Research Interests and Accomplishments

Dr. William Nierman is an Infectious Disease Investigator at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI).  He is also Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular biology at The George Washington University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. degree from the US Naval Academy and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California Berkeley. Prior to joining JCVI he mapped human ESTs to the human genome with some of this work done in collaboration with Craig Venter.

Dr. Nierman’s current research focus is on genomic and functional analysis of two levels of interaction between microbial pathogens and the human host immune system. Burkholderia mallei and Burkholderia pseudomallei are severe bacterial pathogens that cause difficult to diagnose but very life threatening diseases and are classified as select agents by CDC.

At the other end of the pathogenicity scale are Aspergillus and Penicillium fungal pathogens which cause invasive or systemic disease in immune compromised or immune suppressed human hosts. Both groups of organisms pose serious public health issues in both developed and in developing countries.

Select Publications