Robert Austrian (Baltimore, 12 April 1916 – Philadelphia, 25 March 2007) was an American infectious diseases physician and, along with Maxwell Finland, one of the two most important researchers into the biology of Streptococcus pneumoniae in the 20th century.
He went on to found the Infectious Diseases division and fellowship program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and held the endower Robert Herr Musser chair there from 1962-1986.
Several medical authorities touted this era as “the end of infectious diseases” due to the remarkable mortality benefits derived from new antimicrobials and anti-parasitics and vaccine research was not thought to be worthwhile.
Beginning with surveillance studies which he conducted revealed that despite antibiotic therapy, there were still, in the 1960s, almost half as many deaths from pneumonia in the United States as there were at the turn of the century.
His Lasker award reads as follows “For his persistent, dedicated efforts which permitted the development of a vaccine that soon may significantly reduce human disease caused by the pneumococcus, this Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award is given.” Robert Austrian also gives rise to the medical eponym "Austrian syndrome" which describes the clinical syndrome of pneumococcal meningitis, pneumonia and endocarditis, after his 1957 paper in Archives of Internal Medicine.