Two Penn Medicine physicians – Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE, chief of the division of Infectious Diseases and the Robert Austrian Professor in the department of Medicine, and Ben Z. Stanger, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Medicine and associate investigator of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute – were elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP), a nonprofit, professional society for physicians dedicated to the pursuit and advancement of medical knowledge.

The AAP was founded in 1885 by seven physicians for “the advancement of scientific and practical medicine,” and is now composed of over 1,300 active members and approximately 600 emeritus and honorary members from the United States, Canada and other countries.

Lautenbach, also a professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and a senior scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, has focused his work on the control of bacterial infections in both healthcare and community settings. His research has concentrated primarily on understanding and curtailing the emergence and further spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multidrug-resistant gram negative organisms. More recent work has focused on the role of biomarkers to inform the use of antibiotics. Lautenbach received his Doctor of Medicine and Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University and his Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Stanger and his lab study how cells acquire their specialized features and their ability to adapt to new roles when given exposure to new, different conditions. His work has focused on gastrointestinal cancer and tissue regeneration. Stanger received his Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard Medical School and came to the University of Pennsylvania in 2006.

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