Dr. Marshall Bloom Named Associate Director of Rocky Mountain Laboratories
An internationally recognized authority on Aleutian mink disease, persistent infections and parvoviruses, Marshall E. Bloom, M.D., has been named associate director of Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, MT. RML is a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID, and Tom Kindt, Ph.D., director of NIAID's Division of Intramural Research, announced the appointment at a recent meeting with RML staff.
Dr. Bloom has a long history of service to the Hamilton campus and has been involved with numerous community outreach programs at RML. He chairs the RML Community Liaison Group, composed of civic and community leaders, which was recently established to maintain an open dialogue with the Hamilton community as the laboratories plan for the growth of their research programs. The planned growth includes the building of an integrated research facility for conducting research that will lead to a better understanding of emerging infectious diseases and agents of bioterrorism and the development of diagnostics, therapies and vaccines to protect citizens from those agents.
He is a long-time participant in the NIAID Introduction to Biomedical Research Program. He also coordinates the RML Summer Internship Program and has mentored and trained many doctoral fellows and students. He has served as radiation safety officer, chairman of the Animal Care and Use Committee, and chairman of the RML Seminar and Library Committees.
The author of numerous scientific articles and book chapters, Dr. Bloom sits on the editorial board of Virology and is a member of the American Society of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Society for Virology, and the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Bloom is an avid trout fisherman, and has also been active in his community as a trout conservationist. He is an authority on whirling disease, a complex parasitic disease of trout and salmon. He serves as chair of the Montana Governor's Whirling Disease Task Force.
He is the recipient of many honors and awards, including an award for extended service as radiation safety officer, the NIAID Division of Intramural Research Special Service Award, the NIAID Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases Special Service Award, and several NIAID Equal Employment Opportunity Special Achievement Awards.
Dr. Bloom graduated from Washington University with a bachelor's degree in classics in 1967, and he earned his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in 1971. Following a pediatric internship at St. Louis Children's Hospital, he came to RML in 1972 as a research associate, where from 1972 and 1975, he initiated studies on Aleutian disease of mink that led him to characterize the disease agent as a parvovirus and describe the pathogenesis of the disease. Aleutian mink disease is a chronic disorder that is associated with persistent infection and common manifestations of chronic infectious diseases. In 1975, he was assigned to what was then the Laboratory of Biology of Viruses at NIAID in Bethesda, but he returned to RML as a tenured investigator in 1977. He is a charter principal investigator in NIAID's Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases at RML.
NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.
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