Dr. Eric H. Gluck received his doctoral degree in medicine from New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. He completed his residency at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and a pulmonary fellowship at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr. Gluck currently serves as the director of Critical Care Services at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and as a professor of medicine at Finch University of Health Sciences at the Chicago Medical School. Dr. Gluck is a fellow of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, American College of Chest Physicians, and the Chicago Institute of Medicine. He is a member of the American Thoracic Society, Society of Sigma Xi, Alpha Omega Alpha, and the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. He has delivered numerous lectures and co-authored many articles in the field of pulmonary critical care.

For the past 80 years infection has been diagnosed by finding a site of infection and demonstrating a response to the invading organisms. However, 20 years ago it was noted that many of the patients that appear to infected are mounting a similar inflammatory response to pathologic conditions that are not associated with infection (SIRS vs sepsis). The use of antibiotics in these patients can result in adverse events to the patient, increase the cost of caring for the patient and help create resistant organisms. This is coupled to the fact that the identification of the causative organism has not really improved in 40 years. To this end, the past 20 years have resulted in a large body of research that involves evaluating other biomarkers of infection that stem from the humoral, cytokine or biochemical responses of the body to the sepsis. In this lecture we will review the biomarkers that have been found to be useful in the laboratory and the few that have made their way to the bedside evaluation of the septic patient or for the use in antibiotic stewardship.