Mechanisms and Clinical Impact of Antibiotic Heteroresistance

David Weiss, PhD is a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Director of the Emory Antibiotic Resistance Center. He received his PhD in Microbiology from New York University in 2004. Working under Dr. Arturo Zychlinsky, he studied how Toll-like Receptors work together to fight bacterial infections. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University under the guidance of Drs. Stanley Falkow and Denise Monack, studying virulence mechanisms of Francisella and the role of the inflammasome in host defense. He was the recipient of a three year postdoctoral fellowship from the Giannini Family Foundation. Since starting his lab at Emory University in 2008, Dr. Weiss has continued to study the ways in which bacteria cause disease and subvert the host immune response, as well as how they resist antibiotics. His current research is focused on the role of antibiotic heteroresistance in causing treatment failures as well as how heteroresistance can be exploited to rationally design effective combination therapies. Dr. Weiss was named a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease, a Kavli Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).