When Joseph Nates, M.D., joined MD Anderson's faculty in 2002, he discovered a high incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia.

By 2009, he and his team had brought its occurrence to zero.

In the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 90% of pneumonias occur while patients are ventilated. Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) increases the length of hospitalization by an average of 23 days, with an associated cost per patient...