Inside Duke Medicine
Duke investigator wins prestigious medical research award
posted May 4th, 2011Vance G. Fowler, M.D., associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, is this year’s winner of the major award from the American Federation for Medical Research, the AFMR Outstanding Investigator Award. He, like previous winners, was selected because he has completed investigative work that has provided innovative insight and significantly impacted a major scientific or clinical problem. In Dr. Fowler’s case, he is internationally known for outstanding clinical and translational research on Staphylococcus aureus.
"I am honored to receive this award,” Fowler said. “It is especially humbling to see the list of previous of recipients, which reads like an academic "Who's Who."
Any scientist who has performed significant research in a clinical or scientific field is eligible, and must be 45 years old or younger upon presentation of the award.
Fowler, who won the award plus the prize of $5,000, has been a leader in the study of susceptibility to pathogens. His research focuses on the question, “What makes some patients with bacterial disease in their blood do poorly while others do well?”
While an intern, Dr. Fowler created the Staph aureus Bacteremia Group, one of the largest biorepositories of bacterial isolates and human DNA from patients with S. aureus bacteremia. Discoveries arising from this resource have changed the standard of care for the treatment of patients with S. aureus bacteremia, and he has shed light on infective endocarditis worldwide.
His studies of Staphylococcus aureus recently yielded fruit, when mouse studies that had taken place over several years yielded the three chromosomes that held susceptibility-associated genes. He conducted the first genomewide association study with patients who have S. aureus bacteremia. His next project is to learn which genes do matter in terms of human susceptibility to these infections, so that patient care can improve accordingly.