Emeritus Faculty

Joseph Ferretti, PhD

Professor

Education:

Ph.D.: 1967, University of Minnesota

Awards and Honors:

US National Academy of Sciences Visiting Scientist to the German Democratic Republic, 1980

Visiting Professor on sabbatical at the Institut Pasteur (Paris), 1982

Honorary Doctorate from the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1982

The Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars, 1983

George Lynn Cross Research Professor at OU, 1987

Lecturer at the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Hygeine und Mikrobiologie Kongress, Aachen, Germany, 2001

Honorary Member of Akadamie gemeinnutziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt, Germany, 2007

Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, 2011

Guest Professor at the University of Ulm, 2016

Pre-OUHSC:

Johns Hopkins University

Research Interests:

Molecular biology of streptococcal virulence factors; mechanisms of phage conversion; protein engineering and second generation streptokinases; synthetic vaccines and passive immunization.

Contact Information:

Office: BMSB 909

Email: Joseph-Ferretti@ouhsc.edu

Research Interests:

As a group of organisms, the streptococci are responsible for a wide variety of human diseases, including throat and skin infections, rheumatic fever, glomerulonephritis, and dental caries. In this laboratory, the genetics and molecular biology of two specific organisms are being studied; the pyogenic Streptococcus pyogenes, and the cariogenic Streptococcus mutans.

Dr. Ferretti's research has focused on obtaining individual genes by recombinant DNA techniques in order to study their role in pathogenesis and virulence. Additionally, these genes can be useful as DNA probes for identification, detection, and molecular epidemiology, as well as for the production of medically important proteins. The extracellular products of S. pyogenes have long been implicated in the virulence and pathogenicity of the organism.

To date, a number of the genes specifying these products have been cloned and sequenced, including streptokinase, streptolysin O, erythrogenic toxin A, hyaluronidase, and proteinase. The recent application of electroporation to these bacteria has allowed the construction of isogenic strains with deletions in one or more of the above listed genes. These isogenic mutant strains are of particular interest in animal model studies in assessing the role of each product in the disease state.

Dental caries are caused by oral streptococci and Dr. Ferretti's laboratory has cloned and sequenced a number of genes involved in extracellular glucan production and adherence, factors intimately associated with the ability of these organisms to cause caries. These genes include glucosyltransferases S and I, glucan binding protein, wall associated protein antigen A, and a number of genes involved in sucrose metabolism.

Several of the proteins specified by these genes have been shown to be effective as candidate antigens for a caries vaccine. Work is presently underway to identify protein domains particularly important for function or antigenicity, factors that are important for designing specific inhibitors or synthetic vaccines.

The genetics of sugar transport and metabolism by Streptococcus mutans are also areas of interest in this laboratory. The description of extracellular and intracellular components or pathways involved in sugar metabolism is essential to our understanding of the virulence of this organism. Recent work has centered on regulatory mechanisms of the multiple sugar metabolism, galactose, and glucose facilitated diffusion operons.

Selected Publications:

Russell, R.R.B., J. Aduse-Opuko, I.C. Sutcliffe, L. Tao, and J.J. Ferretti. 1992. A binding protein-dependent transport system in Streptococcus mutans responsible for multiple sugar metabolism. J. Biol. Chem. 267: 4631-4637.
Tao, L., D.J. LeBlanc and J.J. Ferretti. 1992. Novel streptococcal-integration shuttle vectors for gene cloning and inactivation. Gene 120: 105-110.
Gilmore, K.S., R.R.B. Russell and J.J. Ferretti. 1993. Expression of gtfS is essential for normal insoluble glucan synthesis by Streptococcus downei. Infect. Immun. 61: 1246-1250.
Chaussee, M., D. Gerlach, C.E. Yu, and J.J. Ferretti. 1993. Inactivations of the streptococcal erythrogenic toxin B (speB) gene in Streptococcus pyogenes. Infect. Immun. 61: 3719-3723.
Hynes, W.L., J.J. Ferretti, and J.R. Tagg. 1993. Cloning of the gene encoding streptococcin A-FF22, a novel lantibiotic produced by Streptococcus pyogenes, and determination of its nucleotide sequence. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 59: 1969-71.

Joseph J. Ferretti received a B.S. at Loyola University in Chicago (1960), a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Minnesota (1967) and did post-doctorate work at The Johns Hopkins University and attended the Cold Spring Harbor summer Bacterial Virus Course. He came to the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 1969 as an assistant professor and within eight years attained the rank of professor. In 1983 he became Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology; in 1993 he became the Vice President for Research, and in 1995 was chosen to be Senior Vice President and Provost of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Over the course of his career, he has authored on his specialties of streptococcal infections, antibiotic resistance, and genomics over 170 scientific papers and co-authored four books. He acquired an international reputation and has been a US National Academy of Sciences Visiting Scientist to the German Democratic Republic (1980), a Visiting Professor on sabbatical at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) in 1982 and obtained an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia (1982). The honors to Dr. Ferretti have been numerous: he was inducted in 1983 into The Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars; in 1987 he became the George Lynn Cross Research Professor at OU; a Lecturer at the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Hygeine und Mikrobiologie Kongress, Aachen, Germany in 2001 and an Honorary Member of Akadamie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt, Germany in 2007. In 2011 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, and was a Guest Professor at the University of Ulm in 2016. For more than thirty years, Ferretti sponsored two summer programs for Native American students, Career Opportunities in the Health Sciences, and Headland Indian Health Careers, both of which proved to be highly successful with students entering health and science careers. For sixteen years he served as Senior Vice President and Provost of the OU Health Sciences Center, helping it obtain national and international recognition.

After 45 years of service, Dr. Ferretti officially retired from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 2014 and is presently an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He is currently the lead Editor on a book, “Streptococcus pyogenes; Basic Biology to Clinical Manifestations,” which is an open access electronic book presently available on the NIH, NCBI bookshelf. Dr. Ferretti is also a grant review consultant for numerous national, international, and local agencies. He volunteers at a local food pantry adjacent to the OUHSC campus, and in his spare time, enjoys following grandchildren activities, travel, photography, golf, and gardening.

Frank Waxman, PhD

Professor

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Frank Waxman is a Professor Emeritus (2010) of Microbiology & Immunology at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Waxman completed his undergraduate education at UCLA and received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from The University of Illinois Medical Center. He held faculty positions at Washington State University and The Ohio State University and served as a Senior Staff Fellow at the NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories. He is a patent holder, co-founder of a publicly traded biotechnology company, and the recipient of more than $70 million dollars in external grant funding as a Principal Investigator. His studies on the role of the complement system in the capture and transport of immune complexes by primate erythrocytes have been incorporated into many immunology textbooks. Dr. Waxman served as the Vice President for Research at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and as the Director of Oklahoma’s EPSCoR Program under the auspices of the State Regents for Higher Education. Dr. Waxman was the second College of Medicine faculty member elected to the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame over a span of more than one hundred years. He currently resides, along with his wife Nelda, near the town of Salida Colorado.