During her infectious disease training, Josephine Thinwa, M.D., Ph.D., treated patients with HIV/AIDS prone to severe viral brain infections. Despite receiving the best available treatments, some of these patients died, thus inspiring her to understand more about how our bodies fight viruses.

As a physician-scientist in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at UT Southwestern, Dr. Thinwa has developed a research program aimed at characterizing the mechanisms that fight off viral infections.

“It became overwhelmingly clear to me that we don’t know how to effectively treat viruses,” said Dr. Thinwa, Instructor of Internal Medicine. “My idea is that if we can better understand protective mechanisms in cells, we can develop strategies to harness and enhance those mechanisms to boost the immune system and eradicate infection.”

Dr. Thinwa’s research was recently recognized when she received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists – making her one of only 14 awardees nationwide this year. The prestigious award provides $700,000 to support her research over the next five years. The award is given to physician-scientists committed to an academic career with funding aimed to help bridge advanced postdoctoral/fellowship training and the early years of faculty service.

“This grant is very critical to me and my research,” she said. “It will allow me to advance my career as an independent physician-scientist.”

Dr. Thinwa’s interest in viruses began as a teenager. Growing up in Kenya, she was often sick due to the environment she was living in, suffering from numerous viral infections, she said. But after her family immigrated to the United States when she was 11 years old, her health improved.

“During the next two years, I had an epiphany and realized I had not had a major infection since coming to the United States,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘I want to solve the issue of infection.’”

In 2015, Dr. Thinwa earned her combined M.D./Ph.D. degrees, with doctoral studies in microbiology from the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. She then completed her residency in internal medicine at UT Southwestern, followed by advanced training in infectious diseases as part of the Physician Scientist Training Program at UTSW.

Dr. Thinwa’s long-held interest in viruses intensified when she worked in the UTSW lab of Beth Levine, M.D., an international leader in autophagy research and Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology who passed away in 2020. Under Dr. Levine’s mentorship, Dr. Thinwa began focusing on autophagy, a natural cell-recycling process that helps cells break down and eliminate viruses and other unnecessary components.

“Dr. Levine had previously discovered the critical importance of autophagy as a defense against viruses,” Dr. Thinwa said. “My research focuses on identifying the exact proteins in our cells that turn on autophagy during viral infection.”

Dr. Thinwa identified the protein cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 (CDKL5) to be critical for initiating autophagy and providing protection against viruses that infect the brain.

“Her investigations address fundamental questions that link autophagy to the control of viral diseases,” said Michael Shiloh, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology.

“Her cutting-edge work has revealed a new molecular pathway that cells use to target viruses for destruction and that also protects infected cells from succumbing to viral infection,” Dr. Shiloh said. “Her discoveries have the potential to lead to the development of new, sorely needed therapeutics against a wide array of viruses.”

Dr. Thinwa’s passion for studying viruses became even more intense as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Although huge advancements were made, millions of people still died before a vaccine was developed,” she said. “The majority of viruses lack effective treatments, and since we’re likely to experience viral outbreaks in the future, we need to better understand how our own bodies can fight infection in order to develop new therapies.”

She is hopeful that her work could eventually lead to more drugs becoming available to treat the next viral outbreak. Until then, she will continue researching the ways in which the body counteracts infectious diseases.

“As someone who likes asking ‘why,’ this is the most exciting field in the world,” Dr. Thinwa said of the specialty of infectious diseases.