David Sack MD

David Allen Sack, M.D., is a Professor of International Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health with a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Sack’s research focuses on enteric infections and vaccine development for these infections. This includes the development and testing of vaccines, laboratory detection of these agents, describing their epidemiology in developing country populations, and developing appropriate clinical management strategies including antibiotics and rehydration methods.

Regarding vaccines, Dr. Sack has participated in the development and testing of vaccines for cholera, rotavirus, enterotoxigenic E coli (ETEC), and shigellosis. His projects are working to understand the epidemiology of cholera in Africa and Asia, Working in collaboration with UNICEF, WHO, and other partners, these cholera projects improve our understanding of transmission and facilitate the use of oral cholera vaccine as part of an integrated strategy for cholera control. A website providing details on the use of oral cholera vaccine is at www.stopcholera.org.

To develop vaccines for ETEC, Dr. Sack collaborates with scientists at the University of Illinois on a new approach, called MEFA (muti-epitope fusion antigens) to provide broad protection against these bacterial infections by targeting the many colonization factors and toxin antigens with a single fusion protein. The MEFA vaccine is now in the preclinical phase but soon will begin clinical trials.