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DuPont Receives National Award
for Scientific Achievement
Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., professor and director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at The University of Texas School of Public Health, has been named the 2007 recipient of the Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).
The honor, presented March 21 at the NFID annual awards dinner in Arlington, Va., is given to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of infectious diseases or public health.
“He has, nearly single-handed, kept one step ahead of developing world-wide resistance in documenting the efficacy of antibiotics in the treatment and prevention of traveler’s diarrhea,” said Charles D. Ericsson, M.D., professor of medicine and head of Clinical Infectious Diseases at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
DuPont, the Mary W. Kelsey Professor of Medical Sciences at the UT Medical School, has described his approach to research in infectious diarrhea as linking laboratory research techniques to field population studies, taking him to Mexico, Peru, Egypt, Jamaica, Zambia, Kenya, Thailand and India. He has focused on the epidemiology, immunology, clinical features, prevention and therapy of diarrhea-causing diseases, which have long been a problem for civilian and military travelers who have no preexisting immunity.
His studies have shown that contaminated food is the main source of the bacterial agents responsible for up to 85 percent of travelers’ diarrhea. Contaminated water accounts for up to 10 to 20 percent of viral gastroenteritis. Between 50 and 70 percent of visitors to countries such as India and Kenya will suffer from diarrhea, and 45 percent will become incapacitated.
One of his most important studies showed that a semi-synthetic antibiotic, rifaximin, can be used to treat travelers’ diarrhea without creating future drug resistance. The drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004.
“We are very proud of the important research conducted by Dr. DuPont and very fortunate to have him serve as director of the Center for Infectious Diseases,” said UT School of Public Health Dean Guy S. Parcel, Ph.D.
After graduating from Emory University School of Medicine, DuPont first became interested in infectious diseases during his residency at the University of Minnesota from 1965-66. He became an epidemic intelligence officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late ’60s and then joined the faculty at the University of Maryland. He came to the UT Health Science Center at Houston in 1973 as a full professor and the first director of a new program in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology.
DuPont was one of the founders of the International Society of Travel Medicine and its first president. He was also a member of the board of the NFID from 1981 to 2002, serving as president from 1997-99. He is past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
By Deborah Mann Lake, Institutional Advancement