Biography

Sara Gianella Weibel, MD, is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. She is an infectious disease physician-scientist whose research focuses on HIV persistence, tissue reservoirs, viral co-infections, immune dysregulation, and the mechanisms that shape long-term outcomes in people with HIV.

Dr. Gianella Weibel is Co-Director of the Last Gift Program, a community-centered rapid research autopsy program that enables the study of HIV reservoirs and pathogenesis across the human body. Her work integrates clinical cohorts, human tissue sampling, virologic assays, molecular profiling, and immunologic approaches to understand how HIV persists during antiretroviral therapy and how tissue-specific immune environments influence viral persistence and inflammation.

She is deeply committed to social justice, advocacy, and community-centered research, with a particular interest in sex- and gender-based differences in HIV persistence, immune responses, aging, and health outcomes. Her work emphasizes inclusive research practices and equitable representation of women, transgender and gender-diverse people, and historically underrepresented communities in HIV studies.

With more than 240 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Gianella Weibel has contributed extensively to translational HIV research, HIV cure science, and aging-related research in people with HIV.