As Chief Scientific Officer at Global Lyme Alliance (GLA), Dr. Sellati leads strategic planning and coordinates research initiatives to accelerate the development of more effective methods of diagnosis and treatment of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.

A noted immunologist and microbiologist, Dr. Sellati has 30 years of research experience in this area of vector-borne infectious diseases. He has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed infectious disease papers, almost half of which are focused on Lyme disease. Dr. Sellati is frequently invited to speak about his cutting-edge research at national and international scientific meetings and with news media outlets. Today he is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts in the search to understand infectious disease processes and improve treatments for patients suffering from Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses.

Prior to joining GLA, Dr. Sellati served as Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases in the Drug Discovery Division at Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to that, he received a BA degree in Biology from Dowling College in 1985 and a Ph.D. degree in Cellular and Developmental Biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1996. Dr. Sellati began postdoctoral training in 1996 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and completed his training in 1999 at the University of Connecticut Health Science Center in Farmington.

After joining the Center for Immunology and Microbial Disease at Albany Medical College as an Assistant Professor in 2000 he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005 and earned tenure in 2010. From 2013 through 2015 Dr. Sellati served as an Associate Member at the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, NY before moving to Southern Research Institute. Dr. Sellati also was the Immunology Scientific Councilor and is currently the Microbiology Councilor for the International Endotoxin and Innate Immunity Society, the past President of the Eastern New York Branch of the American Society for Microbiologists and has served as ad hoc member of a number of National Institutes of Health Study Section review panels and as a reviewer for several scientific journals in the areas of immunology and microbiology. Dr. Sellati also serves as a member of the New York State Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Working Group, the Alabama Commission on Tick-Borne Illness, and sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of DiaSorin.