Dr. Robert Charles Larsen, MD

Dr. Robert Larsen has been a stalwart member of the Infectious Diseases Division since joining the USC faculty in 1986. Dr. Larsen regularly attends on the inpatient Infectious Diseases consultation service at LAC+USC Medical Center and has been provides invaluable service coordinating the weekly Infectious Diseases Clinic, supervising fellows, residents, students and physician extenders. His excellence in teaching has been recognized in multiple awards given by the Keck School of Medicine at USC. He is a recognized expert clinician in the diagnosis and treatment of fungal diseases, and contributed substantially to the drafting of Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines for the management of cryptococcal infections.

Dr. LarsenÂ’s research actively involves in multiple studies in clinical mycology, while mentoring Dr. Alejandro Sanchez, who is currently completing the first year of a 3-year Infectious Diseases fellowship supported by an IDSA Research Award (Pfizer …Mycology Postdoctoral Fellowship/John P. Utz Award). Dr. Larsen has been a long time co-investigator of the USC AIDS Clinical Trials Unit supported by NIH, DIAID, Division of AIDS, site principal investigator of the California University Wide supported California Collaborative Treatment Group), the site principal investigator of NIH-supported California NeuroAIDS Tissue Network, a member of the NIH-supported Bacterial and Mycoses Study Group (BAMSG). He has been highly successful in the recruitment of research subjects to active clinical protocols in AIDS-associated cryptococcal meningitis and in West Nile virus encephalitis. He played a major role in the design of the current cryptococcal meningitis studies being conducted by the ACTG and BAMSG in the US and Africa and will conduct the anti-fungal drug susceptibility testing of the isolates recovered in the conduct of the study.

His groundbreaking work has been instrumental in the licensure of both fluconazole and itraconazole for the treatment of cryptococcal meningitis, the development of strategies for the management of intracranial pressure, commonly elevated in cryptococcal CNS infection, as well as rational approaches to the use of combination anti-fungal therapy for this infection. Dr. Larsen is currently extending investigation into the arena of immunological evaluations of central nervous system invasion by Treponema pallidum, anti-fungal drug susceptibility testing of Cryptococcus neoformans, as well as the more all-encompassing issue of medication adherence in HIV-infected patients.

Besides his research activities, Dr. Larsen serves as vice-chair of the USC Institutional Review Board, as the Research Subject Advocate for the USC General Clinical Research Center, and as the Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Training Program.