Joseph Petrosino

A primary investigator for the Human Microbiome Project and author of numerous published studies on microbiome science.

Dr. Petrosino has been actively driving a better understanding of human and animal microbiomes since the introduction of Next Generation Sequencing technologies for the purpose of microbiome studies. He has been involved in key research projects and made a number of ground-breaking advances in our understanding of microbiomes.

Dr. Petrosino was awarded a degree in microbiology and immunology with a distinction in research from the University of Rochester, before completing a PhD in the same subjects at Baylor College of Medicine. He continued at Baylor where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in genetics, and then worked as a research associate in the Human Genome Sequencing Centre.

As a principal investigator for the Human Microbiome Project, he helped develop standardised clinical sample preparation protocols for sequencing and analysis. This allowed microbial communities from diverse body sites to be compared with minimal technical bias and has led to study design standards that are being implemented internationally.

Dr. Petrosino is currently Professor and interim Chairman of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the Alkek Centre for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research. The Centre is involved in more than 400 metagenomics projects in humans which aim to improve human health through a better understanding of microbiomes and the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Petrosino is a popular speaker at national and international meetings and was named Distinguished Lecturer for 2012-2014 by the American Society for Microbiology.