Beyond the Lab: Karissa Culbreath, Medical Genetics
In the month of April, the Office of Career Development is featuring a Beyond the Lab video each day of the month, highlighting awesome alumni in the video series.
Today we highlight Karissa Culbreath, the Scientific Director at Tricore Laboratories. Dr. Culbreath was a speaker at the 2013 Annual Career Symposium, and she shares her bio below.
Dr. Karissa Culbreath is Scientific Director of Infectious Diseases at Tricore Reference Laboratories and Assistant Professor of Pathology at University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. Her primary areas of focus are clinical microbiology, parasitology, mycology and infection at TriCore. Dr. Culbreath serves on the Infection Control and Antibiotic Subcommittee of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees of two local hospitals. In order to improve clinical microbiology practice across the State of New Mexico, Dr. Culbreath co-founded and currently chairs the LiasioNM Committee which is a state wide network of Infectious Disease physicians, pharmacists and clinical laboratory directors. She also manages the Clinical Trials and Research Development Core at TriCore reference laboratories. These divisions are responsible for conducting studies for FDA submissions and internal development of new molecular assays for clinical use in infectious diseases, oncology, and genetics.
Dr. Culbreath received a Bachelors of Arts degree from Fisk University and Ph.D in Microbiology and Immunology from Vanderbilt University, both in Nashville, TN. Her interest in the interface between laboratory science and clinical medicine lead her to pursue a fellowship in Medical and Public Health Microbiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through the American Society of Microbiology. Her research interests include use of Mass Spectrometry for diagnostics in microbiology, emerging nucleic acid amplification methods for rapid identification of bacteria and fungi, and microbiology capacity building in international and domestic resource constrained areas.
This video is supported by a BEST award from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health* (DP7OD018423)
Check out the video!
