The Division was established in the early 1960’s and has grown from one faculty member, Dr. John Nelson, to currently 9 faculty members, 6 fellows, 4 research technicians, 2 research coordinators and 2 administrative associates.

The Division provides infectious disease consultations for Children’s Medical Center of Dallas (CMC)  that admits more than 9,000 inpatients yearly and Parkland Memorial Hospital nursery that cares for more than 16,000 newborn infants yearly.

The Division is responsible for directing the HIV/AIDS clinic (Drs. Barton and Ramilo), and the Infectious Disease Outpatient Clinic at CMC, the NIH-sponsored Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit at CMC (Drs. McCracken and Sanchez), and the Infection Control Program at CMC (Dr. Jane Siegel).

Division members have been actively engaged in clinically applied research for more than 40 years involving the following areas:  diarrhea, bacterial meningitis, the clinical pharmacology, efficacy and safety of antimicrobial agents, immunopathogenesis of meningeal and respiratory infections, especially those caused by RSV and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, the link between pulmonary infection and asthma, HIV/AIDS, microarray analyses to identify unique genetic signatures of children with various infectious diseases, particularly RSV and MRSA, neonatal infections and more recently the immunogenetic profiles of children with various infections. From 1965 through 2008 89 physicians have completed training in the Division’s fellowship training program and greater than 80% of them have academic appointments at Universities and children’s hospitals worldwide.

In 1982 Drs. McCracken and Nelson founded the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal and they continue as the Chief Editors. The journal is the official publication of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society and the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases.