Lecture Series in Clinical Chemistry and Biochemistry

Bio: Robert A. Bonomo, MD, is Senior Associate Dean for Veterans Affairs Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Associate Chief of Staff for Academic Affairs (Chief Academic Officer) at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. He is also a Distinguished University Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Biochemistry, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine. Dr. Bonomo is also the Director of the CWRU-Cleveland VAMC Center for Antimicrobial Resistance and Epidemiology and the Louis Stokes Cleveland Vice Chair for Veteran Affairs at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

Dr. Bonomo received his undergraduate education in 1976 from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, after which he went on to receive his Doctor of Medicine degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1983. After completing his medical degree, Dr. Bonomo furthered his training in the area of internal medicine with a subspecialty in infectious diseases at University Hospital of Cleveland. He also completed a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University Hospitals of Cleveland in 1990. In his early career he practiced as a geriatrics and infectious diseases physician at University Hospitals of Cleveland and the VA Medical Center.

As a result of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s, Dr. Bonomo returned to academic medicine and infectious diseases to try to find a cure for HIV and related complications. This led him to study infections in HIV patients with the ultimate goal of tackling drug-resistant bacterial infections. Dr. Bonomo’s research interests involve antibiotic resistance, infections in the elderly population, and the application of molecular diagnostics to combat infectious diseases. One of the major problems facing medicine today is resistance to antibiotics, especially stemming from multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. His current work is directed at addressing three main issues: (1) how novel β-lactamase inhibitors inactivate β-lactamases; (2) how β-lactamases hydrolyze advanced generation cephalosporins and carbapenems; and (3) how mutations impact β-lactamase expression and fitness. Dr. Bonomo has published more than 837 papers with many in top-tier scientific journals. His research expertise extends beyond the lab as he serves as an elected member of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Association of American Physicians. He was also the Co-Director of the Laboratory Center of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG). Dr. Bonomo is a fellow of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases where he was awarded the Excellence in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Award. He is also a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. Bonomo was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher from 2019-2026 and his lab is ranked in the top four in the world in antibiotic resistance.

Bio: Dr. Cortez graduated summa cum laude in biochemistry from the University of Illinois and obtained a Ph.D. in molecular cancer biology at Duke University. He then completed postdoctoral studies at the Baylor College of Medicine as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow where he discovered ATRIP as a subunit of the ATR cell cycle checkpoint kinase. In 2002, he joined the faculty at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He was promoted to Ingram Professor of Cancer Research in 2009 and named the Richard Armstrong Professor for Innovation in Biochemistry in 2020. Dr. Cortez’s lab identified direct ATR-activating proteins in both human and yeast cells, elucidated the mechanisms of ATR activation, and uncovered critical ATR substrates that orchestrate DNA repair, DNA replication, and cell cycle checkpoints. Dr. Cortez made a landmark discovery of SMARCAL1 as a key replication stress tolerance protein that catalyzes replication fork reversal. He further defined pathways for fork reversal, uncovered the pivotal role of RAD51 in this process, and identified RADX as a novel regulator of RAD51. His lab’s invention of iPOND (isolation of proteins on nascent DNA) revolutionized the field by enabling quantitative characterization of the replication fork proteome. Using iPOND, Dr. Cortez identified approximately 600 proteins involved in DNA replication, chromatin packaging, DNA repair, and stress signaling. Notably, Dr. Cortez leveraged iPOND to uncover a universal DNA damage tolerance mechanism involving HMCES, which protects against mutations and genomic instability by forming a DNA-protein crosslink at abasic sites. Dr. Cortez has won several awards including the Howard Temin Award, Pew Scholar Award, Stanley Cohen Award for Outstanding Contributions to Research, and the Hans Neurath Award. In addition to his research, Dr. Cortez founded the Genome Maintenance Program in the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC). He is currently Associate Director of Basic Research in the VICC and chair of the Department of Biochemistry in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, a department with 75 faculty. Finally, Dr. Cortez also serves on the editorial and advisory boards of journals including Science Advances and Cell Reports.