Bio
Sarkis K Mazmanian, Ph.D., is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also received his doctoral training in microbiology and immunology. There, he studied the mechanism by which Gram-positive pathogens anchor surface protein adhesins during bacterial infection. He was a Helen Hay Whitney Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School where he studied how symbiotic bacteria promote healthy maturation of the immune system. Dr. Mazmanian was promoted to assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in 2006, and later that year moved to Caltech to start his independent laboratory. His laboratory currently focuses on the study of beneficial bacterial molecules from the human gut microbiome as novel therapies for immunologic and neurologic disorders. This research has led to the identification of novel drug candidates being developed for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Parkinson’s disease.