Dr. Joel N. Blankson

Dr. Werbel is a physician-scientist who provides consultative care for patients at Johns Hopkins who experience infectious disease complications before and after organ transplant, as well as in the setting of solid tumors or blood cancers. His research with the Johns Hopkins Transplant Research Center uses a combination of epidemiological and laboratory methods to better personalize the prevention of infectious complications among patients with complex immunodeficiencies. This includes using national cohort studies and clinical trials to optimize the use of vaccines and other prophylactic therapies for high-risk immunosuppressed populations. Dr. Werbel is rated as an Advanced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). His top areas of expertise are COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis.

Dr. Robin Avery is an infectious disease physician who joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2012, with two decades of experience in transplant infectious disease. She is a past chair of the American Society of Transplantation (AST) Infectious Disease Community of Practice, was a co-editor of the first edition of the AST ID Guidelines, and serves on a Guidelines Committee for the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) on immunizations in the immunocompromised host. She was the founding head of the Transplant Infectious Disease Section at the Cleveland Clinic and served as the founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Transplant ID Special Fellowship, authoring a curriculum that served as the basis for curricula later endorsed by the AST and IDSA. Her clinical and research interests include pre-transplant donor and recipient evaluation, and prevention and treatment of post-transplant infections, particularly transplant-associated viruses, viral load monitoring, novel therapies for CMV, hypogammaglobulinemia, immunizations, and strategies for safer living post-transplant. She has a strong interest in patient education and co-authored the script for a video designed to educate patients on decreasing post-transplant infection risks. Dr. Avery is rated as a Distinguished provider by MediFind in the treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Her top areas of expertise are Cytomegalic Inclusion Disease, Cytomegalovirus Infection, COVID-19, and Sepsis.

Dr. Yukari Manabe is a Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine with secondary appointments in the Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of International Health and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Immunology. Dr. Manabe began her career working on the basic science aspects of tuberculosis (TB) immunopathogenesis in comparative animal models of infection, particularly latency, reactivation, and immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) in the rabbit model within the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research. In 2007, she was seconded to the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at Makerere College of Health Sciences as the Associate Medical Laboratory Director of the College of American Pathologists certified Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University Clinical Core Lab to study antiretroviral associated TB and IRIS. She then became the Head of Research at the IDI in 2008 until 2012 where she built research capacity and infrastructure to train Ugandan investigators. Since returning to Hopkins, she has become the PI of the Johns Hopkins POC STD Center (U54 funded through NIH) which is part of the newly formed Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases. The Center develops new diagnostics, funds development for point-of-care diagnostics, evaluates (validation and verification) new technology, and performs pre-clinical studies to accelerate the development of infectious disease assays (STIs, TB, acute febrile illness, HIV, syphilis, viral hepatitis). Dr. Manabe is particularly interested in rapid, point-of-care infectious disease diagnostics suitable for the resource-limited settings particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Her research has focused on accuracy testing of various rapid, point-of-care diagnostics for HIV and related infectious diseases of clinical importance in SSA. Studies have ranged from evaluations of performance accuracy through clinical implementation science studies on the patient-centered outcomes and impactful use of new rapid diagnostics. Dr. Manabe obtained her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After completing both her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital, she joined the faculty in 1999. Dr. Manabe is rated as a Distinguished provider by MediFind in the treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Her top areas of expertise are HIV/AIDS, Cryptococcosis, Gonorrhea, Meningitis, and Tissue Biopsy.