Vance G. Fowler, Jr., MD, MHS
Photo: Vance G. Fowler

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Elected 2007
Vance Fowler’s research interest focuses on S. aureus clinical epidemiology and pathogenesis. He has approached this question using a combination of clinical epidemiology and laboratory investigation. Dr. Fowler created the Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia Group (SABG), a registry of clinical data, bacterial isolates, and patient DNA from ~2000 patients with S. aureus bacteremia. Using this resource, he addressed fundamental clinical questions involving Saureus bacteremia, including the risk of infectious complications and the importance of transesophageal echocardiography and the impact of bacterial characteristics on clinical outcome. Most recently, he is evaluating the role of host genetic characteristics in determining infection severity using a murine sepsis model and the patient DNA from the SABG cohort. He co-founded the International Collaboration on Endocarditis, a prospective cohort of over 3000 patients from 28 countries with endocarditis. Using this resource, he made the critical observation that S. aureus s is now the most common cause of endocarditis throughout much of the world. He has led important clinical trials testing new therapies for Saureus bacteremia, including a randomized, controlled trial comparing daptomycin to standard therapy.