Joseph F. Petrosino, Ph.D., is the chief scientific innovation officer (CSIO) at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also a professor, the Chair of the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology and the director of the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research (CMMR). He also holds appointments at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Department of Ophthalmology and the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor. Dr. Petrosino was a principal investigator for the National Institutes of Health Common Fund Human Microbiome Project.
He established the CMMR in 2011 to develop and implement advanced technologies to understand how the microbiome impacts health and disease and translate this knowledge into new therapeutics and diagnostics. Within the CMMR, the Petrosino Laboratory employs a variety of biological, genomic and informatic approaches to dissect the role of commensal microbes in human health. Over the past 12 years, the Petrosino Laboratory has established over 500 microbiome-related projects with over 300 international collaborators and has elevated the understanding of how the microbiome impacts numerous diseases. Dr. Petrosino’s achievements in the microbiome arena led him to be named an American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer from 2012 – 2014.
In 2013, Dr. Petrosino founded Diversigen, a BCM Technologies start-up in which the robust pipelines built in the CMMR have been commercialized to support biotech and pharmaceutical company needs in the microbiome and metagenomics-related areas. He sits on the scientific advisory boards of several biotechnology, pharmaceutical and nutrition companies and has contributed to more than 200 peer-reviewed microbiome studies. As Baylor’s CSIO, Dr. Petrosino directs and catalyzes the College’s technology transfer efforts and the commercialization of its diverse therapeutic, diagnostic and device IP portfolio.
