Dr. Melanie Thompson, MD

Dr. Thompson earned her MD degree from Emory University School of Medicine in 1984, where she was named to Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society. She earned her diploma in Internal Medicine from Emory in 1987. She saw her first patient with HIV in 1982 and has been particularly interested in that field since that time.

She is internationally known for contributions in HIV clinical research and guidelines for care. She also has expertise in the diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of viral hepatitis. Additional areas of interest include public health and health care policy. Her patients always have provided the inspiration for her passion for care, research, and policy. Dr. Thompson is Principal Investigator of the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta (ARCA), a non-profit therapeutics and prevention research center that she founded in 1988. Through ARCA she has led over 400 studies in the areas of HIV treatment and prevention, complications, diagnostics, testing, epidemiology, and, recently, hepatitis C treatment.

She chaired the International Antiviral Society-USA's Antiretroviral Therapy Guidelines Panel from 2009-2013 and was a member of the panel for 17 years. The panel's guidelines have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association since 1996. She also was co-chair of the panel for Guidelines to Improve Entry into and Retention in Care, and Antiretroviral Adherence for Persons with HIV whose recommendations were published in Annals of Internal Medicine in March, 2012.

Dr. Thompson served as Special Advisor to the Commissioner of the State of Georgia Department of Public Health for HIV, STDs, Viral Hepatitis, and TB in 2012-2013. She serves on the National Institutes of Health Office of AIDS Research Therapeutics Research Working Group, which she chaired from 2000-2002. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the HIV Medical Association (HIVMA).