Our Faculty

W. Ian Lipkin, MD, is internationally recognized as an authority on the use of molecular methods for pathogen discovery. Dr. Lipkin has over 30 years of experience in diagnostics, microbial discovery and outbreak response, has mentored and trained more than 30 students and post-doctoral fellows and leads a team of over 65 investigators, post-doctoral fellows and research and support staff at MSPH. In the 1980s, Dr. Lipkin identified AIDS-associated immunological abnormalities and inflammatory neuropathy, which he showed could be treated with plasmapheresis, and demonstrated that early life exposure to viral infections affects neurotransmitter function. He was the first to use purely molecular methods to identify infectious agents, implicated West Nile virus as the cause of the encephalitis epidemic in New York in 1999, assisted the WHO and the Peoples Republic of China during the 2003 SARS outbreak, developed MassTag PCR and Greenechip technology and pioneered the use of high throughput sequencing in pathogen discovery. He and his team have discovered or characterized more than 500 infectious agents including Borna disease virus, West Nile virus, LuJo virus, human rhinovrirus C, piscine reovirus and canine hepacivirus. Dr. Lipkin has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, the History Channel, National Geographic, National Public Radio, Wired, and the Huffington Post.

Photo courtesy: Columbia Technology Ventures: http://www.techventures.columbia.edu/

MD, Rush University, 1978

BA, Sarah Lawrence College, 1974

Additional Affiliations:

• Director, Northeast Biodefense Center
• Dalldorf Affiliated Research Physician, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health
• Principal Investigator, Autism Birth Cohort
• NIH Blue Ribbon Panel for the Risk Assessment of the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory at Boston University Medical Center
• NIAID Blue Ribbon Panel on Genomics Research
• Co-chair, National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee

• Fellow, New York Academy of Sciences
• Pew Scholar, 1991
• Foundation Lecturer, American Society of Microbiology, 2001-2003
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Member, Association of American Physicians

Selected Editorial Boards

• mBio

NIH (NIAID) Northeast Biodefense Center
Project URL: http://www.nbc.columbia.edu
Dr. Lipkin is scientific director of the Northeast Biodefense Center, a Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases comprising all academic, research, and public health institutions in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Gene: Environment Interactions in an Autism Birth Cohort Project URL: http://www.abc.columbia.edu

Dr. Lipkin is principal investigator of a prospective birth cohort of 100,000 women, their children and partners focused on determining the epidemiology, natural trajectory of disease, and pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorders.

Countries: Norway

World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Diagnostics in Zoonotic and Emerging Infectious Diseases


Countries: World