Oswald Avery Award
The Oswald Avery Award for Early Achievement recognizes outstanding achievement in an area of infectious diseases by an IDSA member or fellow who is 45 or younger (on Dec. 31 of the year preceding the IDWeek at which the award is given). The award is based on overall achievement, not usually a single study.
Oswald Avery, MD, (1877-1955) was an American physician and researcher renowned for his groundbreaking work in genetics and molecular biology. He is best known for his experiments conducted in the 1940s, which demonstrated that DNA carries genetic information and can transfer traits between different organisms. His work laid the foundation for the understanding of DNA as the hereditary material and paved the way for the subsequent discoveries in the field of genetics.
Awardee
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Pranita Tamma, MD, MHS
Pranita Tamma, MD, MHS, is recognized as an international leader in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with gram-negative infections, particularly those exhibiting antimicrobial resistance. She is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Tamma has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles that have significantly advanced the field of AMR.
Examples of her practice-changing work include conducting the first comparative effectiveness study establishing increased mortality with the use of piperacillin-tazobactam for the treatment of ESBL bloodstream infections; identifying cefepime as a preferred treatment option for AmpC-producing Enterobacterales infections; defining the optimal duration of therapy for gram-negative bloodstream infections, including those caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales; and demonstrating improved clinical outcomes with extended-infusion beta-lactam therapy for AMR infections. She led a highly cited review investigating the role of combination antibiotic therapy — changing the long-standing practice of routinely adding aminoglycosides to beta-lactam therapy for the treatment of invasive gram-negative infections.
Additionally, Dr. Tamma actively conducts translational research to investigate novel mechanisms of AMR in gram-negative organisms. For example, she led the first report of a United States patient with an invasive Escherichia coli infection exhibiting resistance to all available beta-lactam antibiotics, in large part due to the presence of a four-amino acid duplication in PBP3, essentially inactivating a key target site of multiple antibiotics. She led several studies uncovering diverse acquired resistance of resistance by Enterobacterales and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the antibiotic cefiderocol. Her investigations have advanced our understanding of “hot spots” in the bacterial genome of P. aeruginosa prone to amino acid substitutions translating to resistance to several cephalosporin-based antibiotics.
Dr. Tamma is currently leading two large federally funded clinical trials: one investigating the role of phage therapy in reducing the bacterial burden of P. aeruginosa and the second comparing the clinical outcomes of patients with gram-negative bloodstream infections randomized to intravenous or early oral antibiotic therapy.
Additionally, Dr. Tamma is the lead author of the IDSA Guidance on the Treatment of Antimicrobial-Resistant Gram-Negative Infections, is an editor at Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, is one of 12 international voting members of the Clinical Laboratory and Standards Institute Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing Subgroup and is a voting member of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group’s Gram-Negative Resistance Committee. Dr. Tamma is very passionate about mentoring and has mentored over 40 junior faculty, fellows, residents and medical students. She describes mentoring as one of the most enjoyable parts of her job.
Finally, Dr. Tamma actively treats children with infectious diseases in both the inpatient and outpatient setting and has been awarded numerous teaching awards from medical students, housestaff, fellows and colleagues at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
IDSA is pleased to recognize Dr. Tamma with the 2024 Oswald Avery Award for Early Achievement.
Past Oswald Avery Award winners
2023 Talia Swartz, MD, PhD, FIDSA
2022 Nadine Rouphael, MD, FIDSA
2021 Michail Lionakis, MD, ScD, FIDSA
2020 Sallie R. Permar, MD, PhD
2019 Nasia Safdar, MD, MS, PhD, FIDSA, FSHEA
2018 Susanna Naggie, MD, MHS, FIDSA
2017 William J. Steinbach, MD
2016 Susan S. Huang, MD, MPH, FIDSA, FSHEA
2015 Eric R. Houpt, MD, FIDSA
2014 Sarah E. Cosgrove, MD, MS, FIDSA, FSHEA, and
Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, FIDSA
2013 Cesar A. Arias, MD, MSc, PhD, FIDSA
2012 Dan A. Barouch, MD, PhD
2011 Umesh Parashar, MBBS, MPH
2010 Eleftherios Mylonakis, MD, PhD, FIDSA
2009 Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PHD
2008 Vance G. Fowler Jr., MD, MHS
2007 Pablo C. Okhuysen, MD, FIDSA
2006 Cynthia G. Whitney, MD, MPH
2005 James E. Crowe, MD
2004 B. Brett Finlay, PhD
2003 Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD
2002 Matthew K. Waldor, MD, PhD
2001 David A. Relman, MD
2000 Michael S. Donnenberg, MD
1999 William A. Petri Jr., MD, PhD
1998 Joseph W. St. Geme III, MD
1997 Samuel I. Miller, MD
1996 David D. Ho, MD
1995 Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH
1994 Mark Klempner, MD
1993 Claire Broome, MD
1992 Martin Blaser, MD
1991 Marcus Horwitz, MD
1990 Jerrold Ellner, MD
1989 Henry Murray, MD
1988 Walter Stamm, MD
1987 John Gallin, MD
1986 Charles Dinarello, MD
1985 Dennis Kasper, MD
1984 Adel Mahmoud, MD, PhD
1983 Anthony Fauci, MD
1982 George Miller, PhD
1981 Gerald Keusch, MD
1980 Robert Purcell, MD
1979 Stanley Falkow, PhD
1978 King Holmes, MD, PhD
1977 Lowell Glasgow, MD, MS
1976 Sheldon Wolff, MD
1975 Kenneth Warren, MD
1974 Malcolm Artenstein, MD, and
Emil Gotschilch, MD
1973 Frank Austen, MD
1972 Zanvil Cohn, MD
1971 Jonathan Uhr, MD
1970 Hans Mueller-Eberhard, MD, DMSc
1969 Robert Chancock, MD
1968 Robert Good, MD, PhD