Rebecca M. Brotman, PhD, MPH

• Washington University, St. Louis, MO, BA, 1996
• Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, MPH, Reproductive Epidemiology, 2001
• Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, PhD, Department of Epidemiology Infectious Diseases Program, 2007
• National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA)
  Longitudinal Study of Vaginal Flora, 2005-2007
• Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research (DESPR), Predoctoral Fellow, Rockville, MD, 2005-2007
• University of Maryland School of Medicine, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Genome Sciences, 2007-2008

Dr. Brotman is an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has integrated the study of genomics into public health research. Over the past 20 years, she has developed a research career in various aspects of the human microbiome with an emphasis on urogenital health. Her research has ranged between the role of the vaginal microbiome in susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the behavioral and biological factors associated with the development of bacterial vaginosis (BV). 

infectious diseases, genomics, public health research, human microbiome, urogenital health, vaginal microbiome in susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections, STIs, bacterial vaginosis, BV

Brotman RM, Ghanem KG, Klebanoff MA, Taha TE, Scharfstein DO, Zenilman JM: The effect of vaginal douching cessation on bacterial vaginosis: a pilot study. J. Obstet. Gynecol. 2008 Jun;198(6):628.e1-7. PMCID: PMC2494605.

Brotman RM, Klebanoff MA, Nansel TR, Andrews WW, Schwebke JR, Zhang J, Yu KF, Zenilman JM, Scharfstein DO. A longitudinal study of vaginal douching and bacterial vaginosis — A marginal structural modeling analysis. Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Jul 15;168(2):188-96. PMCID:

Brotman RM, Ravel J. [Invited Commentary] Ready or not: The molecular diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis. Clin Infect Dis. 2008 Jul 1;47(1):44-6. PMCID: N/A.

Brotman RM, Ravel J, Cone RA, Zenilman JM: Rapid fluctuation of the vaginal microbiota measured by Gram stain analysis. Sex Transm Infect 86:297-302, 2010 PMCID: PMC3534767.

Ravel J, Gajer P, Abdo Z, Schneider GM, Koenig SS, McCulle SL, Karlebach S, Gorle R, Russell J, Tacket CO, Brotman RM, Davis CC, Ault K, Peralta L, Forney LJ: Vaginal microbiome of reproductive-age women. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108 Suppl 1:4680-4687, 2011. PMCID: PMC3063603.

Brotman RM, Klebanoff MA, Nansel TR, Yu KF, Andrews WW, Zhang J, Schwebke JR: Bacterial vaginosis assessed by gram stain and diminished colonization resistance to incident gonococcal, chlamydial, and trichomonal genital infection. J Infect Dis 202:1907-1915, 2010. PMCID: PMC3053135.

Gajer P*, Brotman RM*, Bai G, Sakamoto J, Schutte UM, Zhong X, Koenig SS, Fu L, Ma ZS, Zhou X, Abdo Z, Forney LJ, Ravel J: Temporal dynamics of the human vaginal microbiota. Sci Transl Med 4:132ra52, 2012. *contributed equally as first author PMCID: PMC3722878.

Brotman RM, Shardell MD, Gajer P, Fadrosh D, Chang K, Silver M, Viscidi RP, Burke AE, Ravel J, Gravitt PG. Association between the vaginal microbiota, menopausal status, and vulvovaginal symptoms. 2014 May;21(5):450-8. PMCID: PMC3994184.

Brotman RM, Shardell MD, Gajer P, Tracy JK, Zenilman JM, Ravel J, Gravitt PE. Interplay between the temporal dynamics of the vaginal microbiota and human papillomavirus detection. J Infect Dis. 2014 Dec 1;210(11):1723-33. PMCID: PMC4296189.

Robinson CK, Brotman RM, Ravel J. Intricacies of assessing the human microbiome in epidemiologic studies. Ann Epidemiol 2016, 26(5):311-321. PMCID: PMC4892937.

Nelson TM, Borgogna JC, Michalek RD, Roberts DW, Rath JM, Glover ED, Ravel J, Shardell MD, Yeoman CJ, Brotman RM. Cigarette smoking is associated with an altered vaginal tract metabolomic profile. Nature Scientific Reports 2018, 8(1):852. PMCID: PMC5770521.

Klebanoff MA, Brotman RM: Treatment of bacterial vaginosis to prevent preterm birth. Lancet 2018, 392(10160):2141-2142.

Borgogna JC, Shardell MD, Santori EK, Nelson TM, Rath JM, Glover ED, Ravel J, Gravitt PE, Yeoman CJ, Brotman RM: The vaginal metabolome and microbiota of cervical HPV-positive and HPV-negative women: a cross-sectional analysis. BJOG 2020, 127(2):182-192. PMCID: PMC6982399.

France MT, Ma B, Gajer P, Brown S, Humphrys MS, Holm JB, Waetjen LE, Brotman RM, Ravel J: VALENCIA: a nearest centroid classification method for vaginal microbial communities based on composition. Microbiome 2020, 8(1):166. PMCID: PMC7684964.

Turpin R, Tuddenham S, He X, Ghanem KG, Klebanoff MA, Brotman RM. Bacterial Vaginosis and Behavioral Factors Associated with Incident Pelvic Inflammatory Disease in the Longitudinal Study of Vaginal Flora, J Infect Dis. 2021 Aug 16;224 (Supplement 2):S137-S144. PMCID: PMC8499701.

Shardell MD, Gravitt PE, Burke AE, Ravel J, Brotman RM. Association of Vaginal Microbiota with Signs and Symptoms Associated with the Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause across Reproductive Stages. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2021 Apr 27. PMCID: PMC8361365.

Holm JB, France MT, Gajer P, Ma B, Brotman RM, Shardell M, Forney L, Ravel J: Integrating compositional and functional content to describe vaginal microbiomes in health and disease. Microbiome 2023, 11(1):259.PMCID:PMC10688475.

Klasner C, Macintyre AN, Brown SE, Bavoil P, Ghanem KG, Nylander E, Ravel J, Tuddenham S, Brotman RM: A Narrative Review on Spontaneous Clearance of Urogenital Chlamydia trachomatis: Host, Microbiome, and Pathogen-Related Factors. Sex Transm Dis 2024, 51(2):112-117. PMCID: PMC11017733.

Stennett C, France M, Shardell M, Robbins SJ, Brown SE, Johnston ED, Mark K, Ravel J, Brotman RM. Temporal dynamics of the vaginal microbiota of peri- and postmenopausal women: a pilot prospective cohort study, Menopause journal, IN PRESS.

Carter KA, Tuddenham S, Brotman RM. Dequalinium Chloride: An Emerging Option in the Sparse Landscape of Bacterial Vaginosis Therapies. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(5):e248606.