Dr. Gerald B. Pier Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital
Gerald B. Pier is a Professor of Medicine (Microbiology and Immunology) at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Investigator at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the UC Berkeley. His research focuses on vaccines and antibody therapeutics, microbial pathogenesis, and host-pathogen interactions. These studies concentrate on discovery and development of vaccine targets, the molecular and cellular basis for infections, identifying microbial fitness factors and their impact on antimicrobial resistance, overall issues related to virulence and pathogenesis, and overcoming drug resistance. Current projects involve investigations into how the conserved surface microbial polysaccharide, poly-N-acetyl glucosamine (PNAG) can be used to document microbiota drive inflammatory tissue destruction in Alzheimer's disease, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and graft-versus-host disease as well as showing vaccination against PNAG prevents these diseases.