IDCRC Investigator Profile: Angelica Cifuentes Kottkamp, MD

Angelica Cifuentes Kottkamp, MD, is an assistant professor, associate director of the NYU Langone Vaccine Center, Supporting, Educating, and Enriching Diversity Mentoring Program lead attending for the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity, and associate director of the Infectious Disease Fellowship Program in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Kottkamp has received national recognition for her work, including recently being named one of the 2023 Castle Connolly Top Hispanic & Latino Doctors. 

How long have you worked with a VTEU?

I joined the NYU Langone Vaccine Center in 2019. We became a Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit in 2020.

Briefly describe the IDCRC-supported trials you’ve worked on

Since joining the IDCRC, NYU was one of the sites conducting the groundbreaking Mix-and-Match trial under the leadership of Mark Mulligan, MD, NYU VTEU principal investigator. This trial was fun to conduct because of the community's high interest. We recruited patients in our satellite site at NYU Long Island, and at our iconic Bellevue Hospital – the oldest public hospital in the country.

Then I led the COVAIL trial at our Manhattan site. This project has been an amazing opportunity to watch firsthand how excellent science is done and to meet wonderful, smart investigators across the United States. Learn more about other IDCRC Studies

Of these trials, what has been the most impactful or highlight of the work?

The experience with both trials has been unique and humbling. Mix-and-Match came at the right time; we needed an answer, and this trial was able to provide that in real-time. Conducting this trial involved a lot of passion, institutional and community support, and interest from the participants. Not to mention the wonderful team, and phenomenal study PIs, Kirsten Lyke, MD, member, IDCRC Malaria/Tropical Diseases Expert Working Group, and Robert Atmar, MD, IDCRC Clinical Operations Unit co-director, Expert Working Groups Liaison.

 COVAIL has been a wonderful study in different ways, it has taught me much as a junior faculty and PI. I am humbled by the support that I have received from my own institution, my mentors, the wonderful study PIs, Angela Branche, MD, and Nadine Rouphael, MD, and the IDCRC – NIH interphase. I continue to be impressed by the level of precision and high quality that these trials are striving for, benefiting the public, participants, and people in science like us.  

What is a strength or example of the importance of the IDCRC during the pandemic and beyond?

I would say this consortium provides strategic networking, broad health science dissemination, and access to different populations across the U.S., which is crucial for rapid implementation of studies in situations of outbreaks. The IDCRC in my humble opinion is a great idea, I think the more we network and diversify our efforts the more outreach we will have, and this will continue to translate into better health literacy in all populations, especially those minoritized and highly affected by preventable infectious diseases. I hope this initiative continues for many more years.

What do you like to do outside of the VTEU?

I am a happy person, inside and outside medicine. I love music, I enjoy outdoor activities such as swimming, dancing, and biking. I love sunny days and days on the beach.

In my professional life, besides being the associate director for research and diversity at the NYU Langone Vaccine Center, I am the associate program director of the ID Fellowship at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. I am one of the primary care doctors at the iconic Virology Clinic at Bellevue Hospital where I see mostly Hispanic patients living with HIV. I also attend the busy ID Consult Service at Bellevue, where our fellows, residents, and medical students rotate, and where we get to see the most interesting ID cases in New York City.