Dr. Karl Klose received his Ph.D. in Microbiology at UC Berkeley in 1993 under the mentorship of Dr. Sydney Kustu, and performed postdoctoral studies in microbial pathogenesis at Harvard Medical School under the guidance of John Mekalanos. He was hired as an assistant professor at UTHSCSA in 1997. Dr. Klose moved to UTSA in 2004, and is the founder of the UTSA South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, which consists of 18 infectious disease laboratories.

Dr. Klose is an author on more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, and has received funding from numerous sources, including NIH, DoD, SAAF, and the Thrasher Fund. Dr. Klose’s research focuses on understanding bacterial pathogenesis, in order to develop effective vaccines and therapeutics. The Klose laboratory has characterized flagellar synthesis in Vibrio cholera and its impact on the virulence of this bacterium. Klose also studies the V. cholerae regulatory proteins RpoN and ToxT and how environmental conditions modulate its expression and activity. He additionally studies the potential bioweapon Francisella tularensis, which causes the disease tularemia. His work has changed how we think about the virulence of V. cholerae and F. tularensis.

He has mentored many Ph.D., Masters, and undergraduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows and international visiting students. He was the President of the Texas Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and has been an organizer of multiple national and international meetings. He has twice been a recipient of ASM Visiting Professorships, in Kolkata, India, and in Valparaiso, Chile. He received the 2002 Presidential Junior Research Scholar award at UTHSCSA and the 2009 President’s Distinguished Research Achievement Award at UTSA. Klose has given a TEDx talk on antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is available on YouTube and that has received over 24,000 views.