George Drusano, M.D.

DRUSANOGeorge L. Drusano, M.D.
Professor
Director, Institute for Therapeutic Innovation
Department of Medicine

Institute for Therapeutic Innovation
6550 Sanger Road
Orlando, FL 32827
gdrusano@ufl.edu
407.313.7060 (ofc)
518.281.7170 (mobile)

Computational Infection Biology Laboratory

Bacterial and Fungal Antimicrobial Pharmacodynamics (PD) and Resistance Prevention Laboratory

Click here for the CV.

 

Degree/Program

Institution

Field/Specialty

Fellowship University of Maryland Hospital Infectious Diseases
M.D. University of Maryland School of Medicine Medicine
BS Boston College Physics

Background

Dr. George L. Drusano is Director of the Institute for Therapeutic Innovation of the University of Florida. After graduating magna cum laude, ΦΒΚ from the Honors Program at Boston College, Dr. Drusano graduated cum laude, ΑΩΑ from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He completed his medical internship and residency at the University of Maryland Hospital, where he was Chief Medical Resident. He was also a Fellow in Medicine in Infectious Diseases at that institution.

Dr. Drusano is a reviewer for prestigious peer-reviewed journals, including Science-Translational Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Medicine, Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, and Antiviral Research. He was also editor of the section of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics for Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy for 10 years. He finished two terms as an Editor for mBio. He is the author of over 339 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, AIDS, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Dr. Drusano is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. On the national level, Dr. Drusano was a member of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapeutics (ICAAC) Program Committee and the IDSA Program Committee. He has served on multiple National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Review Groups. He has served as an ad hoc member of NIAID Council on two occasions to support issues regarding emergence of bacterial resistance. He also serves as a consultant to NIAID and CDC on Biodefense issues. In 2010, he was Chair of the Gordon Conference on New Antimicrobial Discovery and Development. He has been named to the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), supported by WHO. He has won a number of awards, including being named Distinguished Investigator of the Year (2003) by the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. He was named recipient of the Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement for 2012 from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He was named the recipient of the Cubist-ICAAC award for 2013 from the American Society for Microbiology. He was awarded the Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Award in 2015. Most recently, he was a recipient of a University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship (May, 2018).

An active researcher, Dr. Drusano has focused on mathematical modeling and the pharmacodynamics of anti-infective chemotherapy, especially the pharmacodynamics of anti-tuberculosis agents, MDR/XDR nosocomial pathogens, multiple anti-viral agents and the therapy of biodefense pathogens. He originally described cutting-edge mathematical models to identify drug doses, schedules and combination regimens to suppress resistance emergence. He has been awarded a Program Project Grant from NIAID “Choosing Drug Doses for Biodefense Pathogens”, R01’s from NIAID for “Resistance Suppression for P. aeruginosa using Novel Combination Therapy Modeling”, Optimizing Combination Therapy for Hepatitis C virus with pharmacodynamic models and an R01 for drug development “Optimization of Neoglycoside Antibiotics for Nosocomial Pathogens and Select Agents”. Most recently, he was awarded a P01 from NIAID “Optimizing Combination Therapy to Accelerate Clinical Cure of Tuberculosis”.

Research Interests

  • Drug pharmacology and response
  • Multiple model adaptive control/Stochastic optimal sampling
  • Modeling of antiviral chemotherapy
  • Basic mechanisms of emergence of resistance for bacteria and HIV

Professional Societies/Memberships

  • Fellow, Infectious Diseases Society of America
  • Member, American Federation for Clinical Research

Awards/Recognition

2018: Recipient, University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship

2015: Recipient, Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Award from Paracelsus University, Nurnberg, Germany

2013: Recipient, Cubist-ICAAC Award from the American Society for Microbiology

2012: Recipient, Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Excellence from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases

2010: Communicating Chair Gordon Conference “New Antibacterial Drug Discovery and Development”

2009: Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology

2003: Distinguished Investigator, American College of Clinical Pharmacology

2003-2007: Executive Committee, International Society of Chemotherapy

2000-2002: President, International Society for Anti-Infective Pharmacology

1999: Japanese Society of Chemotherapy, Plenary Lecture

1998: Drug Therapy Research Award for an outstanding contribution to the scientific pharmaceutical literature, American Society of Health System Pharmacy Research and Education Foundation

1991: Rhone-Poulenc Award at International Congress of Chemotherapy, Berlin, most innovative research with fluoroquinolones

University of Maryland School of Medicine: Cum Laude, Alpha Omega Alpha

Boston College: Scholar of the College of Arts and Sciences, Honors Program, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa

 

Publications