Dr. Priya Pal is a physician-scientist and infectious disease specialist whose research bridges fundamental immunology and translational HIV science. Her laboratory investigates how host immune mechanisms selectively restrict HIV variants, with the goal of uncovering therapeutic pathways that can be leveraged toward HIV cure strategies. This work is supported by an NIH NIAID K08 award focused on defining mechanisms of tropism-specific immune restriction in HIV infection.
Dr. Pal also directs translational HIV studies through the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Unit (ID-CRU), advancing discoveries from laboratory models to clinical application. Her recent work, presented at CROI 2026, identified activation of the innate immune pathway CARD8 as a promising component of combination HIV cure approaches and was subsequently highlighted by Science.
As a physician, Dr. Pal provides clinical care through the inpatient infectious diseases consult service. Beyond her research and clinical work, Dr. Pal contributes to healthcare leadership efforts focused on improving health systems and advancing equitable and affordable access to care.
- CROI (Conference of Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections) New Investigator Award 2024
- Humanism in Medicine Award, Gold Humanism Honor Society 2017
- Global Health and Infectious Disease Conference, best oral presentation award 2015
- American Society of Physician Scientists Joint meeting Travel Award 2014
- Barry Goldwater Scholarship in Excellence and Education 2008
- John Mark Cafferey Scholarship in Biology 2007
- Honors in the Major Thesis Grant 2007
- Howard Hughes Fellowship in Computational Biology 2006
- Katherine Blood and Harold H. Hoffman Scholarships in Chemistry 2006, 2007
- BS Chemistry, Biomedical Mathematics, Biochemistry, summa cum laude: Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida (2008)
- PhD, Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis MO (2015)
- MD, PhD: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO (2017)
- Residency: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (2020)
- Muralidharan V., Oksman A., Pal P., Lindquist S. and Goldberg D. E. (2012) Plasmodium
falciparum Hsp110 stabilizes the Asn repeat‐rich parasite proteome during malarial fevers. Nat. Commun., 3:1310 - Pal P, Daniels BP, Oskman A, Diamond MS, Klein RS, Goldberg DE. Plasmodium falciparum Histidine‐Rich Protein II Compromises Brain Endothelial Barriers and May Promote Cerebral Malaria Pathogenesis. M Bio. 2016 Jun
- Pal P, Balaban AE, Diamond MS, Sinnis P, Klein RS, Goldberg DE. Plasmodium falciparum histidine‐rich protein II causes vascular leakage and exacerbates experimental cerebral malaria in mice. PLoS One. 2017 May 5;12(5)
- Poti KE, Balaban AE, Pal P, Kobayashi T, Goldberg DE, Sinnis P, Sullivan DJ. In vivo compartmental kinetics of Plasmodium falciparum histidine-rich protein II in the blood of humans and in BALB/c mice infected with a transgenic Plasmodium berghei parasite expressing histidine rich protein II. Malar J. 2019 Mar 13;18(1):78.
- Clark KM, Pal P, Kim JG, Wang Q, Shan L. The CARD8 inflammasome in HIV infection. Adv Immunol. 2023;157:59-100
- Presti, R, Pal, P. Chapter 22: Hepatitis Viruses: Comprehensive Review of Infectious Diseases, 2e.