The Department of Medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine hosted the 2015 William Allen Tisdale Lecture at Medical Grand Rounds on Friday, December 4, 2015. Featured speaker Martin Blaser, M.D., professor of medicine and microbiology and director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University, presented on “Disappearing Microbiota and Modern Diseases."
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, Blaser is a physician and microbiologist who is interested in gaining a better understanding about the relationships humans have with the persistently colonizing bacteria that live in their bodies. His work over the past 30 years has focused on human pathogens, including Campylobacter species and Helicobacter pylori, which also are model systems for understanding interactions of residential bacteria with their human hosts. For more than 10 years, Blaser has been studying the relationship of the human microbiome to health and such important diseases as asthma, obesity, diabetes, and allergies.
The author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues (Henry Holt & Co., 2014), Blaser has played an active role in a number of national scientific and professional organizations. He has served as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, and chair of the Advisory Board for Clinical Research of the National Institutes of Health. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and was elected to the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. In addition, he has served as the advisor for numerous students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, holds 24 U.S. patents relating to his research, and is the author of more than 500 original articles.
About the Tisdale Lecture
Named for former Department of Medicine Chair William Allen Tisdale, M.D., who passed away in 2006, the Tisdale Lecture Series aims to enhance the Medical Grand Rounds Conference by bringing national and international leaders who are involved in relevant and cutting-edge translational research. Tisdale graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1951, then, after serving as a medical officer in the Korean conflict, completed a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He went on to complete a research fellowship at Yale University, where he became instructor in medicine and received the Francis Gilman Blake award for excellence in teaching in 1959. He returned to Harvard as instructor and research fellow, followed by a brief stint as professor of medicine and director of medical education at the formerly-named Dartmouth Medical School. He came to Burlington in 1965 as chair of the Department of Medicine, a position he held until 1974. He was honored as Teacher of the Year in 1985 and was awarded Professor Emeritus upon his retirement in 1994. The Tisdale Lecture Series was funded in his honor in 1995.