Victor J. Torres received a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2004 under the mentorship of Dr. Tim Cover, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Eric Skaar, also at Vanderbilt. In December 2008, Dr. Torres joined the faculty in the Department of Microbiology at NYU School of Medicine, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Microbiology. His research program combines multidisciplinary approaches to dissect how bacterial toxins target and subvert host defenses. His current research focuses primarily on pore-forming toxins produced by the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Dr. Torres’ research is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from the US National Institutes of Health. He has co-authored over 60 scientific publications, is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, and is a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases.