Chief Scientific Innovation Officer (CSIO) at Baylor College of Medicine
Joseph F. Petrosino, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Innovation Officer (CSIO) at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also professor and chairman of the department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology and director of the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research (CMMR). He also holds appointments in the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, the department of ophthalmology, and the Human Genome Sequencing Center.
Dr. Petrosino was a principal investigator for the NIH Common Fund Human Microbiome Project, and 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 biological, genomic and informatic approaches to dissect the role of commensal microbes in human health. Over the past 20 years, the Petrosino laboratory has established over 550 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, and the Baylor College of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award in 2025. He sits on the scientific advisory boards of several biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and nutrition companies and has contributed to more than 230 peer-reviewed microbiome studies.
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. Diversigen was acquired by Orasure Technologies in 2019. Following this transaction, in 2021 Dr. Petrosino was named the BCM CSIO and directs the institution’s technology transfer efforts and the commercialization of its diverse therapeutic, diagnostic and device IP portfolio.
