Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research
Professor, Department of Medicine
connell@njms.rutgers.edu, (973) 972-0713
Nancy D. Connell is Professor and Vice-chair for Research in the Division of Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (R-NJMS) and the Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences. A Harvard University Ph.D. in Microbiology, Dr. Connell’s major research focus is antibacterial drug discovery in respiratory pathogens such as M. tuberculosis and B. anthracis; recent work also focuses on the use of predatory bacteria as novel therapeutics for bacterial infections. She is Director of the Biosafety Level Three (BSLIII) Facility of R-NJMS’s Center for the Study of Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens and chairs the University’s Institutional Biosafety Committee. Dr. Connell has been continuously funded by the NIH, the Department of Defense, industry, and other agencies since 1993 and serves on or has chaired several NIH study sections and review panels. She has served on a number of committees of the National Academy of Sciences, e.g., the Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Agents (2004), Trends in Science and Technology Relevant to the Biological Weapons Convention; an International Workshop (2010), and the Committee to Review the Scientific Approaches used in the FBI’s Investigation of the 2001 Bacillus anthracis Mailings (2011). Dr. Connell is currently chairing NRC “Standing Committee for Faculty Development for Education about Research with Dual Use Issues in the Context of Responsible Science and Research Integrity”, which has directed a series of workshops held in Jordan (2012), Malaysia (2013), Trieste (2014), India, Istanbul and Egypt (2105), with participants from Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria. Dr. Connell was recently appointed a member of the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences.
