Joseph Heitman MD, PhD

Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD, is a James B. Duke Professor in the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, and Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Director of the Duke Center for Microbial Pathogenesis. He served as director of the Duke University Program in Genetics and Genomics from 2002-2009. Dr. Heitman received his MD-PhD training at Cornell and Rockefeller Universities, where he worked with Peter Model and Norton Zinder on how restriction enzymes recognize specific DNA sequences and how bacteria respond to and repair DNA breaks and nicks.