In memory: world STD research pioneer Dr. King Holmes

Infectious disease specialist Dr. King Kennard Holmes, who is credited with bringing the previously ignored field of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to the forefront of medical research, died Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Seattle after a long illness. He was 87.

Nearly single-handedly, he instigated and led the STI field into the modern scientific era.

“King K. Holmes was a visionary who saw the need and, during his nearly six decades at the University of Washington, blazed a path as the most effective proponent of this historic transition, arguably the single most productive investigator, and its most influential driver,” several of his colleagues wrote in a 2024 tribute in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 

Dr. Holmes was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Global Health and Professor Emeritus of Medicine in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. From 2007 to 2014, he was the founding chair of Global Health, a joint department of the University of Washington School of Medicine and School of Public Health in Seattle. He was also the first holder of the William H. Foege Chair of Global Health. 

“When King began his research career in the late 1960s while serving in the U.S. Navy in Hawaii, the field of sexually transmitted infections had been ignored and neglected in the United States and many other countries for nearly three decades and was in serious disrepair, both in the academic and public health arenas,” said Dr. H. Hunter Handsfield, UW Professor Emeritus of Medicine in the Division of Allergy & Infectious Diseases at the UW School of Medicine.

King’s first major assignment for the Navy was to stem an epidemic of penicillin-resistant gonorrhea that was widespread among sailors stationed in the western Pacific. 

“I had visions of working on exotic tropical diseases, such as malaria and hemorrhagic fevers,” Dr. Holmes told the journal Nature in 2006, “but this was the most common problematic infectious disease facing the Navy at the time.” 

He devised and tested the concept of prescribing a single dose of antibiotic to sailors as a preventive measure against gonorrhea after a sexual encounter. Today, post-exposure prophylaxis against bacterial STIs with doxycycline, an approach called doxy-PEP, is endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. 

After joining the UW as a faculty member in the early 1970’s, Dr. Holmes began to address other STI topics, ultimately becoming internationally known as the father of STI research. 

“Holmes led the field worldwide with his commitment to rigorous, ethical science and to collaboration among many fields — public health, microbiology, virology, immunopathology, infectious diseases, behavioral science, sophisticated epidemiology, and exacting clinical investigation — in the service of STD prevention,” Handsfield said.

With the sexual revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, the freedom offered by birth control pills and changing mores was shadowed by a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections. In addition to gonorrhea and syphilis, the list of conditions grew for Holmes and his trainees to study, prevent and devise treatments. Among these were chlamydia, human papillomaviruses (and their link to several cancers), genital herpes, Mycoplasma genitalium, hepatitis B, bacterial vaginosis, and trichomoniasis. 

Dr. Holmes’ teams advanced the field of sexual health generally and improved STI care for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Early in his career, Dr. Holmes came to understand the dismal state of training of health professionals in STIs and became an international leader in fostering both vastly improved training and destigmatization of STI research and clinical care.

Beginning in the early 1980s, Dr. Holmes became one of the world leaders in the fight against HIV. In addition to spearheading HIV research and training with colleagues in many countries in sub-Saharan African and Latin America, he also was instrumental in educating the public and health professionals in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, including in rural areas, about the then newly recognized, deadly infection. 

He was devoted to public advocacy and had a lifelong commitment to the education, well-being, and career development of young investigators. Over his career, he built a professional family of generations of trainees who, in turn, became leaders in STI research, prevention, and care.

Among them is Dr. Larry Corey, an international expert in virology, immunology and vaccine development at UW Medicine, and the former president and director of the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. In 1975, Dr. Holmes was Corey's postdoctoral advisor and remained a friend and colleague throughout his career. 

“King was an extraordinary mentor and visionary scientist,” Corey said. “He had an optimism about people and ideas and a zest for exploring the unknown. Working with him made you smile; he penciled through your sentences with new words of precision. Through his discussions he made you see how research would better the communities being studied. He had this desire to improve the world through scientific discovery with an understanding that implementing these discoveries for all people of the world was our obligation. These teachings tracked to all his colleagues throughout his career.”

Dr. Holmes was known for his charm in winning people to his ideas and in uniting people under a cause. One example was the interactions he fostered between Seattle-King County Public Health and the UW Schools of Medicine and Public Health. That collective and collaborative spirit became a national model for bridging public health departments and academic institutions. 

In other work, Dr. Holmes helped build a national surveillance system for gonorrhea in the United States. This surveillance system has been instrumental in identifying populations most at risk of infection, as well as transmission dynamics and antimicrobial resistance patterns. It has proven useful in revising treatment guidelines. The high and rising rates of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhea revealed by this system and related studies have prompted an accelerated pursuit of a gonorrhea vaccine and new antibiotics.

