DIVISION
Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
On This Page
The Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology is committed to providing high-quality and patient-centered clinical care, innovating in medical education to ensure future leaders in infectious diseases, conducting high-quality research, and creating an intellectually exciting, diverse and supportive environment in which to work.
Welcome to the Division of Infectious Diseases
Education in Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
The Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology is committed to the education of students, residents, fellows, faculty and the community. The training and education programs offer a number of clinical and scientific opportunities to support the next generation of infectious diseases physicians and encourage ongoing growth of faculty members in an innovative and supportive environment. The division provides formal and informal teaching through faculty involvement with the College of Medicine MD degree core curriculum and public health graduate programs. Division members also support teaching efforts at the Penn State Eberly College of Science and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
The division provides education through clinical training programs and facilitates popular medical student and internal medicine infectious diseases elective rotations in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. Under the leadership of fellowship program director Tonya Crook, MD, and associate program director David Ingram, DO, the division is also home to an ACGME-accredited fellowship program that admits two fellows per year.
Faculty members understand the importance of engaging the community in education activities. They frequently participate in media outreach, high school education programs, and community Q&A forums to provide central Pennsylvania with reliable and timely infectious diseases education.
Of paramount importance to the division is providing faculty an environment where ongoing learning is encouraged and supported. The division hosts two Internal Medicine Grand Rounds per year, bringing national infectious diseases leaders to Penn State College of Medicine. It also supports faculty, fellows and designated support staff with a stipend and protected time for continuing medical education.
Infectious Diseases Fellowship
Research in Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
The Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology faculty are actively engaged in innovative research supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Global Health Innovative Technology Fund, and other federal and non-federal sponsors. From 2020-2022, division faculty published over 50 manuscripts and abstracts in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including 15 manuscripts involving trainees.
The division performs a range of activities from basic and translational science to large, multi-site interventional clinical trials. Areas of division expertise include viral structure and cryoEM reconstruction techniques, diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for vector borne diseases, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the assembly of retrovirus particles, comprehending the role of substance use disorder in infectious diseases, optimizing the care of individuals living with HIV and hepatitis C, providing research opportunities for patients who have undergone solid organ or bone marrow transplant, developing and directing a comprehensive Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, assessing antimicrobial dosing strategies, leading pivotal COVID-19 therapeutics trials, and understanding post-COVID-19 sequelae.
Division faculty are integral to the research mission at Penn State College of Medicine and serve in research leadership roles within the College of Medicine and as national experts on study sections and research planning groups.
Research Labs
Current Studies
View active infectious diseases clinical trials in StudyFinder, our searchable database of clinical research taking place at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine.
Contact Us
To contact the Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, email DivisionofInfectiousDiseases@pennstatehealth.psu.edu or call 717-531-8881. Follow the division on Twitter at PennStateID.
Open Clinical Studies
Sponsors and Collaborators: University of Minnesota, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Site Principle Investigator: Catharine I. Paules, MD
ID Division investigators: Catharine I. Paules, MD, Rezhan Hussein, MD, Kathleen Julian, MD
Lead study coordinator: Michael Klemick, BS
This study is for people in the hospital with COVID-19 and will assess an investigational anti-viral (S-217622, an anti-SARS-CoV2 3C-like protease inhibitor). The study design is a randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-center international clinical trial that will evaluate the clinical efficacy of S-217622 when added to standard of care therapies.
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05605093
For more information on this study, please contact: Dr. Paules at 717-531-8881 (or via Tiger Text) or lead study coordinator Michael Klemick at 717-531-0003, ext. 282268 (or via Tiger Text).
Research Leadership
Leslie Parent, MD
Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Penn State College of Medicine
Clinical Care in Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology
Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology faculty manage complicated infections thoroughly and with compassion in both the inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as by utilizing telehealth options. The general infectious diseases faculty have a broad range of expertise including COVID-19 and other respiratory virus infections, skin and soft tissue infections, cardiac device infections, blood stream infections, infections related to complicated wounds, tick-borne infections, travel-related infections and tuberculosis.
