Colleen Kraft, MD, honored as an Atlanta Business Chronicle Health Care Hero

The Atlanta Business Chronicle has selected Colleen Kraft, MD, associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, as a Health Care Heroes 2020 winner in the physician category.

Kraft is recognized for her work in serious communicable diseases based on experience gained caring for patients with Ebola virus disease and Lassa fever. She is bringing that knowledge forward now during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is currently the associate chief medical officer at Emory University Hospital and associate professor of infectious diseases and pathology at Emory University School of Medicine. Kraft is also medical director of microbiology laboratories at Emory, director of the medical microbiology fellowship program and has been practicing medicine for 15 years.

In late February, Kraft was appointed to serve on Governor Kemp’s Coronavirus Taskforce to protect Georgians as the world works to address the challenges brought on by the current outbreak. In 2014, Kraft was one of the physician leaders as Emory University Hospital received and cared for four patients who contracted Ebola virus disease in West Africa. The patients were cared for in the hospital’s Serious Communicable Diseases Unit. The highly specialized unit opened in 2001, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Kraft has been a part of the semi-annual drills in the unit since 2010.

Additionally, Kraft’s research interests include antibiotic resistance and fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). Kraft and colleagues have performed almost 400 FMTs at Emory and report a 90 percent success rate when treating patients with recurrent Clostridioides difficile (C. diff).

To view the full list of Emory University and Emory Healthcare winners and finalists, visit the Emory News Center.