Barry R. Bloom

Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Passed away in 2026.

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Barry R. Bloom was the Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health, Immunology, and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard Chan School. A leading scientist in infectious diseases, vaccines, and global health, he also served as a consultant to the White House. Dr. Bloom maintained an active research program as principal investigator of a laboratory studying the immune response to tuberculosis, a disease that claims more than two million lives each year.

Over more than four decades, Dr. Bloom played a major role in the work of the World Health Organization (WHO). He chaired the Technical and Research Advisory Committee to the WHO Global Programme on Malaria, served on the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research, and chaired WHO committees on leprosy and tuberculosis research, as well as the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. He also served on the editorial board of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and on advisory boards and committees for the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and the Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research. In addition, he was a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Scientific Advisory Board of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, the National Advisory Board of the NIH Fogarty International Center, and the Governing Board of the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Bloom was the founding chair of the board of trustees of the International Vaccine Institute in South Korea, an organization dedicated to advancing vaccine development for children in the developing world. He also chaired the UNAIDS Vaccine Advisory Committee, where he played a key role in debates over the ethics of AIDS vaccine trials. In addition, he served on the U.S. AIDS Research Committee and was Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health from 1998 to 2008.

Dr. Bloom was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society.

Research Interests: Public health, infectious diseases, vaccines, and global Health; the immune response to tuberculosis

Selected Publications

Books

  • Bloom BR and Glade P, eds. In vitro methods in cell‑mediated immunity. Academic Press, pp. 606. 1971.
  • Bloom BR and David JR, eds. “In vitro Methods in Cell‑Mediated and Tumor Immunity” Academic Press. 1976.
  • Bloom BR and Cerami A, eds. Biomedical Science and the Third World: Under the Volcano. W. Frohlich Award Conference, New York Academy of Sciences, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. vol.569, 334pp; 1989.
  • Bloom BR, Tuberculosis: Pathogenesis, Protection and Control. ASM Press, 637 pp.; 1994.
  • Lederberg, J. (Editor-in-Chief), Alexander M, Bloom BR, Hopwood D, Hull R, Iglewiski BH, Laskin AI, Oliver SG, Schaechter M and Sommers WC. (Associate Editors), Encyclopedia of Microbiology, Academic Press, 2000
  • Bloom BR, Lambert PH. The Vaccine Book. Academic Press, 436 pp, 2003.

Other Publications

  • Lipsitch M, Plotkin JB, Simonsen L, Bloom B. Evolution, safety, and highly pathogenic influenza viruses. 2012 Jun 22; 336:1529-31.
  • Ganmaa D, Giovannucci E, Bloom BR, Fawzi W, Burr W, Batbaatar D, Sumberzul N, Holick MF, Willett WC. Vitamin D, tuberculin skin test conversion, and latent tuberculosis in Mongolian school-age children: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled feasibility trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Aug; 96:391-6.
  • Lipsitch M, Bloom BR. Rethinking biosafety in research on potential pandemic pathogens. MBio 2012 Oct; 3(5). Doi:pii: e00360-12.
  • Laxminarayan R, Arrow K, Jamison D, Bloom BR. Public health. From financing to fevers: lessons of an antimalarial subsidy program. Science. 2012 Nov 2: 338:615-6.
  • Teles RM, Graeber TG, Krutzik SR, Montoya D, Schenk M, Lee DJ, Komisopoulou E, Kelly-Scumpia K, Chun R, Iyer SS, Sarno EN, Rea TH, Hewison M, Adams JS, Popper SJ, Relman DA, Stenger S, Bloom BR, Cheng G, Modlin RL. Type I Interferon Suppresses Type II Interferon-Triggered Human Anti-Mycobacterial Responses. 2013 Feb 28. [Epub ahead of print].
  • Bishai W, Sullivan Z, Bloom BR, Andersen P. Bettering BCG: a tough task for a TB vaccine? Nature Medicine. 2013 Apr;19(4):410-1.
  • Modlin RL, Bloom BR. TB or not TB: that is no longer the question. Science Translational Medicine. 2013 Nov 27;5(213):213.
  • Bloom BR, Marcuse E, Mnookin S. Addressing vaccine hesitancy. Science. 2014 Apr 25;322(6182):339.
  • Paniz Mondolfi AE, Bloom BR. Jacinto Convit (1913-2014). Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014 Aug;91(2):435-6.
  • Montoya D, Inkeles MS, Liu PT, Realegeno S, Teles RM, Vaidya P, Munoz MA, Schenk M, Swindell WR, Chun R, Zavala K, Hewison M, Adams JS, Horvath S, Pellegrini M, Bloom BR, Modlin RL. IL-32 is a molecular marker of a host defense network in human tuberculosis. Sci Transl Med. 2014 Aug 20;6(250):250ra114.
  • Modlin RL, Bloom BR.TB or not TB: that is no longer the question. Sci Transl Med. 2013 Nov 27;5(213):213sr6. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3007402. Review.
  • Mechanisms of Defense against Intracellular Pathogens Mediated by Human Macrophages. Bloom BR, Modlin RL. Microbiol Spectr. 2016 Jun;4(3). doi: 10.1128/microbiolspec.MCHD-0006-2015. PMID: 27337485
  • Rethinking how to address the world’s largest infectious killer in the world’s largest country. Bloom BR. J Public Health Policy. 2016 May 6. doi: 10.1057/jphp.2016.16.
  • Back to the future: Rethinking global control of tuberculosis. Bloom BR, Atun R. Sci Transl Med. 2016 Mar 9;8(329):329ps7. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf2944. Review. PMID: 26962154
  • Lipoarabinomannan-Responsive Polycytotoxic T Cells Are Associated with Protection in Human Tuberculosis. Busch M, Herzmann C, Kallert S, Zimmermann A, Höfer C, Mayer D, Zenk SF, Muche R, Lange C, Bloom BR, Modlin RL, Stenger S; TBornotTB Network. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2016 Aug 1;194(3):345-55. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201509-1746OC.

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