Dr Kanj - Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Associate Editor

Souha S. Kanj, MD, is currently a tenured Professor of Medicine, Associate Vice President for Global Affairs, Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Chair of the Infection Control and Prevention Program and Co-chair of the Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Program at the American University of Beirut (AUB) Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.

She is also Consulting Professor at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, North Carolina), where she undertook her training in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and global health. She was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute associate during her training there. In 1994, she established the Infectious Diseases Transplant service at Duke, which has become one of the leading centers for care and training in the United States. She joined AUB faculty of medicine in 1998 and rose through the ranks.

Professor Kanj is extensively published, with more than 250 papers in international journals. She also has been an invited author of numerous book chapters, journal reviews, and UpToDate cards. Professor Kanj has contributed greatly to the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in various programs, such as the R&D Blueprint Annual Review of Priority Diseases, the Global Infection Prevention and Control Network, and the WHO Priority Pathogens List Project for Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria. In 2020, she was appointed to serve on the WHO COVID-19 Guidance Development Group of experts. She is an international advisor for The Lancet journal. In addition, she is a board member of various international networks and organizations working on different aspects of infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial stewardship such as the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA), the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC), the Surveillance and Epidemiology of Drug resistant Infectious Consortium, The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Platform for ONE-Burden Estimates, addressing the cost of antimicrobial resistance in a one-health approach. She is also a member of the Protocol of the FUNgal infections Definitions in ICU Patients (FUNDICU) international consortium aiming to establish definitions for fungal infections in critical care patients.

She has participated in seminal clinical studies that have impacted the practice of infectious diseases addressing infections with multidrug resistant Gram negative pathogens such as the PANORAMA study looking at mortality of bacteremia with carbapenem resistant Enterobacterales in low-middle income countries, The MERINO trial, a randomized trial for treatment of bacteremia due to third generation cephalosporins resistant Enterobacterales, the Consortium on Resistance Against Carbapenems in Klebsiella and other Enterobacterales (part of the Antimicrobial Resistance Leadership Group), and others. Her research interest is mainly focused on viral pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention and control, and fungal infections. She has been invited to speak and chair numerous regional and international conferences to provide guidance on these topics.

Dr Kanj is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Royal College of Physicians, the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), and the European Confederation of Medical Mycology (ECMM). She is a past member of the scientific affairs committee of ESCMID and serves on the executive committee of ISAC and President elect of this society as of October 2022.

She has served on panels for international guidelines such as the Infectious Diseases Society of America's vertebral osteomyelitis and the recent ECMM global mucormycosis, and the rare yeasts guidelines, as well as on positions papers by the FUNDICU projects and ISAC/APUA AMS papers.

Professor Kanj has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards throughout her career, including the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research award, the Abdul Hameed Shoman award for researchers in the Arab world. She has also received from Radboud University Medical Center, in Nijmegen, the Valkhof professorship for women scholars, followed by an honorary doctorate degree (Doctorem Honoris Causa) in October 2020. Most recently, Professor Kanj received the Award for Excellence for Arab Women in the Medical Field from the League of Arab States at Expo Dubai.

Dr Kanj was ranked by the "World Scientist and University Ranking 2021" in the top 0.25 percent in the field of infectious diseases worldwide, as number 1 in Lebanon, number 8 in Asia, and number 76 in the world.

She was named Associate Editor of Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2022, bringing expertise in infectious diseases and global health.