West Virginia University

West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute

Dr. Sally Hodder is a Professor Medicine and Associate Vice President for Clinical and Translational Research at West Virginia University  and Director of the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute.  Trained as an infectious diseases physician, she has extensive experience leading large scientific programs (both academia and pharma) and serving as Principal Investigator (PI) for several U series awards (2UM1AI069419; U54GM104942-02) funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). From 2003-2005, she served as Vice President of Virology Medical Affairs, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, a position in which she was responsible for a 50-member department that oversaw clinical trials, medical information, and a field scientific liaison group. In 2005, Dr. Hodder was recruited to New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey to build an HIV program where HIV prevalence was nearly 3% among the African American community, but where (at that time) there was not an active National Institutes of Health adult trial site. Under  her  leadership, the Newark site successfully competed for NIH-supported HIV treatment as well as prevention clinical trial sites. As Protocol Chair for the NIH-funded HIV Prevention Trials Network 064 trial (a study of HIV incidence and risk behaviors among 2,099 U.S. women), Dr. Hodder worked effectively with investigator teams from across the U.S. to successfully create and execute this study. In 2014, West Virginia University recruited Dr. Hodder to direct the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute (WVCTSI) and serve as PI for the current Clinical and Translational Research (CTR) program (funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences). During her tenure as CTR PI, the West Virginia Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) was developed which now includes 107 primary care sites across West Virginia, the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) to enhance rural primary care providers’ knowledge was implemented, and opioid use disorder and resultant emergent epidemics (e.g., hepatitis B, C, and HIV) were made a programmatic focus.