene)) influenced HIV/AIDS susceptibility. This finding was then questioned by four groups of scientists, reporting the failure to replicate. Sunil Ahuja replied to the questioning in the same issue of Cell Host & Microbe

Cell Host & Microbe

Cell Host & Microbe is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Cell Press. The journal was first launched in March 2007 and focuses broadly on the study of microbes, with an emphasis on the interface between the microbe and its host. The journal is run by in-house editorial and production...

.