Specialized services provide comprehensive and collaborative care for infections related to transplant or cancer, and bone and joint infections. Members of the division are leaders in the care of persons living with HIV, and the division receives key funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. The division also supports a robust outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy program, which allows patients with complex infections to avoid prolonged hospitalization by receiving parenteral antimicrobial therapies at home.
In addition, division faculty provide leadership for health system and public health-oriented services including antimicrobial stewardship, hospital epidemiology and infection prevention, Employee Health and bio-preparedness initiatives.
Other Institutional Roles
Antimicrobial Stewardship Program
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) is a quality initiative that began in 2011, after extensive discussions with clinicians and endorsement by the Penn State College of Medicine dean and Medical Staff Executive Committee (including the chairs of all clinical departments). The primary goals of the ASP are to improve the care of individual patients and to limit the rates of resistant bacteria and Clostridioides difficile.
Each year, Adult and Pediatric ASPs (the latter began in 2014) work to optimize antibiotic usage for thousands of patients through the review of computer-generated alerts, daily ASP rounds and many other activities. In 2018, with the support of hospital administration and clinicians, Penn State College of Medicine was one of the first 25 institutions in the country to be named an Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a designation that was renewed at the end of 2020.
Team Leadership
Michael Katzman, MD, is Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program.
Bio-preparedness
Preparedness for infectious diseases outbreaks is a key goal of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology. In response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which led to multiple cases of Ebola in the United States, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center started an interdisciplinary training effort between both clinical and non-clinical staff and the infectious diseases team in collaboration with the Emergency Management and Business Continuity Department. Designation as an Ebola Treatment Center was received in January 2015 after evaluations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The institution received a 5-year grant to help jump-start the program and Penn State Health has continued to invest in the program beyond the grant, including major construction projects designed to provide isolation spaces for patients with highly contagious infectious diseases. As part of this effort, a “Special Pathogens Team” was formed to assist in the event of a patient suspected of or identified as having a highly infectious disease. This team was integral in leading the institutional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to prepare for future outbreaks.
Team Leadership
Employee Health
The Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology is committed to providing support for Penn State Health employees through leadership roles in employee health. Two infectious diseases faculty serve as medical directors for Employee Health: Rezhan Hussein, MD, and Rashmi Banjade, MD. Robert Aber, MD, also played a key role as an interim medical director during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The division has been responsible for reviewing and updating Employee Health protocols to ensure they reflect national recommendations and any updated primary literature. In addition, in collaboration with an Employee Health advanced practice provider and Employee Health nurses, the division oversees advice given to employees about vaccination, exposures to tuberculosis and after needlestick injuries, and clearance for mask fit testing in certain cases. Particularly during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the division supported Employee Health efforts to ensure availability of rapid and reliable COVID-19 testing, helped to develop quarantine and isolation policies, and assisted with processes for access to vaccines and therapeutics. These efforts have been critical for employees’ safety and health.
Team Leadership
Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention
The concentration of those people most vulnerable to infection from the communities that the division serves is greatest within the walls of Penn State Health hospitals. The team of Penn State Health hospital epidemiologists and infection preventionists includes longtime advocates for patient and employee safety in this unique setting. Collaborations are sought with staff and clinical and administrative leadership to identify opportunities to reduce risk of infections. For example, infection preventionists have supported the development of protocols to discontinue invasive catheters when no longer essential to medical care, to improve disinfection of multi-use medical equipment, and to administer decolonization treatments for the purpose of decreasing the burden of MRSA and other pathogens. Infection preventionists regularly conduct surveillance for hospital-acquired infections and investigate signals that may indicate outbreaks (e.g., of COVID-19) or emergence of highly drug-resistant pathogens (e.g., metallo-beta-lactamase-producing E. coli). Hospital epidemiologists are strongly supportive of studies by medical trainees and infection preventionists to document investigations of outbreaks, analyze the burden of hospital-acquired infections, and assess infection prevention interventions.
Team Leadership
