Yousef Abu Kwaik

J. Samuel Bumgardner Endowed Chair in Molecular Pathogenesis

School of Medicine

Yousef Abu Kwaik, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. His research focuses on the cellular biology of emerging diseases, particularly Legionnaires’ disease and Tularemia. He is interested in discovering the ways in which the bacteria changes the host cell biology as they grow and replicate – processes that eventually result in cell death.

His laboratory’s ultimate goal is to find ways to target these changes to find treatments for disease and develop vaccines. Abu Kwaik’s research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, which recently awarded him more than $2.3 million in support of his work on these diseases.

He presents regularly at national meetings and publishes regularly in the Journaal of Experimental Medicine, Applied Environmental Microbiology, Infection and Immunity, Cellular Microbiology, and the International Journal of Medical Microbiology. He is editor-in-chief of the first book on tularemia, published in July 2007.

Abu Kwaik earned his Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining U of L, he was an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Kentucky.