In Mary M. Petzke, Ph.D.'s role as associate dean for medical student research, Dr. Mary Petzke oversees the research activities of more than 800 medical students. Under her guidance, medical student research has thrived at New York Medical College (NYMC), with the number of students participating in research increasing to 80 percent in 2023 and the number of students who published a peer-reviewed manuscript more than doubling since 2016, when Dr. Petzke assumed leadership of medical student research.

She serves as a faculty mentor for the Research Committee of the Student Senate, the Medical Student Research Forum student E-board, and the organizing committee of the Medical Student Research Seminar Series. She also guides the development of future physician-scientists as director of the Biomedical Research Area of Concentration, the largest area of concentration in the School of Medicine (SOM), which results in, approximately 15 percent of students in each SOM class receiving their M.D. degree with distinction in research.

Since joining NYMC her teaching has encompassed the NYMC SOM, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Health Sciences and Practice, Touro College of Dental Medicine, Touro College of Podiatric Medicine, and Touro College of Pharmacy.

In addition to clinical microbiology, her current research focuses primarily on medical education and quality improvement in medical student research.

Areas of Expertise

• Microbial immunopathogenesis
• Infectious diseases (bacteriology)
• Medical science education
• Medical student research innovation
• Academic leadershipp

Education

• B.A., Biology, Boston University
• Ph.D., Medical Science, Brown University
• Post-graduation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Harvard Medical School Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

Honors and Awards

• Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, NYMC Iota Chapter
• Dean’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring
• School of Medicine Student Senate Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award
• Early Career Faculty Travel Grant, The American Association of Immunologists
• Visiting scientist, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
• National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow
• National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Trainee

Research

Dr. Petzke's laboratory studies host-pathogen interactions, with a focus on microbial mechanisms of immune evasion. The model organism used is Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterial agent of Lyme disease. Lyme disease is the most common tick-transmitted infection in North America, and both incidence and geographical range are expanding. Current CDC estimates place the number of cases per year in the United States at more than 300,000, and this number is expected to increase as the geographical range of the tick vector expands. If not promptly treated with an appropriate antibiotic, B. burgdorferi can enter the blood stream, disseminate to target tissues and cause long-term and potentially debilitating sequelae, including arthritis, carditis, and central nervous system disorders. After B. burgdorferi is deposited into the skin through the bite of a feeding tick, the majority of Lyme disease patients develop a characteristic expanding skin rash, erythema migrans, caused by an influx of immune cells recruited to the site of inoculation by the presence of the pathogen and various components of tick saliva. It is here in the skin that the bacterium first encounters host innate immune cells; the nature of the interactions with these cells may be a critical nexus that determines the outcome of infection. While many infections are eliminated in the skin, certain B. burgdorferi genotypes are more likely to evade immune defenses, enter the bloodstream, and invade target tissues that include the joints, heart, and central nervous system. Long-term sequelae—most commonly arthritis—develop in approximately 20% of patients with untreated Lyme disease. 

Dr. Petzke's laboratory employs multiple approaches, including human primary immune cells, in vivo infection models, and specimens collected from Lyme disease patients, to study the mammalian immune response to B. burgdorferi. Preliminary studies indicate that strains of B. burgdorferi that are more likely to cause disease are also able to cause immune suppression of host dendritic cells, a type of innate immune cell that can skew the differentiation of T lymphocytes towards a suppressor phenotype. Current investigations utilize whole transcriptome next-generation RNA sequencing to examine the coordinate regulation of human and B. burgdorferi genes in clinical samples in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions that occur during the establishment of infection.

Publications

• Haran H, Liddy N, Choe J, Nadler J, Petzke M. The current age of medical student research: a single-institution experience. Academic Medicine. 2023 November; 98(S15):S204.
• Marques A, Schwartz I, Wormser GP, Wang Y, Hornung RL, Demirkale CY, Munson PJ, Turk SP, Williams C, Lee CR, Yang J, Petzke MM. Corrigendum to: Transcriptome Assessment of Erythema Migrans Skin Lesions in Patients With Early Lyme Disease Reveals Predominant Interferon Signaling. J Infect Dis. 2021 Feb 3;223(2):352. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiaa499. PubMed PMID: 32966578; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7857150.
• Petzke MM, Volyanskyy K, Mao Y, Arevalo B, Zohn R, Quituisaca J, Wormser GP, Dimitrova N, Schwartz I. Global Transcriptome Analysis Identifies a Diagnostic Signature for Early Disseminated Lyme Disease and Its Resolution. mBio. 2020 Mar 17;11(2). doi: 10.1128/mBio.00047-20. PubMed PMID: 32184234; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7078463.
• Marques A, Schwartz I, Wormser GP, Wang Y, Hornung RL, Demirkale CY, Munson PJ, Turk SP, Williams C, Lee CR, Yang J, Petzke MM. Transcriptome Assessment of Erythema Migrans Skin Lesions in Patients With Early Lyme Disease Reveals Predominant Interferon Signaling. J Infect Dis. 2017 Dec 27;217(1):158-167. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jix563. PubMed PMID: 29099929; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5853807.
• Grove AP, Liveris D, Iyer R, Petzke M, Rudman J, Caimano MJ, Radolf JD, Schwartz I. Two Distinct Mechanisms Govern RpoS-Mediated Repression of Tick-Phase Genes during Mammalian Host Adaptation by Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme Disease Spirochete. mBio. 2017 Aug 22;8(4). doi: 10.1128/mBio.01204-17. PubMed PMID: 28830947; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5565969.
• Petzke MM, Iyer R, Love AC, Spieler Z, Brooks A, Schwartz I. Borrelia burgdorferi induces a type I interferon response during early stages of disseminated infection in mice. BMC Microbiol. 2016 Mar 8;16:29. doi: 10.1186/s12866-016-0644-4. PubMed PMID: 26957120; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4784397.
• Petzke M, Schwartz I. Borrelia burgdorferi Pathogenesis and the Immune Response. Clin Lab Med. 2015 Dec;35(4):745-64. doi: 10.1016/j.cll.2015.07.004. Epub 2015 Aug 8. Review. PubMed PMID: 26593255.

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Professional Service

• Scientific reviewer, internal and external grants programs
• Peer reviewer for numerous professional journals
• SOM Second Look Day (Speaker)
• Faculty Advisor: Medical Student Research Forum, Medical Student Research Seminar Series, Research Committee of the SOM Student Senate
• Touro Research Day Planning Committee, primary contact for NYMC
• Triennial course reviewer (NYMC School of Medicine)

Memberships and Affiliations

• Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society
• Association of American Medical Colleges
• International Association of Medical Science Educators
• Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society

Teaching Responsibilities

• Introduction to Systems: Infectious Diseases and Host Defense (NYMC School of Medicine)
• Foundation: Biomedical Research (Course Director; NYMC School of Medicine)
• General Microbiology I and II (NYMC Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences)
• Microbiology and Immunology (Touro College of Dental Medicine)
• Critical Reasoning Skills (CRE)/Self-Directed Learning (SDL) thread (core faculty member; NYMC School of Medicine)