Thomas A. Russo

I am an expert in infectious diseases, and I care for hospitalized patients at the Buffalo VA Medical Center (Buffalo VAMC).

I have an active, nationally funded translational research program. My research focuses on Gram-negative bacilli (GNB), including Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii and a new hypervirulent variant of Klebsiella pneumoniae.

These GNB cause infection in nearly every nonintestinal site in the body. The hypervirulent variant of K. pneumoniae is both fascinating and worrisome. Unlike its predecessors, it is capable of causing infection in young, healthy hosts and spreading nearly anywhere in the body from the initial infected site, including the eyes and brain. GNB-caused infections result in the loss of billions of health care dollars, millions of work days and hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

GNB are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, including strains that have become resistant to all available antibiotics. Unfortunately, there are virtually no new antimicrobial agents active against highly resistant GNB in the pharmaceutical “pipeline.” To address this formidable clinical challenge, my collaborators and I have increased our understanding of the bacterial factors that are critical for these GNB to cause infection. We use this information to develop vaccines and small molecules that will prevent and treat infection respectively.

Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic I have served as a resource to educate and inform healthcare providers, the public, and businesses on how to best manage this evolving crisis.

Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1fOLa9MpeeG5g/bibliography/public/

103 publications, google scholar h-index 52 (cited 8987 times) as of 5.13.2020