Jeffrey Bender, M.D.

Jeffrey Bender, M.D., sees being a pediatrician as the best job in the world, and he relishes the opportunity to apply his facility with science to help children. His role as an infectious-disease expert is akin to that of a detective, following clues from a patient’s exposures and symptoms to identify and eliminate infection. For him, collaboration is fundamental to care — including not only the full medical team but also patients and their families.

Dr. Bender is a physician-scientist who had 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications to his credit when he joined City of Hope in 2023. His research examines the community of microbes that inhabit the human gut, aims to prevent infection in pediatric hospitals and explores how the tools of microbiology can improve the deployment of antibiotics. Signature investigations include a Science Translational Medicine study profiling how HIV infection in mothers affects the microbiomes of uninfected infants and a Frontiers in Nutrition study reporting on how immunity to COVID-19 from vaccine boosters can pass from mother to infant through breast milk.

In his prior appointment as a clinical associate professor at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, Dr. Bender earned awards for teaching, innovation and excellence in service to patients. He previously served as an associate physician at Southern California Kaiser Permanente and a clinical instructor in pediatrics at the University of Utah. He has been named a “Top Doctor” by Los Angeles Magazine and Pasadena Magazine numerous times.

Away from the clinic and the lab, Dr. Bender spends time with his family, enjoying sports, music and travel whenever the chance arises.