In this year’s Filipino American History Month, Hooper, Lundy & Bookman honors Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D.’s contribution to the study and treatment of viral infections in children.
Dr. Luzuriaga was born in Bacolod in the Philippines and raised in Manila. She came to the United States for her undergraduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), then obtained her Master of Science degree in biochemistry at the MIT and her medical degree at Tufts University. After completing her residency and fellowship, she joined the faculty of University of Massachusetts Medical School.
In the summer of 1991 as a research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Luzuriaga worked on a team that explored the effectiveness of an antiretroviral medication named nevirapine, as well as researching its effectiveness in combination with other antiviral drugs. Dr. Luzuriaga’s team was the first to observe nevirapine’s ability to suppress HIV proliferation in infected cells. It would take until the mid-1990s for the team to establish effective protocols for the various drug combinations to combat HIV. Then in 2021, Dr. Luzuriaga led a task force on clinical trial testing of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and side effects on children.
In 2013, Luzuriaga was recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for her work “functionally curing a newborn of AIDS.”
“We are honored and humbled that our work has been considered influential,” Luzuriaga said upon being named to the TIME 100 list. “Our hope is that this will help to communicate the power and potential of scientific investigation for optimizing health outcomes for children …Together, we are committed to eradicating pediatric HIV infection and improving child health globally.”
In the same year, she was lauded as one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 for “bringing the world closer to a cure for HIV.” Since 2012, Dr. Luzuriaga has served as the Director of the University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical and Translational Science, where she is dedicated to the training of future scientists within the health sphere.
