Driven to protect public health
One of University of Iowa graduate Timothy Holtz’s assignments for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was at an HIV prevention clinic in Thailand. In 2014, Holtz (second from right) hosted Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for a site visit in Bangkok.
Like many aspiring doctors, Timothy Holtz entered medical school determined to become a surgeon, to skillfully wield a scalpel to save lives.
By the time he earned an MD from the University of Iowa, however, Holtz began considering a career with more global influence.
“It was at Iowa that I started learning about public health,” says Holtz, who graduated from the UI Carver College of Medicine in 1991. “After taking a required course on preventive medicine from Dr. Bob Wallace, a global leader in preventive medicine, I became interested in having an impact at the societal level rather than on a one-by-one basis in the operating room. I joined a study group led by Dr. Paul Greenough with fellow students who were interested in global health, and I learned about careers with the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A seed was firmly planted.”
Now, as deputy director of the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Holtz helps set the nation’s priorities regarding HIV/AIDS research and prevention and coordinates the allocation of $3 billion in research funding across the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers. In 2020, he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, giving him the responsibilities of an assistant surgeon general.
In 2020, Timothy Holtz was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, giving him the responsibilities of an assistant surgeon general.
“My job is to make decisions on research funding priorities that will lead to new tools in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” says Holtz, who joined the NIH in 2019 and works in Maryland. “That requires taking a 30,000-foot view and asking, ‘What research areas should we be investing in three to five years from now?’ We are always looking at what the next step needs to be.”
Although Holtz sees signs of hope in the fight against AIDS, he says the HIV pandemic is not yet under control.
“Advances in prevention, particularly discoveries in the effectiveness of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, have given hope to many at-risk populations around the world,” says Holtz, citing CDC data indicating that HIV infection continues to grow among certain high-risk populations in the United States and abroad. “More prevention advances are on the way, as well as advances in treatment, but we are likely more than five years away from a functional cure or a vaccine.”
Preparing Holtz for this work were two decades of spearheading global HIV and tuberculosis prevention and control programs for the CDC, most recently in India and Thailand. He also has worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization and is a founding member of Doctors for Global Health, a nonprofit that promotes health and human rights around the world.
“I believe health care is a human right,” says Holtz, who has an adjunct appointment teaching global health at Emory University and co-authored a leading textbook on global health. “I am inspired by everyone in the health care field working hard to address and achieve social justice by helping people access health care services.”
“The UI was cost effective and close to home, and I had access to a high-quality education and nationally known mentors.”
In addition to offering degrees in medicine, nursing, and dentistry, the University of Iowa offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in public health. In fact, the UI College of Public Health is ranked among the 10 best in the nation.
After growing up in Ames, Iowa, and attending St. Olaf College in Minnesota, Holtz yearned to leave the Midwest for medical school. The University of Iowa proved difficult to pass up, however, and it ultimately prepared him for a medical career that has taken him around the world.
“The UI was cost effective and close to home, and I had access to a high-quality education and nationally known mentors. I have no regrets,” says Holtz, who was recognized with a distinguished alumni award by the Carver College of Medicine in 2010. “Plus, Iowa offered opportunity and flexibility. In fact, they let me take a year off to get a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University, and halfway through my fourth year, when I had completed my med school clinical requirements, I was able to study abroad in Pakistan and Nepal for several public health electives. I think it’s wonderful that Iowa now has a public health school.”
Although Holtz enjoyed the time he spent traveling, he says he is content to have an administrative job with a more domestic focus.
“I miss my early days at the CDC, walking from village to village in Africa to study the use of bed nets, and being involved in community-based research that will have a direct impact on people,” he says. “Perhaps I will get back to that someday, but right now I am committed to the U.S. Public Health Service and the responsibilities they’ve given me. I feel like it’s my higher calling.”
