Member Spotlight: Jeff Gerber

Jeff Gerber, MD, PhD, FPIDS, is Werner and Gertrude Henle Endowed Chair in Pediatrics in the Division Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Associate Chief Clinical Research Officer of the CHOP Research Institute and Senior Scholar within the Penn Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Dr. Gerber graduated from the combined MD/PhD program at Temple University School of Medicine, and completed both his pediatrics residency and infectious diseases fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Gerber is a newly elected member of the PIDS Board of Directors. He is a former Associate Editor for the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, co-Chair of the Pediatric Committee on Antimicrobial Stewardship, and recipient of the 2016 Caroline B. Hall Award for a Clinically Innovative Research Paper.

Why pediatric ID? I wish I could say there was some “aha!” moment, but it was a gradual process. I got my first dose of real science working at the NIH before medical school, where, studying T4 phage transcription, I realized research was the path I wanted to follow. That led me to choosing an MD/PhD program, and in medical school I became interested in microbiology and immunology and exploring the host response to infection. The field of cellular and molecular immunology was exploding at the time, and I was hooked.  

Initially, I was thinking internal medicine—the mastery and critical thinking I observed from our teaching attendings were incredible. After I did my pediatrics rotation, I realized that this was basically internal medicine but better. And because infections are so fundamental to pediatric medicine, everything sort of gelled together from there. The opportunity to combine research with this clinical specialty just made a lot of sense for me. I guess it was a fit because, through both medical school and clinical rotations, I realized that ID folks were my people.

Where have you taken your ID focus? My research has focused largely on antimicrobial stewardship. Although I initially trained in basic science, my experiences during residency and fellowship led me to transition to clinical research, ranging from pharmacoepidemiology to clinical trials. What I truly like to do is use clinical epidemiological research methods to figure out when we should use antibiotics and, when we should, how best to use them. The next step is figuring out how to convince people to follow those recommendations.

When you make any type of discovery or incremental contribution to the field, it often takes years to get people to change their practice, if ever. To help mitigate this, a lot of my work involves partnering with those who are experts in implementation science and studying not only patients but also the physicians, nurse practitioners, and others who are making prescribing decisions. It’s really fun and gratifying team science. After that, it’s important to try to influence policy. In addition to working on local clinical pathways, I’ve enjoyed partnering with groups like PIDS, AAP, SHEA, and IDSA to help shape guidelines and clinical reports to influence care.

What is a recent development in pediatric ID that you are working on? I’m part of a team of six faculty at CHOP called IDEAS, which stands for Infectious Diseases, Epidemiology, Antimicrobial Stewardship. We are all pediatric ID clinicians who do some version of clinical research in those areas, including healthcare-associated infections, infections in immunocompromised hosts, and antimicrobial stewardship across ambulatory, inpatient, and critical care populations. It is a fun group of investigators who all lead their own projects but also collaborate extensively. We work with a talented and dedicated team of research assistants, study coordinators, biostatisticians, bioinformaticians, and other experts who are the engine behind all we do. Because pediatric ID is a relatively small field, having so many physician-scientists and our teams in one building makes it fun, gratifying and productive.

What do you enjoy most about being a PIDS member? What keeps you renewing your membership? The mission is great and the people even greater. I’ve yet to find anyone involved with PIDS who isn’t smart, dedicated, and truly motivated to make a difference in the lives of kids. It’s hard not to get behind something like that. The society’s in a great position to address the current challenges of making kids healthier while training the next generation. The mentorship opportunities and programming we offer trainees have been super exciting. For example, I’ve been able to participate in the SUMMERS program for the past two years, mentoring a medical student interested in pediatric ID. This terrific new program provides the infrastructure and financial support for trainees to attend and present their work at the St. Jude/PIDS conference, IDWeek, and other conferences. This is critical to help prepare and inspire the next generation of clinicians, researchers, educators, and policy makers of our specialty. I’m excited, honored and humbled to try and serve and give back to a society I have benefitted so much from being a PIDS member. I’m really looking forward to getting started with the board.