Dr. McLaughlin has more than 15 years of experience in antibiotic research and development. He was formerly at AstraZeneca where his responsibilities encompassed target identification and validation and developing the bioinformatics pipeline, workflows, and databases to support the discovery activities of the Infectious Diseases Unit. He was also responsible for directing the Infectious Diseases next-generation sequencing facility supporting target identification, intrinsic and acquired antimicrobial resistance studies and epidemiology profiling for numerous AstraZeneca discovery and development projects and academic collaborations. He was involved in the pre-clinical development of several antibiotics, as well as the clinical development of Zavfcefta (ceftazidime/avibactam) and post-marketing surveillance activities of Zinforo (ceftaroline fosamil).

Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Bob was the Director of Bioinformatics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) Laboratory of Genomics and Bioinformatics and an Assistant Professor in the OUHSC Department of Microbiology, with supported research projects in microbial physiology, pathogenesis, and genomics. Dr. McLaughlin received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Clemson University, followed by postdoctoral research positions at State University of New York, Buffalo and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.