E. Chandler Church, MD, is a staff physician in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. She conducts research in tuberculosis vaccines and diagnostics. Her primary project is working on the development of a challenge model for tuberculosis (TB) for use in early-stage vaccine and treatment clinical trials. Her recent work has focused on using Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) intradermally as a surrogate for TB, but may in the future expand to the use of genetically modified strains of MTB and to pulmonary administration of the challenge agent.
Dr. Church is a member of the IDCRC's Mentorship Program cohort. This is designed to offer mentoring and development of early career investigators and fellows in clinical and translational infectious diseases research. Learn more about the program here.
Tell us more about your background and what led you to a career in infectious disease research.
I'm actually a second-generation infectious diseases physician. I grew up around infectious disease clinical practice and research. I became interested in TB during my master's program in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. My thesis mentor worked in mathematical modeling for TB, and my thesis project on the impact of GeneXpert on rates of empiric therapy for TB got me started.
Can you share more about your research and the goals of your work?
As mentioned above, my primary focus is on trials to develop a challenge model that is safe to use which will facilitate early-stage clinical trials for TB vaccines and treatments. We have completed two BCG intradermal challenge trials using isoniazid and rifampin as standard treatments. We will soon be working with a fluorescent BCG strain where the quantitative measure of fluorescence can be used as a non-invasive measure of bacterial activity before and after treatment. I am also interested in validating the use of the relative strength (RS) ratio, a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) that detects pre-rRNA spacer sequences, as a bacterial outcome measure that is more rapidly available than culture and may be more sensitive in early stages of mycobacterial replication.
What are you looking forward to most in the IDCRC Mentorship Program?
The shared group of peers, many of whom face similar challenges and are in similar places of career development, is an amazing opportunity. The chance to connect with people across multiple locations who might have recently navigated a situation and can offer suggestions or solutions has been priceless so far, and I look forward to continuing to make use of that network.
What do you believe is a strength or example of the importance of the IDCRC?
Similar to my thoughts on the strengths of the mentoring program, this network allows clinical trials teams across many universities to connect and share information. A challenge one center might be facing has likely been experienced by another unit, and possible suggestions and solutions can be shared. This results in research of higher quality and allows trials to proceed more quickly.
What do you like to do outside of ID research?
I live in the Seattle area, and I love the outdoor opportunities here. I hike frequently, and I'm taking a course to build skills for glacier climbing to allow me to try for some more challenging peaks!
