Dr David Ho Da-I is the Scientific Director and CEO of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and Irene Diamond Professor and Physician at the Rockefeller University, New York.
Dr Ho was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Los Angeles when he was 12. After high school, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, receiving his BSc degree with highest honours from the latter in 1974. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978, and did his clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the UCLA School of Medicine and at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr Ho has been at the forefront of AIDS research for three decades and is credited worldwide with fundamentally changing the way scientists look at the AIDS virus, initiating a crucial shift in the treatment paradigm to hitting the virus early and hard with a combination of antiretroviral drugs.
Dr Ho heads an alliance of Chinese and American organisations dedicated to helping address the HIV/AIDS crisis in China. His leadership was instrumental in helping China to rectify its AIDS policies and to implement a number of treatment and prevention programs. In addition, he was a key figure involved in setting up the HKU AIDS Institute in 2007 and establishing an onging strategic partnership with the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center/China AIDS Initiative.
Dr Ho has received many honours and awards for his scientific accomplishments. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Sinica, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. He was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation. Dr Ho was the recipient of a Presidential Medal in 2001.
In recognition of his contributions to medicine and the global community, HKU has resolved to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa.
