.png)
.png)
Professor
Houston Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College
Disclosure(s): Entasis Phramceuticals: Grant/Research Support; MeMed Diagnostics: Grant/Research Support; Merck: Grant/Research Support
Cesar A. Arias, MD. MSc, PhD serves as the Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases at Houston Methodist Hospital and Co-Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at Houston Methodist Research Institute. Dr Arias is the current holder of the John F. III and Ann H. Bookout Distinguished Chair for Research Excellence at Houston Methodist Hospital. He holds appointments as Professor of Medicine at Houston Methodist Academic Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College. He also holds a joint appointment as Professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX and Universidad El Bosque, Bogota, Colombia.
Dr. Arias earned his MD from Universidad El Bosque, Bogota, Colombia (first in class), MSc in Clinical Microbiology at the University of London, UK (St. Bartholomew’s and The Royal London Hospital School of Medicine and Dentistry), London, UK and his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. He trained in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX. He is certified in both Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
He is a nationally and internationally recognized physician-scientist with > 20 years of experience in conducting NIH-funded basic, translational and clinical research on mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and the molecular epidemiology and clinical impact antibiotic resistant organisms, in particular with the use of state-of-the-art genomic analyses (>230 publications). Dr. Arias was one of the first recipients of the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award and his innovative work has been recognized by the American Society of Microbiology (Young Investigator Award), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (Oswald Avery Award for Early Achievement), Pan-American Society for Infectious Diseases (Isidro Zavala Medal for Early Career Outstanding Research in Infectious Diseases) and British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (Young Investigator Award), among others.
Dr Arias served as standing member of the NIH/NIAID Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and DP2 New Investigator Award study sections. He has been invited to be member of grant reviewer panels (including as Chair) both in the US and Europe, including with the NIH and the European Union Joint Program Initiative for Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR). He has been actively engaged with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), serving on the Program Planning Committee of IDWeek as Vice-Chair (2018) and Chair (2019), and currently as Member of the Board of Directors of IDSA. Dr. Arias serves as Editor-In-Chief of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a premier journal for antibiotic resistance research and is member of several editorial boards of prominent journals in the field. He is part of World Health Organization Antibiotic Pipeline Panel, and also served as consultant of the WHO for emerging pathogens. Dr Arias is also part of the NIH-funded Antimicrobial Resistance Leadership Group. Locally, he serves as the Chair of the Gulf Coast Consortium on Antimicrobial Resistance in Houston, TX (a partnership between 7 institutions in the Texas Medical Center). Funded by the Wellcome Trust, Dr Arias founded the Molecular Genetics and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit and International Center for Microbial Genomics at Universidad El Bosque, Bogota, Colombia, developing a major program antibiotic resistance research in Latin America for the last 20 years.
Dr. Arias was elected Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and inducted to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2015. He was elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2019.