Commanding Officer's Corner
Captain John W. Sanders, Medical Corps, United States Navy
Commanding Officer
Naval Medical Research Center, Silver Spring, Maryland
Captain John W. Sanders, a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, received a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He entered the U.S. Navy through the Health Professional Scholarship Program and received his commission in 1988. He received a Master in Public Health and Tropical Medicine and a Doctorate of Medicine from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and was promoted to Lieutenant, Medical Corps, in 1992.
He then completed Internal Medicine residency training at the Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia. Following specialty training, he served as the Internal Medicine Specialist and Infection Control Chairman at the Naval Hospital at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, North Carolina. While at Cherry Point, he received an appointment as adjunct faculty to East Carolina University School of Medicine and developed a popular student clerkship in Internal Medicine. He subsequently completed an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the combined program of the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC), Bethesda, Maryland and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
In 1999 he became the Chief of the HIV Branch at NNMC. In 2001 he transferred to Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, where he served as the Head of the Enteric Disease Research Program, the Chairman of the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and the Tropical Medicine Course Coordinator.
In 2005, he returned to NNMC to serve as the Chief of the Infectious Diseases Service and the Associate Program Director of the National Capital Area Infectious Disease Fellowship.
In August 2007, he became the Officer-in-Charge of the Naval Medical Research Center Detachment (NMRCD), Lima and Iquitos, Peru. After leading NMRCD through the process of full command designation, he was named the first Commanding Officer of the Naval Medical Research Unit No. Six in 2010.
He has been active in medical education at all levels, providing clinical and research mentorship for students, residents, and fellows, and received the NNMC Teacher of the Year award for 2000-01. An accomplished researcher, he has published over 50 articles and 8 book chapters and is recognized as an authority in enteric diseases and infections of military relevance. He has served on the Enteric Disease Steering Committee and the Integrated Product Team for Bacterial Diarrhea Vaccines for the Military Infectious Disease Research Program and on the Programmatic and Scientific Review Board for the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). He has served as an invited reviewer for several journals, including the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. He holds faculty appointments at the USUHS School of Medicine and the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
In August 2011, Captain Sanders became the Executive Officer of the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC), Silver Spring, Md. He assumed command of NMRC in August 2012.