William A. Petri

Short Bio:

William A. Petri, Jr., M.D., Ph.D. is a physician-scientist at the University of Virginia who studies how microbes cause disease. He discovered that the parasite Entamoeba histolytica invades the intestine by eating it alive in a novel process called trogocytosis, mapped genetic susceptibility to the receptor for the obesity hormone leptin, invented an FDA-approved test for diagnosis, and is developing a vaccine designed to promote mucosal immunity. In bacteriology, Petri studies C. difficile colitis, the most common hospital acquired infection, and has shown that gut eosinophils are critical in defense and a biomarker of survival. Petri’s longitudinal work in infants from the slums of Dhaka has identified enteric infections as a cause of chronic intestinal inflammation that has the collateral damage of malnutrition, impaired cognition and oral vaccine failure. Finally during the global pandemic Petri has mobilized his research group to the study the SARS-CoV-2 virus, demonstrating that the type 2 cytokine IL-13 is causal in the immune dysregulation that leads to hypoxic respiratory failure, identifying the immune environment that leads to a delayed antibody response and failure to control viral replication, and participating in human clinical trials of anti-Spike monoclonal antibodies for post-exposure prophylaxis. Petri has served as President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Editor of Infection and Immunity, and is currently Associate Editor for PLoS Pathogens, Clinical Infections Diseases and Trends in Molecular Medicine. He has served continuously since 1993 on advisory committees for the NIH. His research has been honored with a MERIT Award from NIH, the Ben Kean Medal of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Oswald Avery Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Burroughs Wellcome New Investigator and Scholar Awards in Molecular Parasitology, and the Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical Research. This year he will receive the Maxwell Finland Award which is highest award for research of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. The Governor of Virginia has awarded Petri the Virginia Outstanding Scientist Award in 2017 and the Outstanding Faculty Award in 2014 and the University of Virginia the Walter Reed Distinguished Achievement Award, Distinguished Researcher Award, All-University Teaching Award and Inventor of the Year. Bill Petri received the MD and PhD (Microbiology) degrees from UVA, did medicine residency at Case Western and returned to UVA for infectious diseases fellowship. He rose through the ranks to serve for 17 years as Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division and is currently Vice Chair for Research of the Department of Medicine. He spends 3 months of every year caring for patients on the general medicine and infectious diseases services and the remainder is focused on research on infectious diseases, supported by grant funding from NIH, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Regeneron. photo credit: UVA