Nathan Erdmann, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, is the junior faculty winner of the 2022 Dean’s Excellence Award in Service.
Erdmann’s efforts have been indispensable to UAB’s successful management of research and bedside care throughout the COVID pandemic.
A key example of the critical nature of his leadership in this area was the NIH-funded ACT-1 trial. In collaboration with Paul Goepfert, M.D., director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, UAB ultimately became a top enroller nationally in ACT-1, a feat that attests to Erdmann’s exceptional work ethic and leadership. The positive findings of this trial were significantly accelerated by Erdmann’s efforts, leading to the first effective treatment of severe COVID-19 which directly benefitted innumerable patients at UAB and worldwide.
Erdman’s leadership also provided rapid implementation of a process for delivering remdesivir to hospitalized patients at UAB following the trial results and consequent FDA emergency use authorization of remdesivir.
Moreover, Erdmann oversaw the recruitment of thousands of UAB COVID-19 patients in collaboration with CCTS leadership for the collection of biospecimens housed in the UAB COVID-19 Enterprise Repository, which is now an incomparable resource for the study of this disease. He also established, developed, and chaired the Department of Medicine COVID Clinical Trial Committee which has overseen a thriving departmental clinical science program.
Erdman earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2010. He then joined the ABIM Research Pathway at UAB for his internship and residency, subsequently completing his fellowship in infectious diseases here.