Professor and Chairman
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX
Joseph F. Petrosino, Ph.D. is a professor and chairman of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he also holds joint appointments in the Human Genome Sequencing Center and the department of ophthalmology. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1998 and remained at Baylor for postdoctoral training in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics until 2004 when he joined the faculty of the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology.
Dr. Petrosino was a principal investigator for the NIH Common Fund Human Microbiome Project and, in 2011, established the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research (CMMR), with its mission to develop and implement advanced technologies to understand how the microbiome impacts health and disease and translate this knowledge for better therapeutics and diagnostics.
Over the past eight years, the CMMR has established over 400 microbiome-related projects with over 200 collaborators worldwide. Among the most promising projects is a comprehensive microbiome analysis of 28,000+ type 1 diabetes (T1D) samples from the NIH/NIDDK TEDDY (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young) prospective cohort which has the goal of identifying microbial taxonomic and functional associations, and potentially triggers, for T1D. Additionally, the Petrosino laboratory is employing a variety of biological and engineering approaches to isolate and fractionate live microbial cells for study of their role in human health and for use in personalized medicine applications where microbiome interventions are being considered.
In 2013, Dr. Petrosino founded Diversigen, a BCM Technologies start-up where the robust pipelines built in the CMMR have been commercialized to support biotech and pharmaceutical company needs in the microbiome and metagenomics-related arenas. He has contributed to more than 120 peer-reviewed microbiome studies, and his achievements in the microbiome arena led him to be named an American Society for Microbiology Distinguished lecturer from 2012-2014.
Friday, October 4
2:35 PM – 3:00 PM