Blayne Cutler, MD, PhD

Blayne Cutler, MD, PhD, joined Heluna Health in 2014 as Chief Executive Officer. She is a physician trained in infectious disease and public health. Prior to joining Heluna Health, Blayne served as New York City’s Assistant Commissioner for HIV Prevention and Control under Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill DiBlasio, and as the City’s Director of HIV Prevention from 2007-2013. During her tenure, new HIV diagnoses declined by more than 25 percent, and HIV fell off the list of top ten causes of death among New York City residents for the first time in 30 years.  Blayne has published widely on topics related to HIV, epidemiology, history and public health. She has lectured at universities around the world and has assisted in the scale-up of HIV treatment and care in Africa. Blayne received her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania; completed her residency training at Brown University; and her infectious diseases fellowship at Columbia University. At Columbia, she was awarded a research fellowship from the Mailman School of Public Health’s Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research, where she studied the safety and acceptability of microbicides for the prevention of HIV and novel diagnostics for tuberculosis. Blayne also has a deep love of the humanities: she holds a doctorate in history from Yale University and worked as a journalist prior to becoming a physician.