Natalie Bowman, MD, assistant professor in the department of medicine’s division of infectious diseases, has been selected to receive the annual James W. Woods Faculty Award for 2018-2019, an award that supports promising young clinical faculty early in their academic career. With this award, Bowman is recognized for efforts to organize clinical resources with Bolivian collaborators for studies of the gastrointestinal manifestations of Chagas disease.
Bowman is also acknowledged for finding a less extensively explored aspect of the disease where there is opportunity to evaluate whether alterations in the gut microbiome underlie clinical findings. Bowman’s adoption of the molecular analysis of the microbiome by 16S rRNA sequencing will be an advance over previous studies. Findings collected in Bolivia and UNC are expected to help her determine whether gastrointestinal manifestations of Chagas disease are associated with particular alterations of the gut microbiome.
Bowman is broadly interested in the epidemiology and pathogenesis of parasites and neglected tropical diseases, especially those that are prevalent in the Americas. She has ongoing studies throughout Latin America investigating HIV and parasitic coinfections; Chagas disease and toxoplasmosis; viral gastroenteritis in young children; and the epidemiology, transmission, and prevention of Zika virus.
Learn more about Dr. Bowman here.