Dr. Martin J. Blaser is the Muriel and George Singer Professor of Medicine, professor of microbiology and director of the Human Microbiome Program at the NYU School of Medicine. He served as chair of the Department of Medicine at NYU from 2000-2012. He served as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, and chair of the Advisory Board for Clinical Research of the National Institutes of Health. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.

A physician and microbiologist, Blaser is interested in understanding the relationships we have with our persistently colonizing bacteria. His work over the past 30 years largely focused on Campylobacter species and Helicobacter pylori, which are important as pathogens, and as model systems for understanding interactions of residential bacteria with their human hosts. Over the last decade, he has been actively studying the relationship of the human microbiome to health and such important diseases as asthma, obesity, diabetes and allergies. He holds 24 U.S. patents relating to his research, has authored more than 500 original articles and a book, "Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues."