Personalizing Antimicrobial Use in Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Candidate’s Long-Term Career Goals: To become an independent clinical investigator that strengthens ICU antimicrobial stewardship and personalizes antibiotic use in nosocomial pneumonia. Clinical Problems to be Addressed with this project: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is common, costly, and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. The present standard of care in VAP is treat all cases with 7 days of antibiotics, regardless of patient or pathogen. This inflexible approach generates both antibiotic overtreatment and undertreatment of the diverse group of patients affected by VAP. Specific Aims: A lack of reliable biomarkers to ascertain cure of infection and use of antiquated dichotomous trial outcomes that do not reflect bedside clinical priorities have impeded our ability to personalize VAP antibiotic treatment durations (ATDs). Dr. Albin aims to 1) identify unique VAP-specific alveolar biomarkers to guide ATDs, and 2) validate pragmatic, hierarchical analytic methodologies for future VAP ATD trials. Candidate’s Background: Dr. Albin is Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan (UM). He has 20 publications, including 12 original research manuscripts and 11 first-author peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Albin has core training in introductory biostatistics and epidemiology and is a graduate of the UM Clinical Trials Academy. His work has been supported by a Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research CATALYST award and internal funding from the UM Department of Internal Medicine. Career Development Plan: To meet his goals, Dr. Albin seeks advanced methodologic training in applied data science, clinical epidemiology, trial design/analysis and revealed preference survey methods, as well as experiential training in alveolar biospecimen collection/ICU trial performance. His 5-year plan includes didactic courses that build on his core training, project-based mentoring by experts, career advancement activities, and specific milestones to ensure a successful transition to independence. Dr. Albin’s primary mentor is Keith Kaye, MD, MPH. His co-mentors are Robert Dickson, MD; Krishna Rao, MD, MS; and Richard Wunderink, MD. Deliverables: This project will identify clinically translatable VAP-specific alveolar biomarkers and pragmatic, hierarchical VAP trial analytic methodologies. Coupled with the didactic and experiential training encompassed in the career development plan, this award will competitively position Dr. Albin for R-series work aimed at strengthening ICU antimicrobial stewardship and personalizing antibiotic use in pneumonia.