Thomas N. Denny, MSc   Faculty Central

Thomas N. Denny, MSc is the Chief Operating Officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Rheumatology at Duke University Medical Center.  Most recently he was an Associate Professor of Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Pediatrics, Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and Assistant Dean for Research in Health Policy at the New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey. He has 25 years of immunology experience studying host defense mechanisms. As part of the HIV clinical trials program, he has served on numerous committees for the NIH over the last two decades. Previously, he served on an expert panel for the CDC helping to establish clinical laboratory guidelines for using T-cell immunophenotyping in patients with HIV disease. In 1997, he received an NIH HIV Innovative Vaccine Grant award to study a new method of vaccine delivery. He is the principal investigator of the NIH-NIAID Division of AIDS Immunology Quality Assurance Program. Mr. Denny was a 2002-2003 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM). As a fellow, he served on the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee with legislation/policy responsibilities in Global AIDS, Bioterrorism, Clinical Trials/Human Subject Protection and Vaccine related issues.

 

He has extensive international experience and is a consultant to the US CDC for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) project to oversee development of a HIV and public health center of excellence laboratory network in Guyana. In early 2004, he was awarded a Fogarty International HIV Grant for a project in Burkina Faso. In September 2004, the IOM appointed him as a consultant to their Board on Global Health Committee studying the options for overseas placement of US health professionals and development of an assessment plan for activities related to the 2003 PEPFAR legislative act.  Previously, Mr. Denny helped establish a small laboratory in the Republic of Kalmykia (former Soviet Union) to improve the care of children with HIV/AIDS.  As a board member of the Children of Chernobyl Relief Fund Foundation, Mr. Denny focused on donor recruitment, program planning and assessment, and medical mission/training for Ukrainian physician scientists. Recently, Mr. Denny has been named a consulting medical/scientific officer to the WHO Global AIDS Program in Geneva. He has also served as program reviewers for the governments of the Netherlands and South Africa.

 

Mr. Denny has authored or co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed papers and serves on the editorial board of Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, Communications in Cytometry and Clinical and Applied Immunology Reviews. He holds an M.Sc in molecular and biomedical immunology from the University of East London and is in the process of completing a distance education degree in Medical Law (M.Phil) from the Institute of Law and Ethics in Medicine, School of Law, and University of Glasgow.  In 1991 he completed a course of study in Strategic Management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, he completed the Program for Advanced Training in Biomedical Research Management at Harvard School of Public Health. In December 2005, he was inducted as a Fellow to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia - the oldest medical society in the US.

 

While in New Jersey, Mr. Denny was active in his community gaining additional experience from two publicly elected positions. In 1994, he was elected to the Cranford Board of Education, a K-12 district of more than 3,000 students and a budget exceeding thirty-million dollars. He served in various capacities before being elected vice-president of the Board in 1995. In 1996, Mr. Denny was elected to his first term on the Cranford Township Committee (municipal governing body) and reelected to a second term in 1999 after serving a term as Mayor of Cranford.  In 2000, Mr. Denny was selected by the New Jersey League of Municipalities to Chair the New Jersey Community Mental Health Citizens’ Advisory Board and Mental Health Planning Council.