Hattie Alexander Memorial Lecture

BHAA meeting attendee

Dr. Aaron Milstone (left) with Department of Pediatrics chair Dr. Jordan Orange at the 86th annual meeting of the Babies Hospital Alumni Association.

The annual infectious disease lecture honors Hattie Alexander, MD, who was a resident at Babies Hospital and remained on the faculty here until the end of her career in 1966. Dr. Alexander’s research focused on Haemophilus Influenzae type B, and she developed an anti-influenzal serum that reduced the mortality rate to 20 percent for meningitis in infants and children. At the 2024 Babies Hospital Alumni Association meeting, pediatric infectious disease specialist Aaron Milstone, MD, MHS delivered the 49th Annual Hattie Alexander Memorial Lecture, “Nasal Microbiota Transplant: Evolution of a Novel Strategy to Prevent Staphylococcus Aureus Infections in Neonates.” Dr. Milstone is a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and associate hospital epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Past Lectures

  • 2023: Paul Sue, MD, Precision Clinical Therapeutics in Pediatric Transplant Infectious Diseases: Tailoring Strategies to Improve Outcomes in Children
  • 2022: Wilmot James, PhD, The Impact of COVID 19 on Child Health in Africa
  • 2021: Sallie Permar, MD, PhD, Leveraging Early Life Immunity to End Pandemics
  • 2020: Jordan Orange, MD, PhD, Human Natural Killer Cell Deficiencies and Susceptibility to Infection
  • 2019: Barbara J. Stoll, MD, Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Infants – A Global Perspective
  • 2018: Sten Vermund, MD, PhD, Preventing HIV in Babies: My Journey from A to Z (Alabama to Zambia)
  • 2017: Eric G. Pamer, MD, Microbiota-mediated Defense Against Intestinal Infection
  • 2016: Joseph W. St. Geme III, MD, Insights into an Emerging Pathogen Reminiscent of Haemophilus influenza type b
  • 2015: Lawrence R. Stanberry, MD, PhD, What We Have Learned and What We Do Not Know about HSV Vaccines
  • 2014: Kathryn Edwards, MD, Pertussis: What are We Going to do About Increasing Disease
  • 2013: Martin J. Blaser, MD, Perturbing the Early Life Microbiome and its Consequences
  • 2012: David Relman, MD, The Human Microbiome in Health and Disease
  • 2011: Steve Holland, MD, So Many Fungi, So Little Diseases: How Humans Resist Mycoses
  • 2010: Paul Offit, MD, Communicating Sciences to the Public: The Vaccine-Autism Debate
  • 2009: Adam Ratner, MD, From H.Flu to Swine Flu & Back: Pandemic Influenza & Bacterial Pneumonia
  • 2008: Sarah Long, MD, Changes in Infectious Diseases in a Half-Century
  • 2007: Richard Whitley, MD, HSV: From Encephalitis to Gene Therapy
  • 2006: Louis Z. Cooper, MD, What I’d Love to Tell You, Dr. Alexander: Germs, Children and Global Health
  • 2005: Richard Moxon, MD, Haemophilus Influenzae: Reflections on the Biology and History of a Remarkable Pathogen
  • 2004: Anne Moscona, MD, Runny Noses, Coughs, and Fevers: How Respiratory Viruses Cause Disease in Children
  • 2003: Scott Hammer, MD, HIV: Where do We Stand Today?
  • 2002: Yuan Chang, MD and Patrick Moore, MD, KSHV: Identification of a New Tumor Virus
  • 2001: Henry Shinefield, MD, Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine: A Significant Preventative Strategy
  • 2000: Philip Pizzo, MD, Future of Pediatric Science and Medicine
  • 1999: Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, Vaccine for Pediatric Helminth Infections
  • 1998: Margaret K. Hostetter, MD, Candida Albicans: Pathogenesis and Potential Therapies
  • 1997: Stanley Falkow, PhD, Genetic & Molecular Determinants of Salmonella Pathogenesis
  • 1996: Alice Prince, MD, The Pathogenesis of Pulmonary Infection in Cystic Fibrosis
  • 1995: Catherine Wilfert, MD, Pediatric HIV: Epidemiology and Perinatal Transmission and Samuel L. Katz, MD, Vaccine Research and Development
  • 1994: Ann Arvin, MD, Herpes Simplex Infection in Pregnancy and in Newborns
  • 1993: Michael Katz, MD, Grief in Wisdom: Concerns about the Safety of Childhood Vaccines
  • 1992: James Kennedy Todd, MD, The Fall and Rise of Severe Streptococcal Disease
  • 1991: Caroline Breese Hall, MD, Respiratory Syncytial Virus: Sneezes and Wheezes; Conundrums and Concerns
  • 1990: June Osborn, MD, AIDS and the Family
  • 1989: George Miller, MD, Role of Latency and Replication in the Pathogenesis of EBV: Associated Lymphoproliferative Disease
  • 1988: Stanley Plotkin, MD, Philosophy Behind Vaccine Development
  • 1987: Carleton Gajdusek, MD, Amyloidosis in the Brain of Children & Adults: Down’s Syndrome, Alzheimer’s Disease and Kuru
  • 1986: Saul Krugman, MD, Viral Hepatitis: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
  • 1985: Anne Gershon, MD, Varicella Immunization: The First Live Attenuated Vaccine for Immunosuppressed Children
  • 1984: Edwin Kilbourne, MD, Influenza and the Uses of Serendipity
  • 1983: Paul F. Wehrle, MD, Bacterial Meningitis: A Continuing Problem
  • 1982: David H. Smith, MD, Prospects of Preventing Haemophilus Influenzae Infections
  • 1981: Alice S. Huang, MD, Alterations in Nucleic Acid Sequence which Account for Viral Interference by Defective Interfering Particles
  • 1980: Bernard N. Fields, MD, Molecular Basis of Viral Virulence
  • 1979: Robert Petersdorf, MD, The Head, Heart & Kidney: Three Models of Experimental Infections
  • 1978: Robert Austrian, MD, Prevention of Pneumococcal Infection: Some Reflections on the Bumpy Road of Medical Science
  • 1977: Walsh McDermott, MD, Tuberculosis and the Technologic Fix
  • 1976: Rene Dubos, MD, The Future of Infectious Disease