Dr. Charles R. Rinaldo, PhD

Dr. Rinaldo received an A.A. in General Studies from Onondaga Community College, an A.B. in Bacteriology from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Utah, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University. His research focuses on HIV trans infection of T cells as a stealth pathway for virus persistence in people with HIV (PWH), engineering of dendritic cells to induce T cell control of HIV infection, the role of cytomegalovirus in persistence of HIV, the effects of the microbiome on HIV infection, and the immune response to COVID-19 vaccine in PWH. He is Principal Investigator of the Pitt Clinical Research Site in the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study, and Director of the Pitt Immunology Specialty Laboratory in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. He has over 400 scientific publications, many of which have had significant impact in the fields of HIV/AIDS and herpesvirus research.