Michael Saag

Who is Michael Saag?

Michael S. Saag is a physician and prominent HIV/AIDS researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He holds the Jim Straley Chair in AIDS Research, is Director of the Division of Infectious Disease and of the William C. Gorgas Center for Geographic Medicine, and Director of the Center for AIDS Research. He is also the founder of the 1917 Clinic, a comprehensive AIDS treatment and research center at UAB Saag is a frequent lecturer at AIDS conferences around the world and is credited with performing pioneering clinical trials for several antiretroviral drugs now in common use for HIV treatment and for first demonstrating the clinical value of "viral-load testing" in HIV/AIDS treatment. In 2009 Saag was elected chairman of the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Saag appeared in the 2001 PBS documentary Evolution describing how HIV can evolve to newer drug-resistant strains in the course of hours. He is co-author of a 2007 textbook, AIDS Therapy and editor of the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy and the Sanford Guide to HIV/AIDS Therapy. On April 14, 2014 Saag released his first book Positive published by Greenleaf Book Group, LLC.