Timothy Schacker, MD

Timothy Schacker, M.D. is a professor of Medicine and Director of the Program in HIV Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty in 1996. Dr. Schacker received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1986 and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Oregon Health Sciences University and Infectious Disease Fellowship at the University of Washington in 1993. He then joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota.Dr. Schacker is interested in how HIV causes immune suppression and why antiretrovirals do not fully restore immunity. His group focuses on inflammatory damage in lymphatic tissues; the principal site of HIV infection, that results in fibrosis of the lymphatic structures required to maintain a normal population of CD4 cells. They are testing novel therapies to prevent and/or reverse this process and slow T cell depletion in HIV and improve their reconstitution when antiretroviral is begun. He is also the principal investigator of a federally funded program of projects designed to determine barriers to HIV eradication. In addition, Dr. Schacker has established a collaboration with the Joint Clinical Research Center in Kampala, Uganda to study how constant exposure to common infections like tuberculosis, malaria, and helminthic infections affect rates of HIV transmission and progression.