Barbara E. Murray, M.D.
University of Texas Health Science Center
Barbara E. Murray, M.D., is the J. Ralph Meadows professor of medicine of the Infectious Disease division at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). She is a 1969 cum laude graduate in mathematics from Rice University in Houston, and graduated first in her class (Ho Din Award) from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas with her M.D. in 1973. She spent the next 6 years training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Harvard Medical School’s Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by 6 months in Thailand conducting research at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences. She joined the faculty at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth as an assistant professor in 1980 and became professor in 1990, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases in 1995, and the J. Ralph Meadows professor in 2003.
Murray is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in antibiotic resistance, enterococci and enterococcal infections and bacterial pathogenesis. Her laboratory’s broad interests involve the genetic and biochemical mechanisms of resistance to antibiotics and bacterial pathogenicity, particularly relating to enterococci, and molecular epidemiologic typing. She conducts NIH funded basic and translational research, has served on numerous NIH committees, DSMBs and study sections and has also served as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, to the European Food Safety Authority and to the EU’s Innovative Medicine’s Initiative. She has been active in professional societies including serving on the Program Planning Committee of ASM’s ICAAC meeting for 9 years and as the chair for 3 years, as an editor of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, on the Program Committee of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and she is a past secretary, treasurer and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (ISDA). Murray is a frequent visiting professor at other medical schools and a frequent invited speaker at national and international meetings. She received the IDSA Alexander Fleming Award for lifetime achievements in 2017.
Murray is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in antibiotic resistance, enterococci and enterococcal infections and bacterial pathogenesis. Her laboratory’s broad interests involve the genetic and biochemical mechanisms of resistance to antibiotics and bacterial pathogenicity, particularly relating to enterococci, and molecular epidemiologic typing. She conducts NIH funded basic and translational research, has served on numerous NIH committees, DSMBs and study sections and has also served as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, to the European Food Safety Authority and to the EU’s Innovative Medicine’s Initiative. She has been active in professional societies including serving on the Program Planning Committee of ASM’s ICAAC meeting for 9 years and as the chair for 3 years, as an editor of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, on the Program Committee of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and she is a past secretary, treasurer and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (ISDA). Murray is a frequent visiting professor at other medical schools and a frequent invited speaker at national and international meetings. She received the IDSA Alexander Fleming Award for lifetime achievements in 2017.