Dr. Beth A. Bachert, Ph.D.

Dr. Beth Bachert is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Science & Engineering and will be teaching CH375 Advanced Biology during AY25. She earned a Bachelor of Science in genetic engineering at Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA, in 2011. She continued to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology and microbial pathogenesis at West Virginia University (WVU), Morgantown, WV. She studied the role of collagen-like proteins in biofilm formation and pathogenesis of group A Streptococcus under the guidance of Dr. Slawomir Lukomski, earning her Ph.D. in 2017. 

At WVU, she was awarded Gossling Scholarship in Microbiology and the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis. Dr. Bachert was then awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Research Council and continued her research at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, with Dr. Joel Bozue. She assisted with the development and characterization of a panel of Francisella tularensis strains for vaccine testing, studied the impact of antibiotic resistance acquisition on fitness and pathogenesis of Francisella spp., and characterized novel targets for therapeutics against tularemia, including the cell wall lytic transglycosylase Slt. 

Her current research at USMA is focused on the discovery and characterization of bacteriophages against multidrug-resistant pathogens.