Crowe honored for achievement in research
Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., associate professor of Pediatrics and assistant professor of Microbiology and Immunology, has been selected as the recipient of the 2002 Judson Daland Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Patient-Oriented Clinical Research by the American Philosophical Society (APS).
Crowe will receive an honorarium and recognition at the APS annual general meeting on April 26.
Born in 1860, Dr. Judson Daland was a prominent Philadelphia physician and outstanding figure in medical research. Daland was known for his energetic research for the causes of disease and the study of ethnology and paleontology. After his death in 1937, the bulk of his estate was left to the APS as an endowment to be used to support research in clinical medicine.
Dr. Victor A. McKusick, University Professor of Medical Genetics at Johns Hopkins University and a recipient of a Daland fellowship in 1953, will present the award to Crowe.
Best known for his work on defining fundamental mechanisms underlying pathogenesis and immunity associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection and immunization, Crowe has been at Vanderbilt since 1995.
Dr. Arnold Strauss, James C. Overall Professor and Chair of Pediatrics and director of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, nominated Crowe, citing him as one of the premier young physician scientists in the country.
“He has made critical contributions to patient-oriented research endeavors through his fundamental work in the fields of vaccine development, molecular immunology of human responses, and virology of important human pathogens,” Strauss said. “He has had great success in bringing cutting edge molecular tools to the investigation of human responses using patients and volunteers in experimental vaccine trials.”
Crowe received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina and then worked in the laboratory of noted virologist Dr. Robert Chanock at the National Institutes of Health. For five years, Crowe conducted basic research on the pathogenesis of RSV and generated more than 100 different live attenuated RSV vaccine candidates. Several of these vaccine candidates have been tested in Phase I trials conducted at Vanderbilt and many other vaccine centers in the United States, Australia and South Africa.
Crowe is an active teacher, conducting seminars and delivering lectures in the Microbial Topics series for medical students, the Intradisciplinary Graduate Program, the Advanced Virology and Immunology graduate courses, and teaching housestaff and students on the wards and clinics.
He has an active lab that includes two graduate students (Microbiology and Immunology), three post doctoral fellows, and several undergraduate students.
“I’m honored to have received the award,” Crowe said. “I am humbled by the prize.”