Liz Winans Tucker, MD
Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
- Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty
About Liz Winans Tucker
Primary Academic Title
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine
Background
Dr. Elizabeth Tucker is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is a clinician scientist with a deep interest in neurocritical care, global health and infectious diseases. She joined the Johns Hopkins PICU faculty as an Instructor in July of 2015. As an attending physician, her clinical time is spent caring for critically ill children in the pediatric intensive care unit, with particular expertise as a pediatric neurocritical intensive care. Together with other members of the PICU team, she works to stabilize the patients and improve their outlook. She enjoys getting to know the families and values the opportunity to guide them through the course of their child’s illness and recovery.
Her clinical experience caring for children with neurological injury led her to the lab where she is passionate about conducting basic science and translational research to investigate how to improve her patient’s outcomes after brain injury. Dr. Tucker’s research focuses on tuberculous meningitis, the most severe form of extrapulmonary TB which disproportionately affects young children. The long-term goal of her research is to understand the pathogenesis of brain injury during tuberculous meningitis in children and design antimicrobial and adjunctive therapy as well as therapeutic monitoring to improve treatment and prognosis of children with devastating infections. In pursuit of this goal, she developed the first pediatric rabbit model of tuberculous meningitis during her pediatric critical care medicine fellowship to understand how the infection affects the developing brain and to investigate how to optimize meningitis treatment. Dr. Tucker’s research benefits from a strong network of mentors and collaborators in neuroscience, pediatric infectious disease, nuclear medicine, pharmacology and nanomedicine.
When she is not at work, Dr. Tucker enjoys running, hiking, sailing, and traveling to other countries.
Dr. Tucker received her undergraduate degree at Duke University in 2004 and attended medical school at Wake Forest University from 2005 to 2009. She completed her residency in pediatrics from 2009 to 2012 and her fellowship in pediatric critical care from 2012 to 2015, both at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Centers and Institutes
- Center for Infection and Inflammation Imaging Research
- Center for TB Research
- Nanomedicine, Center for
Lab Website
Tucker Lab - Lab Website
Research Summary
Her clinical experience caring for children with neurological injury led her to the lab where she is passionate about conducting basic science and translational research to investigate how to improve her patient’s outcomes after brain injury. Dr. Tucker’s research focuses on tuberculous meningitis, the most severe form of extrapulmonary TB which disproportionately affects young children. The long-term goal of her research is to understand the pathogenesis of brain injury during meningitis in children and design antimicrobial and adjunctive therapy as well as therapeutic monitoring to improve treatment and prognosis of children with devastating infections. In pursuit of this goal, she developed the first pediatric rabbit model of tuberculous meningitis during her pediatric critical care medicine fellowship to understand how the infection affects the developing brain and to investigate how to optimize meningitis treatment. Dr. Tucker’s research benefits from a strong network of mentors and collaborators in neuroscience, pediatric infectious disease, nuclear medicine, pharmacology, and nanomedicine. Dr. Tucker’s research benefits from a strong network of mentors and collaborators in neuroscience, pediatric infectious disease, nuclear medicine, pharmacology, and nanomedicine (Jain lab and Center for Nanomedicine) that provide unparalleled expertise and contribute immensely to her research.
Dr. Tucker is currently funded by NIH NIAID’s K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award to optimize meningitis treatment by improving both the antimicrobial treatment against mycobacterium, the pathogen causing infection, and treatment against the destructive host immune response resulting in neuroinflammation and downstream brain injury. She utilizes noninvasive PET imaging to elucidate central nervous system antimicrobial pharmacokinetics as well as to monitor disease progression and response to treatment. Additionally, she is working to improve drug delivery to the brain using nanoparticles (i.e., dendrimers) and target the neuroinflammation with host-directed therapy. Recently, she has received funding from the Hartwell Foundation – 2018 Individual Biomedical Research Award where she is attempting to combine nanoparticle and PET imaging technology to create a dendrimer-based theranostic agent to diagnose injury severity, deliver targeted therapy, and monitor response to treatment in meningitis.
Expertise
Education
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Fellowship, Pediatric Critical Care, 2015Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Residency, Pediatrics, 2012Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Medical Education, MD, 2009Board Certifications
Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
American Board of Pediatrics, 2016Pediatrics
American Board of Pediatrics, 2012Insurance
- Aetna
- CareFirst
- Cigna
- First Health
- Geisinger Health Plan
- HealthSmart/Accel
- Humana
- Johns Hopkins Health Plans
- MultiPlan
- Pennsylvania's Preferred Health Networks (PPHN)
- Point Comfort Underwriters
- Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS)
- UnitedHealthcare
- Veteran Affairs Community Care Network (Optum-VACCN)