Mapping Success

^{Drs. Larry Danziger and Keith Rodvold}

Since 1996, Larry Danziger and Keith Rodvold have directed a section focused on infectious disease research, training and clinical service

A large U.S. map graces the wall of Larry Danziger’s first-floor office inside the UIC College of Pharmacy building. Dozens of small plastic flags protrude from the framed, earth-toned map, lining both coasts and peppering the U.S. heartland.

Each flag, Danziger explains, marks the current location of a former fellow from the College’s Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Section – one of the largest and longest-standing such fellowship programs in the U.S.

As Danziger stands alongside his College of Pharmacy colleague Dr. Keith Rodvold, with whom he founded the Section in 1996 and continues serving as its co-director, he beams about the contributions of the Section’s past fellows. Danziger tells of individuals working for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, major pharmaceutical industry players and various universities, including some of who have constructed academic programs modeled after the heralded UIC-based Section.

“For Keith and I, [the fellows] are like our children and we’re both so proud of all they’ve accomplished,” says Danziger, a professor of pharmacy practice.

Over the last 23 years, the Infectious Diseases Section – propelled by the enterprising spirit of those fellows as well as Danziger, Rodvold and a swelling group of faculty colleagues – has emerged a prominent player in the healthcare landscape by delivering education, clinical support and research to the University and an array of external partners. The Section has bolstered patient care, created a robust training program and highlighted the value pharmacists can bring to interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

Seizing momentum

In the mid-1990s, a time in which various other College faculty members were forming their own specific sections, Dr. Richard Hutchinson, then-head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, encouraged Danziger and Rodvold to formally merge their respective expertise in infectious diseases. Establishing a section, Hutchinson advised, would spark more collaborative, organized research around infectious diseases and inject fresh energy into the specialty field.

Though Danziger and Rodvold regularly worked together on training and research throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, they nevertheless remained independent, each maintaining his own group of postdocs and individual research directions. Creating a more formalized operating unit, however, streamlined their work and supercharged their efforts.

“Everything changed from that moment forward,” says Rodvold, who, like Danziger, is also a professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

In fact, there was a near-immediate surge in fellows, faculty collaboration and external partnerships. Danziger and Rodvold went from each having “one or two fellows” to six between them. The added capacity increased the scope of research and positioned the Section for exponential growth.

“Everything synergized,” Danziger says. “We had this tremendous spurt in research and training activity because we were representing a larger group.”

Early on, the Section established a strong relationship with Abbott Laboratories, with whom it helped develop multiple drug classes.

“That got people paying attention to us,” Danziger says of the Abbott collaboration. “And, frankly, that’s when we realized ourselves that people needed our expertise.”

Other partnerships soon followed – first of the local variety, including collaborations with Loyola University Medical Center, the Cook County Health and Hospitals System and other industry players before moving regionally, then nationally and, eventually, internationally. There was, for example, the creation of a national program for PharmD infectious disease fellows established in partnership with the University of Minnesota and Wayne State University as well as an eight-year drug development initiative with WHO.

These collaborations escalated the credibility of the Section and also provided the Section’s fellows a diverse array of compelling research opportunities. That, in turn, led to heightened competition for the Section’s fellowships.

“One day, we turned around and had trained 75 people,” Danziger jokes.

At the same time, additional faculty members from the College joined Danziger and Rodvold in the clinical realm. That spurred deep relationships with entities such as the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital, John H. Stroger Cook County Hospital, the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center and the Division of Infectious Diseases at UI Health.

“We were helping infectious disease doctors learn nuance and showing what a pharmacist trained in infectious diseases could do,” Danziger says.

As chair of Cook County Hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Robert Weinstein relished the opportunity to leverage the Section’s personnel, acumen and spirited focus.

“[The Section] had a great working knowledge of clinical and research pharmacology, while Larry and Keith, in particular, were great collaborators with excellent trainees interested in learning and working,” says Weinstein, who maintained a relationship with the Section as he moved onto leading Cook County Health’s Department of Medicine and serving as CORE Center’s chief operating officer.

