Dr. William Bishai holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School and completed an internship and residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. After conducting postdoctoral research as a Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of 1978 Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith, Dr. Bishai joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he is currently a Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine and the Co-Director of the Center for Tuberculosis Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Bishai's research interests include molecular pathogenesis of tuberculosis. "Since Mycobacterium tuberculosis senses and adapts to a wide array of conditions during the disease process, it is clear that the regulation of expression of virulence factors plays an important role in pathogenesis. Hence a theme of my research has been to assess mycobacterial genes important in gene regulation."

Other active interests are cell division in mycobacteria and the pathogenesis of caseation and cavitation. The use of the mouse and rabbit models of tuberculosis has been a prominent aspect of these studies. Goals of the research program are first to better understand tuberculosis pathogenesis, and then to employ this understanding towards improved drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/DOM/TB_Lab/faculty/bishai.html