Clinical Advisory Board

Angela M. Caliendo
MD PhD

Angela M. Caliendo, MD, PhD is the Warren Alpert Professor of Medicine and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Prior to joining the faculty at Brown, she was Professor and Vice Chair of Pathology at Emory University School of Medicine, the Director of Emory Medical Laboratories, and the Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratories.

Dr. Caliendo is an Editor for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, member of the Board of Directors for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Microbiology. Previously she chaired the Microbiology Medical Devices Panel for the FDA, the Diagnostics Task Force for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, served as the President of the Association of Molecular Pathology (2004), and President of the Pan-American Society for Clinical Virology (2010 -2012).

Dr. Caliendo’s research has focused on the development of molecular diagnostic tests for the detection and quantification of infectious diseases and assessment of their clinical utility; molecular testing in transplantation; standardization of viral load testing; and evaluation of HIV-1 RNA burden and the development of antiretroviral resistance in HIV-1 seropositive women. Dr. Caliendo has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts covering various topics in clinical and diagnostic virology and microbiology and was a recipient of the Ed Nowakowski Senior Memorial Clinical Virology Award from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology and the BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology from the American Society for Microbiology.

Melvin P.  Weinstein
MD 

Melvin P. Weinstein is an honors graduate of Rutgers University and received his M.D. degree from the George Washington University.  He trained in Internal Medicine at Hartford Hospital and in Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology at the University of Colorado.  He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Medical Microbiology.  Dr. Weinstein joined the faculty at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1977 and holds the rank of Professor of Medicine and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.  At RWJMS, he was the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Allergy and Immunology in the Department of Medicine from 2001-2019.  He also holds an appointment as Professor of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy at the Rutgers University College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Weinstein is a Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the American College of Physicians.  He is currently the Chair and for many years was a voting member of the CLSI Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing.  He also served on the CLSI Area Committee on Microbiology.  He has served as a member of the FDA Anti-Infective Drug Advisory Committee and the FDA Microbiology Devices Panel, and he has also served as a Trustee of the American Board of Medical Microbiology.  He was the Director of the Microbiology Laboratory at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital from 1983 through 2015 and currently is Co-Director of that laboratory.  In 2004, he received the BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology from the American Society for Microbiology, and in 2011 he received the BioMerieux Sonnenwirth Award for Leadership in Clinical Microbiology also from ASM.  In 2016, Dr. Weinstein received the ASM’s Professional Recognition Award.

An author of more than 125 original research articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as numerous invited articles, chapters, and published abstracts, Dr. Weinstein’s research has focused on the clinical and prognostic importance of bloodstream infections and the scientific basis for blood culture methods and systems.  He also conducts research on methods for detecting emerging antibiotic resistance in the clinical laboratory and cost-effective use of diagnostic testing.  He has lectured nationally and internationally on these and other topics.

Dr. Weinstein has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and Clinical Microbiology Reviews and also as a peer-reviewer for numerous medical journals.  He was the Co-Section Editor for Medical Microbiology for Clinical Infectious Diseases from 1996-2017 and served as a Section Editor for the 8^th, 9^th and 10^th editions of the ASM Manual of Clinical Microbiology.

Mark Wilcox
MD

Dr. Mark Wilcox, M.D., FRCPath, serves as a Consultant Microbiologist, Head & Professor of Medical and Academic Lead of Pathology/Clinical Director of Pathology, at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTHT). Dr. Wilcox is a Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Leeds at their Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences and is the lead on Clostridium difficile for Public Health England in the UK. Dr. Wilcox serves as the Principal/UK Investigator for several clinical trials of new anti-infective drugs and has provided clinical advice as part of the FDA/EMA submissions for the approval of several novel antimicrobial agents. He was the Director of Infection Prevention, Infection Control Doctor and Clinical Director of Pathology at LTHT. Dr. Wilcox has been the Chairman of Clinical Advisory Board at Synthetic Biologics Inc. since June 30, 2014. He has been Member of Scientific Advisory Board of Seres Health, Inc. since January 2015. He serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Novacta Biosystems Limited. He serves as Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Motif Bio Plc. He serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Calixa Therapeutics, Inc. He serves as Assistant Editor of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and Member of Council of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Prof. Wilcox serves as a Member of the Department of Health’s Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) Committee and an Advisor to the UK Healthcare Commission, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the EPIC project on infection control issues, the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme on Healthcare Associated Infection and the European Centre for Disease Control. Dr. Wilcox serves as a Member of UK, European and US working groups on Clostridium difficile infection. He served as Scientific Chairman of the 2002 Hospital Infection Society International Conference and served as Secretary of the Hospital Infection Society. He serves as a Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Leeds and is the lead on Clostridium difficile infection for the Health Protection Agency Regional Microbiology Network in England. His research projects include several areas of healthcare associated infection, in particular Clostridium difficile infection, staphylococcal infection and the clinical development of new antimicrobial agents. Dr. Wilcox has authored more than 360 papers and published a number of books and chapters.

Dale N. Gerding
MD

Dale Gerding is a Research Physician at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois (retired). Prior to his present position Dr. Gerding was Chief of Medicine at VA Chicago, Lakeside Division, and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

He is an infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist, past president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and past chair the antibiotic resistance committee of SHEA.  He is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and past Chair of the National and Global Public Health Committee, the Antibiotic Resistance Subcommittee, and is co-chair of the guideline for Clostridium difficile Infection of IDSA and SHEA. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of IDSA from 2005-2008. He has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement award of the Anaerobe Society of the Americas in 2010 where he is also past president. He has also received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Veterans Affairs Society for Physicians in Infectious Disease in 2014. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians and the 2013 recipient of the William Middleton Award, the highest research award given by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

His research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of Clostridium difficile infection, antimicrobial resistance, and antimicrobial distribution and kinetics.  He has been a Merit Review funded research investigator in the VA for over 40 years and is the author of over 400 peer-reviewed journal publications, book chapters, and review articles.  He holds patents and technology for the use of non-toxigenic C. difficile for the prevention and treatment of this disease.  He is a member of the editorial boards of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Gut Microbes, and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, and is an ad hoc reviewer for numerous other medical journals.

Stephen Brecher
PhD

Dr. Stephen Brecher, also known as the “Chief of Staph”,  has been practicing clinical microbiology for 50 years. He is the Director of Microbiology at the VA Boston HealthCare System (36 years) and is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and has chaired/convened a workshop on antibiotic resistance at the annual meetings of the American Society for Microbiology for 20 years. His research interests are centered around C. difficile infections, antibiotic resistance, and the field that is keeping him from retirement, improved technology for rapid, accurate diagnosis of infectious agents, including antibiotic resistance testing. Dr. Brecher is well known for his expertise in these fields and for his ability to tell you that the microbes are winning, but life is still fun. He has lectured worldwide and most recently (January, 2019) gave a TEDx talk on bacteria (“To see three pounds of bacteria, look in the mirror”).

James Kirby
MD

James Kirby is the Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He is Board Certified in Clinical Pathology and is a Diplomat of the American Board of Medical Microbiology. He received degrees from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and performed residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and research training at the National Institutes of Health and the Tufts Sackler School of Medicine.  He is a National Institutes of Health-funded scientist whose research efforts include antibiotic development, understanding how bacterial pathogens cause disease, and development of novel antimicrobial susceptibility testing platforms. From 2009-2012, he was the President of the Northeast Branch of the American Society of Microbiology. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and Applied and Environmental Microbiology

More information about Dr. Kirby may be found at www.kirbylab.org.