If you wander the halls of the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Medicine, you might come across Dr. Ken Ho, bespectacled in his white lab coat, on his way to work with a team of researchers or instruct a graduate seminar.
Coincidentally, if you found yourself at Belvedere’s Ultra-Dive on a Wednesday evening, you could also run into Dr. Ken Ho: teaching a two-step or leading a waltz.
No matter where you find him, Dr. Ho is taking a leadership role and working to make spaces in Pittsburgh safer and more inclusive, especially for the LGBTQ+ community.
Ho grew up in Takoma Park, Md., — the suburbs of Washington D.C. — and is the son of a primary care physician. From an early age, walking the path of the Hippocratic Oath was more than just encouraged by his father.
“It started largely out of expectation, because my dad was a doctor,” says Ho. “The expectation was that I would go into primary care practice with him.”
When he came to the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 for his residency, though, expectations quickly changed. A rotation at PACT, now called the Center for Care of Infectious Diseases, found him working directly with HIV patients, and it dramatically changed his vision for his future.
“I found I love this patient population. It’s younger, it’s vibrant. It feels like the work is particularly impactful, and you can see the results of your work,” says Ho. “Next thing you know, I’m deviating to do an infectious disease specialty at Pitt.”
With his father’s blessing, Ho dove wholeheartedly into the study of infectious diseases, with a particular interest in HIV prevention. He completed his fellowship at Pitt in 2011 and immediately joined the University as faculty, starting his professional career researching what was then a groundbreaking new medication to prevent the contraction of HIV called PrEP.
“PrEP stands for ‘pre-exposure prophylaxis.’ It is a strategy for preventing HIV that involves giving people a medication before they are exposed to the virus,” says Ho. “One of my first things [at Pitt] was to set up the PrEP clinic there.”
One of the first clinics in the nation to prescribe PrEP after its FDA approval in 2012, Ho’s trial started small: a handful of participants coming in once a month. As research into the drug expanded, though, Ho witnessed how quickly this new tool in the fight against HIV has entered the public consciousness.
“It was neat to see how that grew through the years, how public perceptions of PrEP changed over time. It started as a monthly clinic, then it became weekly, and now everyone at our clinic prescribes PrEP,” says Ho.
In line with his work with PrEP, Ho also serves as the lead researcher for the Pitt Men’s Study — the longest-running scientific study into the transmission and treatment of HIV. On top of all this, he collaborates with AIDS Free Pittsburgh.
“AIDS Free Pittsburgh is a collaborative of different organizations that have come together with the goal of reducing the number of new HIV cases in Allegheny County to zero,” says Ho. “While we haven’t gotten there yet, the rates of HIV over the last decade have dropped significantly in Allegheny County.”
Despite all this activity, Dr. Ho still keeps up regular teaching engagements, alongside his current schedule of clinical research. That research now finds itself in danger. President Donald Trump’s efforts to dramatically reduce the size of government have affected the National Institutes of Health, which provides medical research funding to institutions nationwide.
“It has been really hard from a professional standpoint. The impact on health care research, and how the NIH has been dismantled, has been devastating,” says Ho.
Fortunately, Ho’s clinical trials remain unaffected for now, and the Pitt Men’s Study is already funded through 2026. But the specter of state-sponsored homophobia looming over the community concerns Ho in more ways than one.
“The LGBTQ+ community, and especially the trans community, is very much in the crosshairs of this administration,” says Ho. “Being able to support that community is critical right now.”
Ho unexpectedly found a new way to support the LGBTQ+ community in 2018. His friend Bill Blansett invited him to a night out at Belvedere’s with a dancing group he founded called 412Step, an all-inclusive community of line dancers, two-steppers and waltzers.
“I showed up and saw all these people dancing really well, and I have no idea what they’re doing,” says Ho. “I got my feet wet and says ‘this is really fun!’”
By 2020, 412Step attracted 80 to 90 people every week, and Ho was a fixture of the scene. Then, COVID-19 struck, indefinitely postponing all indoor events. When restrictions finally lifted, 412Step had to rebuild that momentum from scratch, and Ho became part of the leadership that worked to make that happen.
“Some people would say, ‘this is one of the few spaces that I feel safe and accepted,’ and that really resonated with me,” says Ho. “We have to make sure we preserve this, do it more, and make it sustainable over time.”
Their efforts paid off; crowds at their Wednesday meetings blossomed larger than they were pre-pandemic.
“Now, we bring in 130 to 140 people a night. We have a presence in the community, and it’s become this wonderful thing that keeps me afloat when times are tough,” says Ho.
Ho knows from firsthand experience just how impactful and influential a community can be, and that’s the best piece of advice he can provide young queer Pittsburghers: find people with similar passions and make that community in your own backyard.
“Right now, the LGBTQ community feels more grassroots. You have smaller organizations banding together to create something bigger than themselves,” says Ho. “There was a time where it was about corporations and large organizations, and there’s a level of polish that comes with that, but we’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of us. It’s time to dig deep and work together doing something that matters.”
“Portraits of Pride” is a cooperative project produced jointly by QBurgh and NEXTpittsburgh.
