Michael Lederman is the Scott R. Inkley Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland where he is also Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Pathology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.
He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Brandeis University and his medical degree from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals of Cleveland and the VA Medical Center where he served as chief resident in medicine and completed fellowship training in infectious diseases. Lederman received post-doctoral training in cellular immunology in the laboratory of Jerrold Ellner, MD, and he joined the faculty at Case in 1980.
Lederman has been engaged in HIV/AIDS research since he and Oscar Ratnoff, MD, first described and characterized the occurrence of AIDS-related immune deficiency in otherwise healthy men with hemophilia in 1983. He has authored more than 290 peer-reviewed scientific publications largely focused on the mechanisms whereby HIV infection induces immune deficiency and on strategies to correct and prevent it. In 1985, Lederman established the Special Immunology Unit at University Hospitals of Cleveland, which was the first dedicated HIV clinic in Northeast Ohio and is now one of the largest providers of comprehensive HIV care in the Midwestern United States.
“When the Unit was founded, our doctors felt strongly that the way to assure excellence in HIV care was to link the clinical care program to a strong HIV research program,” Lederman says.
In 1987, he established the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Case/University Hospitals. Within the national network of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), he directs the Immunology Specialty Laboratories that provide immunologic monitoring of national HIV treatment trials. He also leads two program project teams: one that is developing novel topical strategies to prevent HIV acquisition (Basic and Clinical Studies of CCR5 Inhibition to Prevent HIV Transmission) and the other to explore the pathogenesis of immune activation and inflammation in HIV infection (Defining the Pathogenesis of Immune Deficiency in Chronic HIV Infection). He is the chairman of the ACTG’s End-Organ Disease/Inflammation Transformative Science Group.
“In the HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment) era, immune activation and inflammation persist despite virologic control and an increasing body of information links these processes to morbid outcomes,” Lederman says. “Interventional trials provide an important opportunity to preserve the health of our patients and to define the mechanisms that drive activation and inflammation in treated HIV infection.”
Lederman is a member of the Association of American Physicians, the American Association of Immunologists, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the HIV Medicine Association and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the editorial boards of several research journals and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Forum for Collaborative Research and the Agence Nationale de Recherche sur le SIDA (ANRS).
Lederman lives with his first wife and two dogs. He owns two daughters and two grandchildren. He swims (slowly) and plays the piano (badly).