Innovator Award

Onyema Ogbuagu, MD, FACP, FIDSA

Dr. Ogbuagu — an associate professor of infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine — is a prolific researcher who has conducted groundbreaking, investigator-initiated clinical trials and other research on HIV and COVID-19.

Dr. Ogbuagu oversaw an expansion of the research portfolio through the Yale HIV and Vaccines Clinical Trials Unit that led to more than $9 million in funding. He has been a principal investigator on several multinational clinical trials, where he studied novel treatments for viral and bacterial infections, including the DISCOVER trial, which is evaluating TAF/FTC versus TDF/FTC for HIV prevention among men who have sex with men and transgender women.

In addition, Dr. Ogbuagu was principal investigator on multiple investigational therapeutic and preventive clinical trials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He helped strengthen Africa’s COVID response when he chaired the logistics subgroup of the Africa Task Force on Coronavirus and has since led medical training initiatives in Rwanda and Liberia funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. Dr. Ogbuagu also conducts capacity-building research focused on preventing HIV among adolescent girls and young women in Liberia. In addition, he serves on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents — a working group of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council.

2023 – Nwora Lance Okeke, MD, MPH