Bruce Harris Thiers, MD

Dr. Rissmiller grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Villanova University as an undergraduate. He then moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and spent ten years at Wake Forest University completing medical school, a residency in internal medicine and a pulmonary and critical care fellowship. He then spent nine years in Charlotte, North Carolina, at Carolinas Medical Center (Main Campus) and provided pulmonary and critical care services for patients, as well as taking an active role in resident and medical student education. Dr. Rissmiller moved to MUSC in February of 2013 and has helped expand the sarcoidosis program, as well as seeing patients with pulmonary hypertension and general inpatient and outpatient pulmonary medicine. He maintains an interest in education. He has been designated a master clinical teacher by the medical school in 2014 and was awarded the Michael E. Assey Teaching Award for the Department of Internal Medicine in 2015.

John W. Gnann, Jr. M.D. joined the MUSC Department of Medicine, division of infectious diseases, in 2013. Dr. Gnann was born in Walterboro, South Carolina and grew up in Savannah, Georgia. Following graduation from Davidson College and Duke University School of Medicine, Dr. Gnann completed his internal medicine residency and infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. At UAB, Dr. Gnann began to develop his career-long interest in clinical virology and antiviral chemotherapy. Fellowship was followed by a tour of duty in the U.S. Army where Dr. Gnann served as the chief of the infectious diseases service at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington. Dr. Gnann then re-located to Southern California where he completed a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship in virology and immunology at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla. At the completion of his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Gnann was recruited to return to UAB to join the infectious diseases faculty. During his 25 years at UAB, Dr. Gnann rose through the ranks to become a professor of medicine, pediatrics and microbiology. His research interests continued to focus on the diagnosis and treatment of viral infections, especially those caused by herpes viruses. He led numerous clinical trials related to development of antiviral therapy for infections caused by HSV and VZV. He also became interested in opportunistic viral infections occurring in immuno-compromised patients and led clinical investigations of hepatitis C in liver transplant recipients, RSV infections in bone marrow transplant patients, and BK virus disease in renal transplant recipients. In addition, Dr. Gnann developed expertise in vaccine research and was a principal investigator for studies related to VZV and anthrax vaccines. At UAB, he also served as the medical director of the 1917 (HIV) Clinic.In 2013, Dr. Gnann was recruited to move to Charleston and joined MUSC. At MUSC, Dr. Gnann continues to provide specialized care for persons living with HIV and for organ transplant recipients who experience infectious complications. He has recently accepted the role of medical director for the MUSC antimicrobial stewardship program.