Toni Darville, MD, Denny Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, was recently awarded the 2024 Distinguished Research Award by the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS). Dr. Darville is a renowned clinician and investigator whose research focuses on the prevention of Chlamydia trachomatis. The research award recognizes the outstanding investigative efforts of a Society member who, throughout their career, has made outstanding contributions with significant impact on the field of pediatric infectious diseases.
The award was presented during this year’s IDWeek (October 16-19) in Los Angeles, CA. PIDS membership encompasses leaders across the global scientific and public health spectrum, including clinical care, advocacy, academics, government, and the pharmaceutical industry. With a career spanning over 25 years, Toni Darville, MD has been dedicated to conducting both basic and translational research focused on Chlamydia trachomatis. Her research team’s primary goals encompass enhancing the comprehension of genital tract disease pathogenesis caused by C. trachomatis and actively working towards the development of a preventative vaccine.
Dr. Darville is deeply committed to training graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in basic and translational research. She has served on multiple NIH study sections and is currently a standing member of the NIAID Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens Study Section. She also remains an active clinician and educator of medical students, residents and junior faculty. In her role as Vice Chair of Pediatric Research, she seeks to facilitate the efforts of Clinician Scientists within the Department of Pediatrics and across the UNC campus who perform research related to children and adolescents. She developed and directs a “Move it forward, pay it forward” pediatric research proposal improvement program, provides oversight for a pediatric intramural grant program, and advises and facilitates collaboration between many junior faculty and fellows who seek careers as clinician scientists.
Dr. Darville currently serves as the Division Chief for Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics, and Director of the UNC MD-PhD Program. In addition, Dr. Darville is deeply committed to training graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in basic and translational research. She has served on multiple NIH study sections and is currently a standing member of the NIAID Host Interactions with Bacterial Pathogens Study Section. She also remains an active clinician and educator of medical students, residents and junior faculty. In her role as Vice Chair of Pediatric Research, she seeks to facilitate the efforts of Clinician Scientists within the Department of Pediatrics and across the UNC campus who perform research related to children and adolescents.
Dr. Darville received her MD from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and completed her Pediatric Residency and Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, where she became Division Chief and Director of the Fellowship Program of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She began her research career at UAMS in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology under the mentorship of Dr. Roger Rank, studying the immunobiology of Chlamydia trachomatis. She developed an independent research career while at UAMS and made major discoveries related to innate immune mechanisms of chlamydial genital tract disease development using both murine and guinea pig models. She was recruited to the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in 2007, where she served as the Division Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Director of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program. Dr. Darville expanded her research program while at UPMC to include studies of adaptive T cell responses to Chlamydia in murine models for adolescent girls and women. She served as the Administrator of a NIH Sexually Transmitted Infection Cooperative Research Center while in Pittsburgh and continues her collaborative efforts with UPMC investigators to examine bacterial and immune factors contributing to pelvic inflammatory disease in women with the overarching goal to develop methods to prevent infection and disease.
At UNC, Dr. Darville and her research team continue to work to improve the reproductive health of women through determination of immune mechanisms operative during sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including C. trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Mycoplasma genitalium. Together with a team of collaborators and scientific trainees, Dr. Darville is dissecting innate and adaptive responses to these pathogens using in vitro polarized Fallopian tube organ cultures, human blood and tissue samples, and animal models. The goals of this research include the delineation of bacterial virulence proteins and how they induce disease and the discovery of bacterial antigens that drive protective T cell responses for vaccine development. Dr. Darville’s lab is also working to determine blood transcriptional responses and genetic markers of disease risk that can be used to provide targeted screening and facilitate vaccine efficacy studies. Her team is also working to determine molecular signatures associated with immune protection after natural infection and vaccination.