Rate My Professor Aaron Tobian

Aaron A. R. Tobian, MD, PhD, is Professor of Pathology, Medicine, Oncology, and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. He serves as Director of the Transfusion Medicine Division at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Deputy Director for Clinical Affairs and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Pathology, and CLIA Director of Clinical Laboratories at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Tobian earned his PhD in 2004 and MD in 2006 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where his doctoral thesis focused on antigen processing. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society during medical school. He completed clinical pathology residency at Johns Hopkins from 2006 to 2009, serving as chief resident in 2008-2009, followed by a transfusion medicine fellowship in 2010. Board certified in clinical pathology and transfusion medicine, he divides his time between clinical service and research. During residency, he joined the Rakai Health Sciences Program in Uganda, establishing research on epidemiologic risk factors for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, including randomized trials evaluating male circumcision's efficacy in preventing infections in men and partners.

Tobian's research specializations include transfusion-transmitted infections, HIV, human papillomavirus, sexually transmitted infections, pathogen reduction technology, and risks and benefits of transplanting HIV-positive organs into HIV-positive recipients. He has served as principal investigator for trials evaluating pathogen reduction systems in Uganda and contributed to studies on COVID-19 convalescent plasma. His work on HIV-positive kidney transplantation, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2024, helped establish it as standard of care. He has authored over 400 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and Blood, including key publications like "Male circumcision for the prevention of HSV-2 and HPV infections and syphilis" (NEJM, 2009), AABB platelet transfusion guidelines (Annals of Internal Medicine, 2015), red blood cell transfusion guidelines (JAMA, 2016), transfusion trends in the US (JAMA, 2018), and early COVID-19 treatment with convalescent plasma (NEJM, 2022). Tobian has lived or worked in five developing countries over the past 25 years. He has received honors including induction into the Association of American Physicians and election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2019. He served nine years on the AABB Board of Directors, including as President, and holds editorial roles as Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Apheresis, Section Editor for UpToDate in Transfusion Medicine, Editorial Board member for TRANSFUSION, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Transfusion News.