FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  AUG. 4, 2006

GALVESTON, Texas — One of the nation’s foremost infectious-disease investigators, Miriam Alter, has joined the faculty of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB).

Alter comes to Galveston after 25 years at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where she directed epidemiological investigations within the Division of Viral Hepatitis of the National Center for Infectious Diseases. She has been named the inaugural holder of UTMB’s Robert E. Shope Distinguished Professorship in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and will lead the development of a new program on infectious-disease epidemiology within the university’s Institute for Human Infections and Immunity (IHII).

Epidemiology is the branch of medical science that deals with the incidence, distribution and control of disease in a population. 

Alter’s recruitment was supported by a $1.25 million STAR Award from the University of Texas System, which will be used to establish a molecular epidemiology core laboratory at UTMB.

“We’re delighted and honored to have succeeded in attracting so distinguished an authority as Dr. Alter to UTMB,” said Dean of Medicine Valerie Parisi, “and to have won such coveted support from the UT System for this crucial addition to our stellar infectious disease programs,”

Added Stanley M. Lemon, director of the IHII: “Dr. Alter’s work at the CDC has been internationally recognized for her many scientific contributions to the epidemiology and control of blood-borne infections, especially hepatitis B and C, and her role in producing public-health policy recommendations on immunization, lab testing, and infection control. Her unique expertise will be crucial to achieving the full potential of UTMB’s infectious-disease programs and the coming Galveston National Laboratory. We also expect her to contribute substantially to our National Institutes of Health-funded Center for Hepatitis Research, as well as the continued excellence of UTMB’s infection control and hospital epidemiology activities.”

Alter holds appointments in UTMB’s departments of Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Community Health. She sees her new job as bridging those disciplines and building a program that will add a new dimension to current UTMB strengths in the ecology of emerging infectious diseases, molecular virology and defense against bioterrorism.

“The basic science here is outstanding, and one of my primary goals is to strengthen the connection between researchers and the health of the community,” Alter said. “It really doesn’t matter what disease you’re talking about, the methods of epidemiology are essential to giving you insights into its origins, spread and possible means of prevention — results that can be translated into immediate benefits for human health.”

Alter originally trained for a career as a clinical nurse, but “fell in love with epidemiology,” she said, after taking a CDC training course in applied epidemiology as preparation for building a hospital infection control program. That passion led her to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University and drove her to ignore the advice of professors who told her that at the time—the mid-1970s—infectious-disease research was a dead end because funding had dried up. On her own, she obtained an FDA grant to study what was then known as “non-A, non-B hepatitis,” and is today called hepatitis C — a liver–destroying disease that currently affects 3.2 million Americans and back then was spreading quietly through blood transfusions and intravenous drug use, as well as accidental needlesticks in health-care settings and high-risk sexual behavior.

Alter continued her viral hepatitis research after joining the CDC, where she designed and carried out the first community-based study to follow the progression of illness among people newly infected with the hepatitis C virus. The study revealed for the first time the chronic nature of most hepatitis C virus infections. The author of a definitive series of epidemiological studies on the natural history and mechanisms of transmission of hepatitis B and C, Alter also served as the CDC’s main liaison to national and international groups created to deal with the problems posed by the viruses: finding ways to screen blood supplies, develop better diagnostic techniques, anti-viral agents and vaccines, and both manage disease in infected people and prevent the spread of the virus to uninfected populations.

In 2005, the American Public Health Association recognized Alter’s achievements at the CDC when it presented her with its John P. Snow Award for “distinguished service to the health of the public through contributions to epidemiology.” Alter received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Blood Banks in 1999 and an appointment to the Senior Biomedical Research Service at the CDC in 1997 for her outstanding contributions to public health. Alter has also received four James H. Nakano Citations from the CDC for outstanding scientific papers published in 1996, 1997, 2002 and 2005, as well as the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service in 1998 for her team’s investigation of a multi-state outbreak of hepatitis A.

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