MUSC Children's Health Infectious Diseases at Specialty Care - Mt Pleasant

Adeline Koay, M.B.B.S. M.Sc, is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Koay's clinical expertise and interest focus on managing general pediatric infectious diseases and caring for children and adolescents at risk for and living with HIV. She uses a family-centered approach when caring for her patients. Before joining MUSC in 2023, Dr. Koay was a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Attending Physician at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at George Washington University. Dr. Koay received her medical degree at the University of Melbourne in Australia and a Master of Science (Bacteriology) from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. She completed her pediatric residency training at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX. She went on to complete her pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. She also conducted research to understand better the impact of HIV on inflammation and the gut microbiome in infants and adults. Her research focuses on optimizing health outcomes of children and adolescents, specifically in people at risk for or living with HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Lauren N. Powell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics within the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina. She serves as an inpatient and outpatient consultant to provide care for children with infectious diseases. She completed her pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at Children's National Hospital in Washington D.C and is currently completing her Master of Public Health in Global Health Epidemiology and Disease Control at George Washington University. Dr. Powell has extensive experience performing medical mission work in low-resource settings. Her time spent overseas on these missions is the reason she went into pediatrics and subsequently, the infectious diseases field. Dr. Powell is passionate about global health and focuses her research endeavors on the use of implementation science to improve the management of pediatric tuberculosis. She received the MUSC Center for Global Health faculty award for her study "RISE-Retrospective study to inform implementation of a shortened TB treatment regimen in Ethiopian children." Dr. Powell is also site-PI for the VIPER trial, Multi-Center Molecular Diagnosis and Host Response of Respiratory Viral Infections in Pediatric Transplant Recipients. This is a multi-center trial across the US to establish for the 1^st^ time a diagnostic and disease progression predictive model of risk of respiratory viral illness (RVI) in children undergoing transplant. It will define host immune responses, guide clinical management, and lead to the first-ever evidence-based pediatric guidelines designed to reduce RVI-related morbidity and mortality. Dr. Powell is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases. She is a member of numerous professional societies, including the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Global Implementation Society. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine at the Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Parker, Colorado. She completed her pediatric residency training at Louisiana State University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her special interests include Tuberculosis, HIV, and tropical diseases.

Dr. Markus Buchfellner is a board-certified pediatrician and pediatric infectious diseases specialist with advanced training in the care of immunocompromised children. He completed his pediatric residency at the University of South Florida where he trained at Tampa General Hospital and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. He then completed his fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and following that completed an additional year of subspecialty training through the Infectious Diseases in Immunocompromised Children Fellowship Program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Dr. Buchfellner's clinical interests include treating infections in pediatric solid organ transplant recipients, bone marrow transplant recipients and oncology patients. He is interested in long term care following transplant to prevent infection namely through things like vaccines and preventative antibiotics post-transplant. He has also done work in antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention in his career specifically focused on pediatric transplant populations. His research centers on studying viral infections, specifically cytomegalovirus (CMV) and T cell immunity and reconstitution after hematopoietic cell transplant recipients. He is also interested in outcomes in respiratory viral infections in transplant recipients. Previously, he led Alabama's contribution to the national investigation of the 2022 pediatric hepatitis outbreak linked to adenovirus during his time in fellowship training. He is deeply committed to medical education and has developed transplant medicine curricula and taught learners across multiple levels of training. He has delivered invited lectures nationally on topics including pediatric hepatitis, long COVID in children, and severe neonatal infections.