Todd M. Hulgan, MD, MPH

Dr. Hulgan completed an undergraduate degree at the University of South Alabama, and obtained an MD from the University Of Alabama School Of Medicine at UAB in 1996. After Internal Medicine residency and a chief residency at Wake Forest University-Baptist Medical Center, he moved to Vanderbilt for Fellowship in Infectious Diseases and an MPH, and has been on faculty at Vanderbilt since 2004.

The primary goal of Dr. Hulgan’s research is to improve the health of HIV-infected persons by better understanding, predicting, preventing, and treating complications of HIV infection and antiretroviral therapy. Dr. Hulgan has pursued this goal through observational cohort studies- both large multi-site and targeted local cohorts- and prospective clinical trials of HIV-infected persons. This work includes collaborations with the CNS HIV Antiretroviral Therapy Effects Research (CHARTER) study group, the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), and the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS).

An area of primary focus includes the field of translational mitochondrial genomics in HIV. He has been PI of multiple collaborative multi-disciplinary projects funded through NIMH, NINDS, and NIDDK to expand our understanding of the role of genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in diverse outcomes of HIV infection and treatment. Current phenotypes of interest are neurocognition and neuroinflammation. The ultimate vision for this work is to provide new knowledge and tools (genomic and/or biological markers) that inform a “precision-medicine” approach to improve treatment and management decisions for clinical care- and thus the length and quality of life- of an aging population of HIV infected persons.

Dr. Hulgan maintains an active clinical and teaching program, having cared for HIV-infected patients for almost 15 years, and mentoring four to five Infectious Diseases fellows each year at both the Nashville VA and Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic, and attending regularly on inpatient ID consult and HIV services.