Newswise — Alison O'Brien, Ph.D., an internationally recognized microbiologist, professor and chair of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' (USU) Department of Microbiology and Immunology, was recently selected as President Elect of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).
Dr. O'Brien is a world-renowned expert in bacterial toxins and microbial pathogenesis. She has over 170 publications and has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for her work on the "hamburger bug," Escherichia coli O157:H7, for the past 23 years. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Society for Microbiology journal, Infection and Immunity, since 1999 and is the current President of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Immunology Chairs. Her previous honors include membership on advisory panels for the NIAID, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As President Elect of ASM, Dr. O'Brien will serve a one-year term from July 2007-July 2008. She will then serve a one-year term as President from July 2008 to July 2009.
The ASM is the world's largest scientific society of individuals interested in the microbiological sciences. The Society's mission is to advance microbiological sciences through the pursuit of scientific knowledge and dissemination of the results of fundamental and applied research.
USU is the nation's federal school of medicine and graduate school of nursing. The students are active-duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and U.S. Public Health Service who are being educated as health care practioners to deal with wartime casualties, national disasters, emerging infectious diseases and other public health emergencies.
The University is a partner in planning and establishing the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a 21st Century academic health center. This new multi-service institution will provide state of the art health care, education and research across all three services; closely collaborate with the National Institutes of Health and the US Public Health Service writ large; and set a new standard for inter-governmental collaboration. USU will be the academic core of this new entity with WRNMMC as a premier teaching hospital and clinical care center serving the nation and our uniformed beneficiaries.
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