Rama Rao Amara, PhD

Rama Rao Amara, PhD, received his doctorate in molecular biology and immunology from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, where his thesis on the immunopathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, received the prestigious “Best Thesis Award for 1999.” Dr. Amara completed his postdoctoral training in the Yerkes lab of Dr. Harriet Robinson. Dr. Amara played a major role in the preclinical development of the AIDS vaccine now in Phase 2a human clinical trials. Currently, Dr. Amara’s research is focused on understanding the pathogenesis and immune correlates for HIV/AIDS with a major focus on the development of novel prophylactic vaccines and therapeutic approaches to control HIV/AIDS. Dr. Amara is also working with collaborators in India to develop a HIV vaccine that could be used to control AIDS on the Indian subcontinent, where the strains of HIV that predominant differ from those most frequently transmitted in the U.S. and other Western countries.

Dr. Amara collaborates with a number of researchers at Yerkes, including Drs. Christian Larsen, Rafi Ahmed, Bali Pulendran, Guido Silvestri and Francois Villinger.