Scott J. Hultgren, PhD
Scott J. Hultgren, PhD, the Helen L. Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology, is an internationally renowned investigator in the areas of bacterial pathogenesis, micro-biology, infectious diseases, and women’s health.
Hultgren earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in 1981 and his doctoral degree from Northwestern University in 1987. He completed his training with a microbiology postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Umea in Sweden. He joined the Washington University faculty in 1989.
Hultgren’s work has formed the basis for understanding how Escherichia coli (E. coli) cause infections. His work was instrumental in determining the molecular details of the chaperone-usher pathway by which adhesive fibers, critical to infections, are elaborated on the surface of gram-negative bacteria. Further, he has contributed seminal findings establishing a new paradigm for recurrent urinary tract infections. His work has led to new and innovative technologies for diagnosis and treatment of these infections.
Hultgren has also excelled as a mentor to 20 doctoral students and 21 postdoctoral fellows, who have moved on to leading industry and academic positions around the world. He also has served as coursemaster of the first-year Microbes and Pathogenesis course and was honored as Coursemaster of the Year in 2002. He received the Academic Women’s Network Faculty Mentor Award in 2007.
In recent years, he has become a national force in women’s health, particularly in infectious diseases. He has contributed to several national efforts to move research forward in this area and has established the Center for Women’s Infectious Disease Research.
Hultgren has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He holds five R01 awards and an ARRA Challenge grant, has received an NIH Merit Award, and is the program director of a Specialized Center of Research (P50) grant. He has been honored with the prestigious Eli Lilly Award for young investigators and a Nobel fellowship, and he was elected an AAAS fellow.