Rate My Professor Elliot Lefkowitz

Elliot Lefkowitz, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Heersink School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He earned a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. Following postdoctoral training in virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UAB, Lefkowitz joined the UAB Department of Microbiology faculty in 1987. He has held key leadership roles including Director of Informatics for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science since 2008, Director of the Molecular and Genetic Bioinformatics Facility for the Center for AIDS Research since 1992, Director of the Bioinformatics Core for the UAB Microbiome Facility, and Co-Director of the UAB Undergraduate Program in Bioinformatics. Lefkowitz pioneered bioinformatics at UAB, teaching the first graduate-level bioinformatics course in the early 1990s and establishing core facilities and programs for computational analysis of microbial data.

His research centers on microbial genomics and evolution, with a focus on virology, employing bioinformatics to analyze genomic sequences, reconstruct viral phylogenies, detect regulatory motifs, identify genes, and study evolutionary patterns. These efforts support vaccine development, antiviral strategies, and pandemic control. Lefkowitz maintains an eight-person lab providing analytical services for bacterial and viral genomes. Globally, he has served the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) for over 20 years as Data Secretary on the Executive Committee, managing the virus taxonomy database and ICTV website. As Principal Investigator for UAB's Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center (BV-BRC), an NIH-sponsored initiative, he develops databases, web applications, and tools for biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research. Notable contributions include co-authorship of ICTV Master Species Lists, such as MSL40.v2 (2024).