Craig Russell Roy, newly named as the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, focuses his research on understanding the molecular and cellular events that enable microbial pathogens to evade host defense mechanisms.
Using multidisciplinary approaches, Roy’s laboratory has discovered many novel mechanisms that intracellular pathogens use to modulate membrane transport pathways, which allow these pathogens to evade host defenses and create novel organelles that permit bacterial replication.
Roy studied microbiology at Michigan State University and earned his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Stanford University. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine, he was appointed as assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Stony Brook University. Roy became a founding member of the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis at Yale in 1998 and, prior to his new appointment, was a full professor of microbial pathogenesis and of immunobiology. He also serves as vice-chair of the department.
Roy is a widely published contributor to peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Science, and Cell Host and Microbe, among other publications. He serves as an editor for PLoS Pathogens and Infection and Immunity. He is currently on the editorial board of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, The Journal of Cell Biology, and Cellular Microbiology.
The Yale professor has received multiple awards, including the Eli Lilly and Company Research Award in 2007, the American Society for Microbiology’s oldest and most prestigious prize. He has been an invited lecturer at universities and professional organizations throughout the United States and Europe, as well as in South America and Asia.