Meharry Medical College president/CEO to speak at ETSU on Oct. 13

JOHNSON CITY (Sept. 30, 2022) – Noted scientist, physician and administrator Dr. James E.K. Hildreth will give a free public lecture at East Tennessee State University on Thursday, Oct. 13.

Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College, will speak at 6:30 p.m. in the Grand Soldiers Ballroom of the Carnegie Hotel, following a 5:30 p.m. reception.

His talk, titled “An Immunological Paradox Explained: HIV as Trojan Exosome,” is sponsored by the university’s Black American Studies Program. It is also part of the ETSU College of Public Health’s Leading Voices in Public Health Lecture Series serving as the second annual Health, Equity and Inclusion Lecture which is co-sponsored by the Quillen College of Medicine and Office of Equity and Inclusion.

“Black American Studies is happy to partner with the colleges of Public Health and Medicine to host this wonderful event, which highlights the importance of empathy, diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of medicine as well as public policy,” said Dr. Daryl A. Carter, associate dean for Equity and Inclusion in ETSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and director of Black American Studies. “Dr. Hildreth is an internationally renowned physician, researcher and administrator. We are very fortunate to have him on campus.”

“We are delighted to have a physician of Dr. Hildreth’s stature to speak at ETSU and meet our students, faculty and area health professionals,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health. “His impact on the lives of students, medical professionals and the public through the work he has done through medicine, education, advocacy and policy formation cannot be understated.”

Hildreth is known as a world-class infectious disease expert and emerged as a respected national figure in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was appointed to the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee in September 2020, and in February 2021, he was named to President Joe Biden’s Health Equity Task Force.

Hildreth is leading the technological, academic and clinical transformation of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, one of the nation’s oldest and largest historically Black academic health science centers dedicated to educating physicians, dentists, researchers and health policy experts.

Before joining Meharry Medical College, Hildreth was dean of the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. While there, he revamped the college’s student advising system and created novel student learning communities and also created a unique research program that involved collaborations between scientists who focused on organisms from distinct kingdoms of life (plants, animals).

He also spent 23 years at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a student, post-doctoral researcher, professor and associate dean. His research on HIV resulted in international recognition for several key discoveries, including identifying the critical role of cholesterol in HIV infection.

In addition to his M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins, Hildreth holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University and a B.A. from Harvard University. His many honors include membership in the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame and being named among the “50 Most Influential Clinical Executives” for 2021 by Modern Healthcare.

For more information, call the College of Public Health at (423) 439-4243 or email storkj@etsu.edu. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at (423) 439-8346.