
Jocelyn Kim, M.D., Ph.D.
- Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor, Medicine

Jocelyn Kim, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-scientist who works to develop cell and gene therapies that target persistent viral reservoirs and reprogram the immune system to achieve durable cures for HIV and other chronic diseases.
Her research bridges immunology, virology, and regenerative medicine to address one of the central challenges in HIV: eradicating latent infection. Kim’s lab combines synthetic biology, adoptive cell transfer, and high-resolution tracking technologies to develop next-generation immune-based therapies.
She was the first to show that combining a PKC-modulating latency-reversing agent (SUW133) with natural killer (NK) cell therapy can delay or prevent viral rebound in vivo, providing proof of concept for immune cell-based curative strategies. She has also developed highly efficient anti-HIV CAR-NK cells that enhance antiviral function, and a sequencing platform (BI-seq) that enables precise tracking of viral reservoir dynamics and integration site patterns.
By advancing immune cell engineering alongside stem cell-based strategies, Kim aims to build a translational platform for durable HIV cures and broader applications in chronic infectious and immune-mediated diseases.
Research Projects
- Engineering and optimizing NK cell-based therapies for HIV cure, including CAR-NK cells and synthetic biology approaches
- Defining and targeting mechanisms of HIV reservoir persistence using barcoded virus and in vivo humanized mouse models
- Developing translational cell and gene therapy platforms that integrate immunology and stem cell biology
- Investigating host pathways and integration site patterns that stabilize viral latency
- Advancing strategies to track and eliminate clonal HIV reservoirs at single-molecule resolution
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Medical Board Certification
- Infectious Disease, American Board of Internal Medicine, 2014
Fellowship
- Infectious Disease, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 2016
Residency
- Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 2008
Degrees
- Ph.D., Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 2016
- M.D., University of Michigan, 2005