Dr. Eric Brown

Dr. Eric Brown is a Distinguished University Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and member of the M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

Dr. Brown received his Ph.D. (1992) in Biochemistry studying proline utilization in bacteria at the University of Guelph in Professor Janet Wood’s laboratory.  Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Professor Christopher Walsh’s research group at Harvard Medical School researching bacterial cell wall biosynthesis.  Following his academic training, Dr. Brown worked in the Boston biotech sector with Myco Pharmaceuticals and Astra Research Center Boston (now AstraZeneca) before joining the Department of Biochemistry at McMaster in 1998.

Dr. Brown is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and has received a number of other awards including the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for career achievement and the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences Merck Frosst Prize for new investigators.  He currently holds a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts and Canada Research Chair in Microbial Chemical Biology.

Dr. Brown is a former department Chair and Director of a leading-edge educational program at the nexus of science and commerce, the Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization program. He has served on advisory boards for a variety of companies as well as national and international associations, including a term as President of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, member of the Medical Review Panel of the Gairdner Foundation, member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Infection and Immunity of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and College Chair advising the Canadian Institutes of Health Research on peer review. Currently, he is a member of the editorial board of ACS Infectious Diseases, the Series Editor of the annual Antimicrobial Therapeutics Review of the Annals of the New York Academy of Science, a member of the Advisory Board of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Research.

Brown Lab researchers are searching for the Achilles heels of drug-resistant superbugs. To this end they are using tools of chemical biology and molecular genetics to probe the complex biology that underlies bacterial survival strategies. The goal of these studies is to contribute to fresh directions for new antibacterial therapeutics.

If you are interested in a position at Brown Lab please visit our contact page for more information on how to get in touch with Dr. Brown.