Member Spotlight: Gabriela Maron

Gabriela Maron, MD, MS, is an Associate Member of the Infectious Diseases Department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She is currently the Director of Infectious Diseases – Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy at St. Jude.

Dr. Maron received her MD in her home country of El Salvador, where she also completed pediatrics residency and served as Chief Resident. For her pediatric infectious disease training she joined the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center – St. Jude Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship program. During this time, she also earned a master’s in clinical epidemiology at the University of Tennessee.

Since joining the St. Jude Faculty in 2013, Dr. Maron has worked predominantly with BMTCT patients.  Her goal is to improve outcomes in this population through evidence based clinical care and research. She is interested in the epidemiology of infections, and determining he best ways to diagnose, prevent and treat infections in children undergoing transplant and cellular therapy.

PIDS has been an important part of Dr. Maron’s career. The St. Jude/PIDS annual conference was a highlight of her fellowship, where she felt inspired by the lectures and research. It was her goal to submit an abstract each year, recognizing this meeting as an outstanding learning environment for fellows.

In 2015, she was fortunate to join a group of PIDS specialists whose goal was to increase the visibility of this Transplant ID through education and research. Since then, she has served in the organizing committee for the yearly Transplant and Immunocompromised Symposium at the St. Jude/PIDS conference. Dr. Maron enjoys working with other PIDS members to make this meeting relevant and interesting to clinicians, researchers, and trainees and get people excited about Transplant ID! One of her favorite parts is the clinical cases presentations, from which she has learned so much from fellows and faculty at other institutions.

Dr. Maron is also part of the Transplant Infectious Diseases Research Subcommittee of which she is currently Co-Chair. The goal of the subcommittee is to promote research in Transplant ID. The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Transplant Network (PIDTRAN) is part of this effort and has so far led to published multicenter research and has ongoing research efforts. The network is open to all institutions across the U.S. and aims to be inclusive.

Dr. Maron is excited about the growing field of Transplant ID and hopes to continue to advance it through research and education. She hopes that other Peds ID specialists and trainees join this exciting and important effort through PIDS.