Dr. William A. Petri (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
Reprinted from UVA Today (“Egelman, Kron, Petri Named UVA’s 2016 Distinguished Scientists,” by Fariss Samarrai, 10/3/16)
Three of the University of Virginia’s top researchers – biochemist Ed Egelman, cardiovascular surgeon and scientist Dr. Irving Kron, and infectious disease physician and investigator Dr. William Petri – are being recognized by the University as 2016 Distinguished Scientists.
The annual award was created several years ago by the Office of the Vice President for Research to recognize faculty members who have made influential and longtime contributions to the University’s research enterprise in the sciences, medicine and engineering.
Egelman, Kron and Petri will be honored soon during a dinner reception at the Colonnade Club.
“They have produced remarkable breakthroughs in their respective fields – thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, structure and function of macromolecular complexes, and the molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis of parasitic infection,” Phillip Parrish, interim vice president for research, said. “They each have distinguished themselves at UVA and in their international research communities, and they have had significant impact throughout their careers with respect to scientific discovery and societal good.”
Each year, the vice president for research invites faculty members and department chairs to nominate senior science and engineering faculty for the Distinguished Scientist Awards. A panel of faculty peers then judge the nominees. The criteria: publications, awards and commentary from expert peers beyond the University, based upon the quality of the research in a given field and its importance to society.
The winners each receive a $10,000 grant to further their research.
More about Dr. Petri
William A. Petri, Jr., holds the Wade Hampton Frost Professorship and is chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health. He earned his PhD in microbiology in 1980 and his MD in 1982, both at UVA , and, following an internal medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University, returned to the University in 1985 as an infectious diseases fellow. He subsequently joined the ID faculty.
Dr. Petri is a pioneer and leader in the study of intestinal infections and their effects on the health of children. He is the most highly cited investigator in the world on amebiasis, a leading cause of diarrhea in children in the developing world. He discovered how the parasite evades the human immune system, and how it nibbles cells to death as it invades the intestine. He has conducted his investigations in both the lab and in field studies with children in Bangladesh, and has published more than 400 papers, reviews and chapters, and co-wrote a major text on medical parasitology.
His work earned the Oswald Avery Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Petri is the past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and a fellow with the American Academy of Microbiology.
Petri has “defined most of what is understood about amebiasis in children,” said his nominator, Dr. Richard Guerrant, professor of internal medicine and founding director of UVA’s Center for Global Health.
Petri developed a now FDA-approved diagnostic test to detect the parasite that causes the infection, and later, with significant funding from NIH, developed a vaccine program. The research has drawn notable funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for studies into childhood malnutrition, poliovirus and rotavirus vaccination, and development of new diagnostic tests for the developing world.
“[Petri’s] extraordinary 30 years of unsurpassed dedication, hard work and seminal research with unprecedented NIH and Gates Foundation funding in infectious diseases and global health are directly relevant to solving major health problems of those in greatest need,” Guerrant said.
Filed Under: Notable Achievements
Tags: Awards, DOM, ID, Infectious Diseases & International Health