Col. Nelson Michael, director of U.S. Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., received the Hero of Military Medicine Award for the U.S. Army for his excellence as an HIV researcher and leader in global health.

Dr. Michael's career has focused on developing an effective HIV vaccine to protect U.S. and Allied Armed Services and reduce the global impact of the disease. MHRP's international research program has six clinical research sites in the U.S., Africa and Asia, where it conducts HIV cohort studies, HIV vaccine trials and therapeutic studies. Dr. Michael guided MHRP through the completion of the RV144 HIV vaccine study in Thailand, which provided the first demonstration that a preventive HIV vaccine was possible.

A colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, Dr. Michael began his Army service in 1989 at WRAIR, and he became director in 2006. He serves on President Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, is a Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and is a Diplomat, the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Michael currently serves on several advisory groups for the National Institutes of Health, the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, and the Global HIV AIDS Vaccine Enterprise. He has co-authored more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed scientific literature.