David M. Lewinsohn, MD, PhD is an international tuberculosis expert who led the committee that developed the 2016 ATS, IDSA and CDC clinical practice guidelines on the diagnosis of tuberculosis in adults and children.
Dr. Lewinsohn is a Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, is the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine, and is Director of the OHSU Center for Global Child Health Research, Department of Pediatrics at Oregon Health & Sciences University and holds adjunct appointments in Molecular Microbiology & Immunology as well as the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.
Dr. Lewinsohn’s research interest is in Tuberculosis Immunology. The core research question has been that of how the immune system can find those cells harboring the intracellular bacterium. As a result, he has been particularly interested in the role of CD8+ T cells in controlling infection, in the use of CD8+ T cells as a surrogate for bacterial burden, and in the development of an improved TB vaccine. This work has resulted in the creation of a small OHSU startup, ViTi, that he manages with Deborah Lewinsohn. ViTi was created to take the work in the lab, and to develop improved diagnostics for TB. Dr. Lewinsohn has collaborated with the CDC, the TB Research Unit (TBRU), the Kwazulu-Natal Research Institute for HIV and TB, the South African TB Vaccine Initiative, the AERAS Global Vaccine Foundation, Oxford University and UCSF. Dr. Lewinsohn was the co-chair of the ATS/CDC/IDSA committee to develop new guidelines for the diagnosis of infection with Mtb. Dr. Lewinsohn’s research has been supported by the ALA, the NIH, the Aeras Global Vaccine Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the VA. Dr. Lewinsohn has worked closely with the StopTB Partnership, is currently the chair of the Vaccines Working group, has represented the New Tools working groups for the past three years on the BOD, and is on the executive committee.
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