Dr. Patrick McGann

Patrick Mc Gann, PhD is the Deputy Director of the Multidrug resistant organism Repository & Surveillance Network (MRSN) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Dr. Mc Gann graduated from the National University of Ireland, Galway with a degree in Microbiology in 1994 and a PhD in Microbiology in 2004.

Prior to this current position, Dr. Mc Gann served as a Post-Doctoral associate at the laboratory of Prof. Martin Wiedmann at Cornell University where he studied the contribution of the Internalin proteins to the invasive properties of the important food-borne pathogen, Listeria monocyotogenes. In 2006, Dr. Mc Gann competed for and was awarded a National Research Council (NRC) Fellowship to study at the Department of Bacterial & Rickettsial Diseases located in the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). Dr. Mc Gann enrolled in the Biosurety Safety program and studied potential vaccines for the Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 Biothreat agents Francisella tularensis and Burkholderia mallei . In 2010, Dr. Mc Gann joined the nascent Multidrug resistant organism Repository and Surveillance Network (MRSN) at the WRAIR as Senior Microbiologist. The MRSN is the sole entity within the DoD engaged in real-time surveillance of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria and outbreak investigation assistance across the entire Military Healthcare System (MHS). During his tenure at the MRSN, Dr. Mc Gann has overseen the expansion of the MRSN molecular laboratory to a high-throughout sequencing core that uses long and short-read sequencing technologies to track the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria throughout the Military Healthcare System (MHS). In 2016, the MRSN was responsible for the first detection of the mobile colistin resistance gene mcr-1 in the USA, resulting in extensive media coverage of the WRAIR and MRSN. In 2019, Dr. Mc Gann was appointed to the role of Deputy Director for the MRSN, where he currently resides.

Dr. Mc Gann’s research interests include antimicrobial resistance, hospital-acquired infections, bacterial epidemiology, and the application of Next-generation sequencing technologies to aid in outbreak investigations. He is a member of the American Society of Microbiology (since 2010) and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (since 2021). He serves a s a peer-reviewer for many scientific journals, and is the author or is co-author of more than 75 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He recipient of the Army Achievement Medal (2019) and the Commanders Award for Civilian Service medal (2021).