Arlene Sena, MD, MPH

Arlene C. Seña, MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the UNC-CH Gillings School of Global Public Health. She completed her undergraduate and medical degree at UNC-CH, and later completed her ID fellowship and MPH in 1997 at UNC-CH. She received a fellowship with the CDC in STD/HIV prevention, and conducted some work with the CDC Division of STD Prevention during her fellowship until 2002. Arlene has participated as a principal investigator or co-investigator on numerous NIH, CDC and industry supported multi-center trials involving epidemiology, novel diagnostics and therapeutic regimens for sexually transmitted infections. She has been on the NIH STI-Clinical Trials Group Scientific Review Committee since 2007. Her main research focus is on syphilis, and she is currently a Co-Project Director for an NIH STI Cooperative Research Center grant for syphilis vaccine development titled “Global sequence and surface antigenic diversity of Treponema pallidum outer membrane proteins,” which involves UNC Project Malawi and UNC Project China. Arlene also served as the Medical and Laboratory Director at the Durham County Department of Public Health from 2001-January 2020, and provided oversight for the Communicable Disease program and a CLIA-approved public health laboratory. Arlene has directly mentored many clinical and graduate level trainees in STI research and public health careers at the academic, state and national level. She serves as a consultant for the CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, and was recently elected as board member to the American STD Association.