Mahmoud Ghannoum PhD, MBA, FAAM, FIDSA

Mahmoud Ghannoum, Ph.D., MBA, FIDSA, joined Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in 1996 from prior positions at the UCLA School of Medicine and Kuwait University.  Dr. Ghannoum has spent his entire academic career studying medically important fungi encompassing different fungal pathogens including Candida, Aspergillus and Cryptococcus, the major causes of fungal infections.  He published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles addressing various aspects of superficial and systemic fungal infections.  Recently he published the first study describing the oral mycobiome of health individuals.  He has published extensively in the area of fungal pathogenesis with special focus on virulence factors including phospholipase B, germination, adhesion, and biofilm formation, both in vitro and in vivo. 

Dr. Ghannoum is a Professor and Director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center.  The center of excellence that Dr. Ghannoum directs is a multidisciplinary center that combines basic and translational research investigating fungi from the test tube to the bedside.  He has performed several studies investigating the mechanisms underlying Candida pathogenesis.  He is the recipient of the Freedom to Discover Award from Bristol-Myers Squibb, th4e Billy Cooper Award from the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas.  In 2009 he was appointed as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Antifungal Susceptibility Testing, Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute.  In 2013, he was appointed as an Advisor to the CLSI Consensus Microbiology Committee, and was selected as “Most Interesting Person” b y Cleveland Magazine.  Dr. Ghannoum has been involved in preclinical and clinical studies evaluating the efficacy of antifungals.  He has in-depth interest and expertise in oral complications of HIV/AIDS, particularly oral candidiasis, and acted as the Chair of the Oral HIV-AIDS Research Alliance (OHARA) and the PI of OHARA’s Medical Mycology Unit based at Case. 

Recently, Dr. Ghannoum has been involved in characterizing the oral microbiome in health and disease, specifically has pioneered characterization of the human mycobiome (the fungal component of the human microbiota that make up the normal flora in HIV patients).  This research may identify relationships between fungal species and their effect on various human diseases. Dr. Ghannoum is a successful entrepreneur, having co-founded multiple companies that have raised millions of dollars and commercialized products.