Martin J. Blaser, M.D., is the George and Muriel Singer Professor of Medicine, Professor of Microbiology, and Director of the Human Microbiome Program at the NYU School of Medicine. He served as Chair of the Department of Medicine at NYU from 2000-2012.
A physician and microbiologist, Dr. Blaser is interested in understanding the relationships we have with our persistently colonizing bacteria. His work over the past 30 years focused on human pathogens, including Campylobacter species and Helicobacter pylori, which also are model systems for understanding interactions of residential bacteria with their human hosts. Over the last decade, he has been actively studying the relationship of the human microbiome to health and such important diseases as asthma, obesity, diabetes, and allergies.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Blaser has served as the advisor for a large number of students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty, and he has been actively involved in national scientific and professional organizations. He served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, and Chairof the Advisory Board for Clinical Research of the National Institutes of Health. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. He holds 24 U.S. patents relating to his research, and has authored over 500 original articles.
Most recently, he wrote “Missing Microbes,” a book targeted to the general audience.