ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2023

Seth Michael Bloom, MD, PhD is an infectious diseases physician-scientist and Instructor in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He studies how the cervicovaginal microbiome and metabolome influence genital tract health, immunity, and risk for diseases such as HIV and bacterial vaginosis. He seeks to identify new therapies to modify microbiota composition. This research is broadly relevant for genital tract health but holds particular importance for southern and eastern African populations, where the burden of microbiota-associated diseases is highest.

Dr. Bloom grew up in rural western Montana, where he spent summers conducting bacteriology research at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. He received his BA in Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, where his undergraduate thesis examined influenza A virus. Dr. Bloom earned MD and PhD degrees at Washington University School of Medicine, researching the roles of intestinal bacteria in a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal immune responses. As a medical student, he also took classes in community health with medical students at the University of Nairobi College of Health Sciences in Kenya.  Dr. Bloom completed residency training in Internal Medicine in the Physician Scientist Training Program at Washington University / Barnes Jewish Hospital, where he was a Global Health Scholar and trained in Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. He completed Infectious Diseases fellowship in the combined Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital program. Dr. Bloom currently conducts research at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard with Dr. Douglas Kwon, working closely with colleagues in South Africa.

Dr. Bloom is also committed to scientific mentorship, serving as board member of an NGO that provides mentorship for students at diverse African medical schools including an annual research symposium, virtual Work-in-Progress sessions, and a Scholars Program pairing students with mentors in their areas of interest.