Member Spotlight: Gwenn Skar

Gwenn Skar, MD, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She earned her medical degree and completed her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious diseases fellowship all at UNMC. Her research lab at UNMC studies immune response and neurologic outcomes related to infections in the brain.

Dr. Skar is the newly seated chair of the Research Affairs Subcommittee. As such, she played a significant role in the evaluation and selection of PIDS SUMMERS scholars for 2024. She also served on the committee, including as vice chair, during the first two years of the SUMMERS program.

Why Pediatric ID? Some really great mentorship from PIDS members added to the series of steps that led me to pediatric ID. As a first-year medical student I heard Kari Simonsen give a talk about what pediatric ID was and I was very interested. I connected with her after that talk. She was very gracious in asking me to shadow her clinic during medical school, which was a tremendous experience.

All my training was done at Nebraska, so I got to continue working with her during my residency and she introduced me to other members of the peds ID division. And that, as well as through some research opportunities with Jessica Snowden, really got me hooked on peds ID.

Where have you taken your ID focus? I am really interested in improving the diagnosis and care of pediatric cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunt infections. My research program focuses on that from a basic science level and some translational and clinical studies. My focus really concentrates on those infections and general central nervous system infections are a clinical interest, as well.

What is a recent development in peds ID you are working on? I had an article published from this summer looking at better understanding the mechanisms of neurologic injuries that occur with pediatric CSF shunt infection, ‘C1q is elevated during chronic Staphylococcus epidermidis central nervous system catheter infection.’

My clinical interests and questions drive my research. As a fellow caring for a bunch of patients with shunt infections that were difficult to diagnose, we know those kids have a lot of neurologic morbidity associated with these infections. This paper really came about through trying to improve diagnosis and understand what is happening in the brain during CSF infections that lead to neurologic injury, and are there ways to intercede and decrease that from happening so that kids will have better outcomes when facing such an injury.

What do you enjoy most about being a PIDS member? What keeps you renewing your membership? Being involved with SUMMERS program has been the most rewarding part of my PIDS membership. Getting to be very involved in the selection over the past two summers, getting to watch all of the scholars present their work during the SUMMERS Culmination Day meetings has been special.

I feel like I had such great mentorship early in my peds ID career that really fostered my research interests and career. Working with SUMMERS is a way of passing that along. That is one of the things I love about our society. And I love that for the scholars, that they get to do research, meet great peds ID folks, and learn more about the careers available in peds ID. They are learning to be scientists and the ups and downs that come with being scientists.

I’ve also really enjoyed the camaraderie and interaction with peers that occurs on the Research Affairs Subcommittee and during St. Jude/PIDS Pediatric Infectious Diseases Research Conference, and opportunities like IDWeek. And on those rare occasions when we have a patient that needs to go back home and cross state lines, it’s great to know you have a colleague on the other end of the line you can reach out to and continue to be involved in helping that patient get the care they need.