Brinda Emu

Brinda Emu, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at Yale School of Medicine, with secondary appointments in Pathology. She leads the Cancer-ID Clinic and co-leads the Cancer Microbiology Working Group at Yale Cancer Center. Her research focuses on HIV-associated malignancies, examining how chronic viral infections weaken immune defenses and promote tumor development. Dr. Emu received her BA from Harvard University, MD from Johns Hopkins, completed residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and infectious diseases fellowship at UCSF. She previously worked at Genentech developing novel therapies for infectious diseases and oncology.

Her research interests include immune correlates of protection in HIV, T-cell dysfunction in cancer, and HIV-associated immune dysregulation. Key collaborations involve Kurt Schalper, Amy Justice, Geliang Gan, and Albert C. Shaw. Notable studies include analyses of HIV's impact on head and neck cancer survival, T-cell exhaustion in cancer patients, and CD36 receptor roles in tumor immunology.

Dr. Emu has published extensively on HIV-cancer intersections, immune checkpoint inhibitors in HIV-positive patients, and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination strategies for immunocompromised individuals. Her work appears in Clinical Infectious Diseases, Immunity, and Nature. She leads clinical trials on HIV latency mechanisms and chairs initiatives promoting diversity in infectious diseases education.