Campagnari to Lead Biomedical Research, Graduate Education

In his new role, he will work to strengthen the faculty research environment in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences as well as oversee its PhD Program in Biomedical Sciences, a first-year entry program for doctoral students.

“Dr. Campagnari’s success as an innovative researcher and his expertise in mentored-research training will help us to advance biomedical research, especially interdisciplinary and translational research collaborations, and to provide leadership for our graduate programs,” says Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school.

“Creative research collaborations of all kinds will become more important in the coming years, and I’m pleased that we will have leadership in this arena to help support our faculty—and our students, who will one day direct their own research labs.”

Campagnari’s responsibilities will include supporting the grant process, spurring collaborative research and enhancing research facilities.

He will cultivate training grants for all of the school’s graduate and post-doctoral programs.

To foster interdisciplinary research, he will facilitate collaborative grants for programs and research centers that engage faculty in the medical school and other University at Buffalo schools.

He also will help advance innovative translational research by promoting collaborations between basic science and clinical departments and fostering funding for researchers working to transfer basic study results to clinical applications.

In addition, Campagnari will contribute to efforts that enhance the school’s core research facilities and those that are related to relocating the school to its new downtown campus.

A professor of microbiology and immunology as well as medicine, Campagnari completed his doctoral degree in tumor immunology and a post-doctoral fellowship in infectious disease at UB. He joined the faculty as a tenured associate professor in 1996.

His research focuses on bacterial virulence factors, biofilm-associated components and putative vaccine antigens for two gram-negative human pathogens: Moraxella catarrhalis and Acinetobacter baumannii. Through new collaborative projects, he is working to identify novel antimicrobial treatments.

Continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, industry and private foundations for more than 20 years, Campagnari’s research has led to 70 publications and four U.S. patents.

He has been honored with the UB Sustained Achievement Award from the Exceptional Scholar Program (2002), the UB Visionary Innovator Award (2008) and the UB Inventor and Entrepreneur Award (2009).