Dr James Musser
Houston Methodist Medical Center, United States of America

James M. Musser, M.D., Ph.D. holds the Fondren Distinguished Presidential Endowed Chair and is Chair of the Department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine for the Houston Methodist Hospital System. He also directs the Center for Molecular and Translational Human Infectious Diseases Research at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. He is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. Musser received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He trained at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After residency training he joined the faculty of Baylor College of Medicine and the Department of Pathology of Houston Methodist Hospital in 1991. He was promoted to Professor in 1998. In 1999, he accepted a position with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, where he was Founding Chief of the Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis. In 2005, he and his laboratory moved to Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute. He works primarily on group A Streptococcus (the “flesh-eating” pathogen), with a special emphasis on human-pathogen molecular interactions using genome-wide investigative strategies. His group also uses genome-scale analyses to decipher the molecular events underpinning pandemics and pathogen-host interactions. He has had a decades-long interest in developing a group A Streptococcus vaccine. Clinically, his efforts focus on diagnostic microbiology, patient safety, error reduction, and antimicrobial agent resistance. He is very interested in assisting the development and success of early-stage academic faculty. Dr. Musser is an elected member of many professional societies, including the American Academy of Microbiology, Association of University Pathologists (Pluto Society), American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, and the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He has been fortunate to receive many national honors and awards, including the ICAAC Young Investigator Award (1992), and the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Award (1999) and Chugai Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Scholarship (2007), both sponsored by the American Society for Investigative Pathology. He received the prestigious Rous-Whipple Award in 2017, sponsored by the American Society for Investigative Pathology. He is past president of the American Society for Investigative Pathology, served on the Board of Directors, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), and was President of FASEB (2018-2019).

He has published more than 400 papers and book chapters in the field of bacterial pathogenesis, bacterial population genetics, and infectious diseases, and has an H-index of 103.