Peter Elsbach, MD

Peter Elsbach, MD

Peter Elsbach, M.D., Ph.D., a native of the Netherlands, is Professor Emeritus at New York University School of Medicine. He received his M.D. from the University of Amsterdam, and a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden. Dr. Elsbach was an Assistant Resident and Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at Bellevue Hospital under Dr. William S. Tillett, and then worked as an Assistant Physician at Rockefeller Institute/University before returning to NYU.

Throughout his career, Dr. Elsbach and his research group have studied host-microbe interactions, focusing on the role of the white blood cell in mammalian antibacterial host-defense. Most prominent in this effort was the discovery of the Bactericidal/Permeability Increasing protein (BPI). BPI has been cloned, and some of its derivatives are in clinical trials conducted by the Xoma Corporation, licensed by NYU.

These trials reflect the search for 'endogenous' antibiotics with clinical efficacy that may fill the growing gap between available commercial antibiotics and the appearance of an increasing number of resistant pathogenic microorganisms.

Dr. Elsbach has been elected to the ASCI, AAP, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. He is a recipient of an NIH Merit Award, as well as a Faculty Scholar Award from the Josiah Macy Foundation. In 1993, he received an honorary Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Lund in Sweden.