For Danziger and Rodvold, the creation of a formalized section at the College energized their respective careers and enlivened the research, clinical and training elements of infectious disease pharmacy at UIC.

“Our department head was smarter than us,” Danziger says of Hutchinson. “He saw the value we could add.”

Charging into the future

Today, the Section’s mission remains unchanged from its 1996 founding – to carry out important research, clinical and training opportunities around infectious diseases – though it pursues that work on a much greater scope these days.

Indeed, the Section today extends far beyond Danziger and Rodvold and includes faculty who have pushed the Section into a number of notable areas, both clinical and research. To wit:

• Dr. Melissa Badowski and Dr. Thomas Chiampas lead the HIV Telemedicine Clinic that provides care to 26 facilities within the Illinois Department of Corrections system.
• Dr. Renata Smith, Dr. Sarah Michienzi and Dr. Rodrigo Burgos recently received an industry-sponsored grant to treat hepatitis C virus infection in populations with substance abuse and other social barriers.
• Dr. Eric Wenzler is investigating the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antimicrobials in both the in vitro and clinical arenas.
• Dr. Zackery Bulman’s lab is evaluating antibiotic combination therapy with in vitro infections models for treatment of multidrug-resistant bacteria.
• Dr. Gail Itokazu and Dr. Robert Glowacki provide clinical pharmacy services in infectious diseases at Cook County Hospital.
• Dr. Blake Max guides outpatient pharmacy services at the CORE Center for patients with HIV infections.

Also on the research front, the Section is involved in Phases I through IV clinical trials of existing and investigational antimicrobial compounds. The Microbiology Research Laboratory, which the Section launched and currently manages, continues exploring the activity of novel compounds and approaches to improve the use of both new and old antimicrobials as well as new pharmacotherapeutic options for the treatment of antibiotic resistant infections.

With an unrelenting and unapologetic belief in translational research, one sharpened by their early careers in clinical pharmacy, both Danziger and Rodvold steer much of the Section’s research toward work with real-world applications.

“All of our research is devoted to having an impact on patient care,” Rodvold confirms.

Inevitably, though, everything circles back to training and the educational focus both Danziger and Rodvold have long championed for the College’s fellows and students, of course, but also the greater healthcare field. Training, the longtime colleagues acknowledge, remains the ultimate ticket to a vigorous field and improved patient care.

At the College, Badowski, Smith and Chiampas have developed elective courses on topics such as case-based infectious diseases, management of the HIV patient, telemedicine in pharmacy practice and concepts in drug development, while Dr. Blake Max spearheaded the launch of the College’s Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in HIV Care course. Such conscientious training positions UIC’s pharmacy students and the Section’s fellows to be healthy contributors to a diverse array of organizations.

“[The Section] has a great record of taking excellent people and turning them into even greater professionals and that’s evident with where the past fellows are today,” Weinstein observes. “Fellows once rounding with us years ago are now the ones giving the conference keynotes.”

Beyond the College’s classrooms and labs, the Section ran an annual continuing education program focused on infectious diseases for Chicago area healthcare providers and also provided programming to pharmacists through the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center. In addition, Rodvold and two past fellows, Dr. Manjunath Pai and Dr. Paul Gubbins, served as co-editors of the fourth edition of the Drug Interactions in Infectious Diseases textbook, a primer for which Rodvold and another past fellow, Dr. Stephen Piscitelli, were founding co-editors.

“Advancing the field and training the next generation of infectious disease pharmacists was consistently top of mind for us,” Danziger reports. “We never got far away from that.”

Now, Danziger and Rodvold’s most pressing challenge is to see that the Section is well positioned for a long, stable future. To that end, the Section has integrated new faculty members such as Wenzler, Bulman and Michienzi to propel the Section’s future.

“Programs and people come and go, but we got momentum and kept building on it, adding as others were shrinking,” Rodvold says. “The hope is that continues well into the future.”

Danziger agrees.

“Whether its research, clinical or training, pharmacy can bring a lot to patient care and the healthcare field,” he says. “We’ve tried to show that time and again.”

A map in Danziger’s office reminds that the Section has accomplished just that and much more.