Kreiswirth Lab
Barry Kreiswirth, Ph.D., is a Member of the Center for Discovery and Innovation.
Dr. Kreiswirth is also an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Medicine at New York University, a lecturer at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and a visiting professor at the Museum of Natural History.
Dr. Kreiswirth earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology characterizing the genetic basis of the S. aureus toxic shock syndrome toxin. His career as a molecular epidemiologist spanned 41 years at the Public Health Research Institute where he focused on understanding the spread of antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens in hospitals and in the community. His laboratory has developed rapid diagnostic tools and the experience to track the spread of hospital infections and their implementation of spa typing to genotype methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and investigate nosocomial outbreaks; their methods have become the gold standard to support hospital infection control efforts.
The laboratory’s experience advancing public health programs led to the creation of the Tuberculosis Center, which focuses on the study of molecular epidemiology of TB and works closely with the CDC and the Health Departments of NYC and New Jersey to control the spread of tuberculosis. The center characterized the highly multidrug resistant strain W and created the largest M. tuberculosis strain and DNA fingerprint library in the US. They have also extended their public health experience to work with local hospitals to respond to the emergence of carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae, multidrug resistant M. abscessus infections and to use whole genome sequencing to unravel their epidemiology.
At CDI, Dr. Kreiswirth’s laboratory will focus on controlling infections in high-risk cancer and transplant patients and bring molecular diagnostics and epidemiological studies to advance infection control efforts across the Hackensack Meridian Health hospital network. Dr. Kreiswirth has over 435 peer review publications, is an editor and reviewer of numerous infectious disease journals and has appeared in National Geographic and on 60 minutes.