Robert Leo Murphy

Rob Murphy, MD is Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University where he is Executive Director, Institute for Global Health and John P. Phair Professor of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Murphy's primary research and clinical interest is in viral infections. His research focus includes drug development of new antiretroviral drugs and vaccines for HIV, other viruses and the scale-up of therapy for AIDS and its complications including tuberculosis and cancer in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Murphy was Country Director for the Harvard President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program at its inception in 2004 which went on to treat over 150,000 persons living with HIV. He is Principal Investigator for NIH-supported research and research training grants in Africa involving HIV-related malignancies and tuberculosis. During the West African Ebola outbreak, he was the scientific director of the laboratory at the University of Bamako in Mali where confirmatory molecular testing for Ebola was performed. He is a member of the Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST) team supported by the MacArthur Foundation, which aims to reduce neonatal mortality in Africa by 50%. He leads several NIH-supported cooperative agreements including one studying the epigenomics of HIV-related cancers in Nigeria and another developing point-of-care devices and assays that can be used to treat, monitor or prevent HIV-associated conditions in Africa. This grant recently pivoted its research focus to developing innovative diagnostic assays and devices for SARS-CoV-2 in a $1.5 billion program referred to as the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Coronavirus-19, RADx; he sits on the RADx Steering Panel and Clinical Review Board. Dr. Murphy has developed many antiviral drugs for HIV, viral hepatitis and now Coronavirus-19 and through these efforts was Medical Director or key advisor to several biotech companies including Idenix, Pharmasset, InnaVirVax, Diaccurate, Viriom and Atea Pharmaceuticals. Atea is currently developing AT-527, a promising oral drug that is being tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection. He is a founding board member of the Northwestern Global Health Foundation and faculty director of the online Master of Science in Global Health graduate degree program through the School of Professional Studies at Northwestern.