“I think that King’s impact was transformational because of the broader scope and scale of his work,” noted Dr. Judy Wasserheit, professor of global health and medicine and former chair of global health and director of CDC’s Division of STD and HIV Prevention. “King reframed sexually transmitted infection prevention and care as a cornerstone of women’s and infants’ health through his groundbreaking studies of syndromes like pelvic inflammatory disease and bacterial vaginosis, as well as his work on gonorrhea. In the early 1980s, when AIDS was first recognized, he pivoted to help define the epidemiology of HIV and the complex biological interrelationships between HIV and other STIs.” 

Wasserheit added that his legacy was his work “with policymakers across the country and around the world to facilitate translation of research results into large-scale programs and policies.”

Holmes’ concern for people and his easy manner and matter-of-factness earned him the trust of patients. His colleagues and students appreciated his warmth, generosity and irrepressible humor — for instance, showing others how to hang spoons from their noses. 

Dr. Holmes was born to Catherine Harriet and Robert James Holmes on Sept. 1, 1937, in Ramsey County Minnesota. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1959 and M.D. degree from Cornell University in 1963. After an internship in medicine at Vanderbilt University he served as an epidemiologist in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy. He was based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from 1964 to 1967. During that time, he acquired a doctorate in microbiology from the University of Hawaii while pursuing groundbreaking research in the treatment and prevention of gonorrhea and nongonococcal urethritis.

After his military service, Dr. Holmes completed his residency in medicine at the UW in 1968 and then served as chief resident in medicine. In 1969 he joined the UW School of Medicine faculty and rose up the ranks to become a professor of medicine. He also held an appointment in epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health. At various times, he led the Divisions of Infectious Disease at Seattle’s U.S. Public Health Service Hospital and at Harborview Medical Center, later serving as chief of medicine at Harborview.

In collaboration with the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, Dr. Holmes expanded that department’s STD clinical and prevention services by founding the Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic at Harborview Medical Center. Within a few years, with the return to Seattle of Dr. Hunter Handsfield, all SKCDPH STD services were relocated to Harborview and the clinic became a national model for academic/public health collaboration for STD and, later, all communicable diseases.  He also established the UW Center for AIDS and STDs and, with Dr. Larry Corey, the UW Center for AIDS Research. He developed and co-led the UW International Training and Education Center on Health, a global network in more than 25 countries, designed to build long-term capacity in health systems, as well as targeted, data-driven interventions and research responsive to local needs.

Describing Dr. Holmes’ achievements in global health, his UW School of Public Health colleagues wrote, “To facilitate innovation, he built a dynamic group of cutting-edge centers, programs and initiatives, designed to work together with partners in low- and middle-income countries on research and teaching, and on healthcare capacity strengthening and program and policy development.” 

Dr. Holmes greatest source of professional pride was the success of his trainees. During his career, Dr. Holmes trained or mentored over 170 U.S. and international scientists in HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted disease research and patient care. He also led efforts to provide training and technical assistance on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. 

Holmes participated in designing and conducting 40 randomized controlled trials of STI treatment and prevention. He published 548 peer-reviewed papers; 178 book chapters, editorials, and other commentaries; and 29 books and journal supplements, covering every aspect of STIs and HIV, as well as a wide range of other infectious diseases. 

Holmes was an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal College of Physicians. 

He earned many other honors s well, including Canada’s 2013 Gairdner Foundation Global Health Award for his scientific contributions to the field of sexually transmitted infections and their effective treatment and prevention, the Infectious Disease Society of America’s Alexander Fleming Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Leadership in Global Health Award from the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. 

Dr. Holmes was preceded in death by his brother Barry Holmes, his sister Robin March, and his eldest daughter, Kimberly Valerine Holmes. He is survived by his loving wife, Dr. Virginia Gonzales, his daughter Heather and son-in-law Keith Jellerson, his granddaughter Sage, his son King Jr, and his daughter-in-law Helen Holmes, his grandchildren Reilly and Connor Holmes, and his brothers Robert and Eugene Holmes. He will continue to be revered as well as by his coworkers, fellows, and mentees around the globe.

Information about a celebration of Dr. Holmes’ life will be shared when it becomes available. Donations in his memory can be made to the King K. Holmes Endowed Professorship in STD and AIDS.

Additional info:

HotSpot: How Seattle became the place for infectious diseases research by Mary Engle, published in 2022, summarizes Dr. Holmes’ contributions. 

“Leadership in Sexually Transmitted Infections Research and Training: The Legacies of King Holmes.” A special tribute published in September 2024 in the 50th Anniversary edition of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

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