David and Suzanne Thomas Endowed Lectureship
About
Established in 2022, the David & Suzanne Thomas Lectureship Fund honors the Thomas family.
Having joined Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1990 as an infectious diseases fellow, and now renowned internationally for his work in viral hepatitis epidemiology, comorbidities, and genetics, David L. Thomas, MD, MPH, FIDSA served as the 6th Division Director from 2006-2021. Suzanne Thomas (d. 2020), was a passionate advocate for global health, refugee rights, music, and education.
Dr. Thomas was promoted to Professor of Medicine in 2003, elected to the American Association of Physicians in 2011, and named the Stanhope Bayne-Jones Professor of Medicine in 2006. The Thomas family spent a year in Uganda in 2000, where Dave served as the Research Director of the Infectious Diseases Institute.
Dr. Thomas’s tenure as Division Director is marked by transformational growth. Under his leadership, the division’s clinical operations and research portfolio expanded to include more than 450 employees, took on emerging patient care and research challenges including transplant & oncology ID, COVID, and has become a global leader in HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections, antimicrobial-resistant and hospital acquired infections, and related issues.
Dedicated to career mentorship, Dr. Thomas is the 2019 recipient of the prestigious Walter E. Stamm Mentor Award, conferred by the Infectious Diseases Society of America in recognition of exemplary mentorship and professional guidance, and the 2021 recipient of the Susan M. MacDonald Sponsorship Award, conferred by the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine for active support and guidance for career advancement among women clinicians and scientists within the department.
The faculty, staff, and fellows of the Division of Infectious Diseases recognize and honor the Thomases for their commitment to and impact on patient health and equity globally, and for fostering curiosity, passion, and advancement among the lives they’ve touched.
Honored Speakers
2025 Keynote Speaker
Paul Sax, MD
Clinical Director, Division of Infectious Diseases
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Infectious Diseases
Dr. Paul E. Sax is Clinical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he holds the Bruce A. Beal and Robert L. Beal Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School, did his residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham, then fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Sax is the Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Infectious Diseases, the flagship journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). In addition, he is a Section Editor of HIV/AIDS in UpToDate, and on the Editorial Board of NEJM Journal Watch, where he writes a regular column called HIV and ID Observations. An internationally recognized clinician and clinical teacher in infectious diseases and HIV, Dr. Sax also has been actively involved in research. Ongoing areas of investigation include clinical trials of antiretroviral therapies, cost-effectiveness of strategies for HIV management, toxicity of antiretroviral therapy, and treatment and prevention of COVID-19.
2024 Keynote Speaker
Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA
Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Dr. Marrazzo is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she oversees a $6.3 billion budget that supports research to advance understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. She was previously the C. Glenn Cobbs Endowed Chair and Director of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and was Treasurer of the IDSA from 2021-2023, having served on the board since 2018.
Dr. Marrazzo researches the vaginal microbiome, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. She has had leadership roles in the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network and the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium. She was a leading voice in communicating science during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2023: Antimicrobial Resistance Symposium
Helen W. Boucher, MD, FACP, FIDSA
Dean and Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Chief Academic Officer, Tufts Medicine
Helen Boucher, MD, FACP, FIDSA is Dean and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Chief Academic Officer of the Tufts Medicine Health System. An active Infectious Diseases physician, she was previously Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, and Director of the Stuart B. Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (Levy CIMAR).
Dr. Boucher’s clinical interests include infections in immunocompromised patients and S. aureus infections. Her research interests focus on S. aureus and the development of new anti-infective agents. She is the Chair of the National Institutes of Health Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group Innovations Working Group and serves on the Executive and Steering Committees. Dr. Boucher is the author or coauthor of numerous abstracts, chapters, and peer-reviewed articles, which have been published in such journals as The New England Journal of Medicine, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and The Annals of Internal Medicine. She is Associate Editor of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and Editor of the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy, and Infectious Diseases Clinics of North America.
In 2015, Dr. Boucher was appointed a voting member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB), and elected Treasurer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). She was awarded the IDSA Society Citation Award in October 2015 and the Maxwell Finland Award in 2022. Dr. Boucher serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of The College of the Holy Cross.
2022: Hepatitis C: The End of the Beginning and Perhaps the Beginning of the End
Harvey J. Alter, MD
2020 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine for Contributions to the Discovery of the Hepatitis C Virus
Harvey J. Alter, has been designated a Distinguished NIH Investigator, only one of 23 NIH scientists to hold that distinction. In his long career in clinical research, Dr. Alter has played a key role in the discovery of two hepatitis viruses, namely hepatitis B virus (HBV) and the non-A, non-B virus, later designated the hepatitis C virus (HCV). In long-term prospective studies, Alter helped define the natural history of NANB/HCV infection and proved its frequent progression to chronic hepatitis and its evolution to cirrhosis and liver related mortality.
Dr. Alter was principal investigator in sequential prospective studies of transfusion-associated hepatitis (TAH) that were instrumental in influencing national blood policy and documented the progressive decline of TAH incidence from 33% in the 1960s to near zero in 1997. Millions of cases of TAH have been prevented through interventions documented in these studies.
For these studies, Dr. Alter has been awarded the PHS Distinguished Service Medal, the AABB Landsteiner Prize, the First International Medal for Science from France’s INSERM, the American College of Physicians (ACP) Award for Outstanding Work in Science, and the Distinguished Achievement Award of AASLD.
For his cumulative research accomplishments, Dr. Alter was elected to fellowship in the American Association of Physicians and received the prestigious Clinical Lasker Award and the Canada Gairdner International Award. He was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and achieved Master status in the ACP. In 2020, Alter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.