Second Joint Hire Advances Microbiome Research

By Helen W. Boucher MD FACP FIDSA (Hon) FRCPI
Dean and Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Chief Academic Officer, Tufts Medicine

I am very pleased to announce the second round of our joint cluster hire initiative between Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medicine. On February 1, Professor Kevin Bonham, PhD, joined the Division of Gastroenterology within the Department of Medicine at TUSM and Tufts Medical Center (Tufts MC) with a secondary appointment in the Department of Immunology at TUSM. On March 2, we welcomed Professor Cammie Lesser, MD, PhD, who joins the Department of Microbiology at TUSM with a secondary appointment in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine at TUSM and Tufts MC.

The joint cluster to which Professors Bonham and Lesser have been hired is an initiative aimed at enhancing interdisciplinary research and teaching across multiple departments. The initiative reflects the commitment Tufts University President Sunil Kumar has to fostering collaboration and innovation in biomedical research and reducing health disparities. President Kumar’s sponsorship of this important initiative has allowed Professors Lesser and Bonham to bring exceptional academic and research accomplishments in the field of microbiome-related gastroenterology and immunology.

“Joint faculty hires in biomedical research are key to breaking down disciplinary barriers and fostering groundbreaking discoveries,” said President Kumar. “By bringing together experts across fields, we not only enhance our research capabilities but also improve the quality of education and care we provide. These joint appointments have the potential to accelerate the pace of innovation and lead to cutting-edge medical advancements.” 

Dr. Bonham earned his PhD under Dr. Jon Kagan at Harvard, publishing a first-author paper in Cell on innate immunity, a field central to human disease research. His immunology training sparked an interest in the microbiome’s role in brain development. Forgoing a traditional postdoctoral path, he joined Wellesley College as a faculty member, where he honed expertise in coding and bioinformatics, leading to multiple Nature publications and extensive collaborations. His research excellence secured a $25 million Wellcome Trust grant, followed by a $500k extension in recognition of his progress.

Seeking a collaborative research environment, Dr. Bonham joined an institution that fosters clinical and basic science partnerships for large-scale data-driven translational projects. Departing from the traditional approach of validating animal model data in humans, he instead employs bioinformatic modeling to analyze human metagenomic and neurodevelopmental data, generating hypotheses for subsequent testing in animal models. 

Dr. Bonham’s extensive investigation of the role of specific members of the gut microbiome in promoting or inhibiting infant neural development synergizes with several programs, including at least two at the Mother Infant Research Institute (MIRI). Our pediatrics and GI teams, as well as the Department of Immunology at TUSM are thrilled to incorporate Dr. Bonham’s expertise. 

Dr. Cammie Lesser received her MD/PhD from the University of California San Francisco. She performed her internship and internal medicine residency, followed by a clinical and research fellowship in infectious disease at the University of Washington with Dr. Sam Miller. Board certified in infectious diseases, Dr. Lesser was recruited to Massachusetts General Hospital as an attending physician and researcher in 2003 and promoted to associate professor in 2012. She holds numerous research-based affiliations at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School. She is also an associate member of the Broad and Ragon Institutes.

Dr. Lesser’s laboratory investigates how bacterial pathogens use type 3 secretion systems to evade mammalian immune responses. She has pioneered experimental platforms to study secreted proteins in innate immune cells and has become a leader in synthetic microbiology. By engineering probiotic bacteria to deploy therapeutic proteins, she has developed “designer probiotics” to combat intestinal diseases like inflammatory bowel disease and enteric infections. Her work is now expanding into cancer treatment, highlighting the translational impact of her research. 

Throughout her career, Dr. Lesser has been lauded for her innovation. She is recognized internationally for her groundbreaking work and regularly gives seminars at international and national venues. She was elected a member to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2018, has served on 17 scientific review panels and served four years as a member on an NIH study section. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of the European Molecular Biology Organization Shigella Meeting and of Synlogic. She holds several patents and regularly publishes in high impact journals such as Science, PNAS, Nature, Cell Host and Microbe, eLife, mBio, PLoS Pathogens and Nature Methods. She is an editor at three scientific journals and is incoming editor-in-chief at Current Opinions in Microbiology, a premier microbiology and infectious diseases journal. She serves on the Standing Committee on Elections at the American Academy of Microbiology.

With 23 years of continuous funding dating from her post-doctoral K08 award, Dr. Lesser has been the primary investigator on 27 grants, including five active awards. Notably, she has been the recipient of the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and EUREKA (Exceptional, Unconventional, Research Enabling Knowledge Award), and a Rainin Foundation Innovator Award, among others. 

Educating the next generation of biomedical leaders is at the heart of Dr. Lesser’s work. She continues to provide direct patient care and supervision of medical students, residents and fellows. Her long-standing interest in mentoring physician-scientists positions her well for her new role at Tufts. 

“Both Dr. Lesser and Dr. Bonham bring invaluable expertise to our biomedical research collaborations,” noted Dr. John Leong, the Edith Rieva and Hyman S. Trilling Professor and Chair of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at TUSM. “Not only will they enhance our students’ experiences and education, but they will also play a direct role in delivering better care for patients.”

Professor of Medicine at TUSM and Vice Chair of Research at Tufts MC Michael Pasche-Orlow also commented that “these joint appointments will undoubtedly accelerate the pace of innovation and lead to cutting-edge medical advancements, just as Tufts University President Kumar has envisioned.” 

About the Joint Cluster

This initiative is part of a broader effort to more strategically support critical research collaborations between TUSM and Tufts Medicine, amplifying the work of the Tufts Research Executive Committee (REC) and their vision to advance translational, transdisciplinary research with a focus on equal healthcare access and outcomes. This vision leverages the strengths of both the medical school and the health system and creates even more opportunity for collaboration. Thanks to President Kumar’s support, the REC has been working together to recruit clustered faculty members. This means the hiring of complementary faculty members—one in the School of Medicine and a second in the academic health system—to enrich and expand key concepts of the research vision shared by both institutions.

Drs. Bonham and Lesser’s exceptional academic and research accomplishments in the field of human microbiome research will be an enormous asset to the Tufts community. They represent outstanding additions to our faculty, and we are very fortunate to have them joining us.