Friday ID Conference: “Staphylococcus aureus: Lessons Learned from 20 Years with the Persistent Pathogen”

Vance Fowler, Jr., MD, MHS, is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center.

Dr. Fowler’s research focuses on the question, “What makes some patients with bacteremia do poorly while others do well?” In order to approach this question, he has generated and continues to generate large prospective cohorts of patients with bacteremia due to gram positive (S. aureus) and gram negative (enterobacteriacea) organisms. In addition to clinical data, the corresponding bloodstream isolate, and patient DNA and serum are being catalogued from patients with bacteremia due to both gram positive and negative pathogens. Because of the increasing frequency and antibiotic resistance of bacterial infections, these pathogens will remain an important topic of patient-oriented research for many years to come.

Dr. Fowler’s immediate objective is to identify important determinants of poor clinical outcome in patients with S. aureus bacteremia, utilizing a consecutive cohort of ~1000 patients and corresponding bloodstream isolates collected over the past seven years. In addition, identifying important determinants of poor clinical outcome also requires the use of our bacterial isolates to evaluate the role of virulence factors in S. aureus infection. Identification of these determinants could eventually result in a facile and cost-efficient way to help identify patients at risk for severe metastatic infection, thereby affecting clinical management.

Refreshments will be served.

About Friday ID Conference

The Division of Infectious Diseases, Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, and Center for AIDS Research at UNC co-sponsor a weekly conference series which features distinguished clinicians and scientists from UNC, local universities, and other national and international institutions. The topics are varied and appeal to not only infectious disease specialists, but also professionals in epidemiology, public health, microbiology, biostatistics and other global health-related disciplines.

The conference takes place every Friday, September through June, from 8:30-9:30 a.m. in 1131 Bioinformatics (first floor auditorium) on the UNC campus. For more information, or to suggest a speaker, please contact the conference coordinator, Kathy James.  To sign-up to receive weekly announcements of the conference, click here.