Beatrice H. Hahn

About

Beatrice H. Hahn, M.D., is a Professor of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology) at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Her laboratory has a long-standing interest in elucidating the origins and evolution of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses (HIV/SIV) and studying HIV/SIV gene function and disease mechanisms from an evolutionary perspective. She was the first to describe the extensive in vivo genetic variability of HIV-1 and to discover that recombination between highly divergent viruses is a major driving force of HIV/SIV diversification. Her work includes developing methods for non-invasive detection of SIV in wild-living apes, leading to the identification of chimpanzee and gorilla reservoirs of pandemic and non-pandemic HIV-1. She has demonstrated that SIVcpz, like HIV-1, is pathogenic in its natural chimpanzee host, revealing a significant impact on chimpanzee health and mortality. Her research also uncovered that the chimpanzee CD4 molecule is highly polymorphic, which provides protection against SIV infections, and that primate CD4 receptor diversity is an ancient protection mechanism resulting from a co-evolutionary arms race with primate lentiviruses. Additionally, her studies have challenged previous hypotheses about the co-evolution of malaria parasites and their hosts, showing that P. falciparum and P. vivax originated from parasites infecting African apes. Her work on HIV-1 transmission, virus/antibody coevolution, and the development of…

Research topics

• Biology
• Virology
• Immunology
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Pathology
• Genetics
• Cell biology
• Political Science

Selected publications

• Strategies for HIV-1 vaccines that induce broadly neutralizing antibodies

  Nature reviews. Immunology · 2022 · 346 citations

  DOI

• The Origin of COVID-19 and Why It Matters

  American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · 2020 · 211 citations

  The COVID-19 pandemic is among the deadliest infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history. As with all past pandemics, the specific mechanism of its emergence in humans remains unknown. Nevertheless, a large body of virologic, epidemiologic, veterinary, and ecologic data establishes that the new virus, SARS-CoV-2, evolved directly or indirectly from a β-coronavirus in the sarbecovirus (SARS-like virus) group that naturally infect bats and pangolins in Asia and Southeast Asia. Scientists…

  DOI

• DNA binding to TLR9 expressed by red blood cells promotes innate immune activation and anemia

  Science Translational Medicine · 2021 · 201 citations

  Red blood cells detect and bind cell-free nucleic acids, contributing to anemia and immune cell activation during acute inflammation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Recommendations for measuring HIV reservoir size in cure-directed clinical trials

  Nature Medicine · 2020 · 136 citations

  DOI

• Global and regional epidemiology of HIV-1 recombinants in 1990–2015: a systematic review and global survey

  The Lancet HIV · 2020 · 103 citations

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R37AI050529

  NIH · $5.7M · 2019

• NIH Grant R01AI025291

  NIH · $2.0M · 1998

• NIH Grant P60AR036834

  NIH · $18.6M · 2003

Frequent coauthors

• George M. Shaw

  California University of Pennsylvania

  538 shared

• Paul M. Sharp

  University of Edinburgh

  313 shared

• Frédéric Bibollet‐Ruche

  University of Pennsylvania

  300 shared

• Martine Peeters

  296 shared

• Brandon F. Keele

  Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research

  263 shared

• Elizabeth Bailes

  University of Nottingham

  211 shared

• Yingying Li

  University of Pennsylvania

  210 shared

• Bette Korber

  New Mexico Consortium

  182 shared

Labs

• Hahn LabPI

Similar researchers at University of Pennsylvania

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• Craig B. Thompsonh-277
• Daniel J Raderh-236