Dr. Lawrence Joseph Wheat, Founder of MiraVista Diagnostics
Meet Lawrence Joseph Wheat, MD: Founder, Medical Director + President of MiraVista Diagnostics
Lawrence Joseph Wheat, MD (Dr. Joe Wheat) is an accomplished and widely published scientist with more than 40 years of focused expertise in the area of infectious diseases. He is recognized by the academic, medical and professional communities as a leading authority on serious fungal infections. In 2002, Dr. Wheat founded MiraVista Diagnostics and currently serves as its Medical Director and President. As a result of Dr. Wheat’s scientific developments, visionary leadership, high quality standards and dedication to excellent client service, MiraVista has earned the reputation as the industry’s premier reference laboratory for fungal diagnostics.
Learn More About Dr. Lawrence Joseph (Joe) Wheat
Prior to establishing MiraVista Diagnostics, Dr. Wheat served as a professor at the Indiana University Medical Center’s Infectious Diseases Division for more than 25 years. In addition to teaching medicine, Dr. Wheat was a prolific medical research scientist during his tenure. From 1976-2019, he published more than 300 scientific articles specifically related to fungal infection, hundreds more articles on broader infectious disease topics and authored chapters about histoplasmosis in several leading infectious disease and internal medicine books. Dr. Wheat’s groundbreaking research findings contributed to the development of the first histoplasmosis antigen test in 1986. Since then, he has continued to develop new generations of diagnostic tests for coccidioides (also known as valley fever fungus), histoplasma capsulatum and blastomyces dermatitidis.
Dr. Wheat received his medical degree from Indiana University Medical School where he also completed his internship, residency and fellowship in infectious diseases. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of Infectious Disease from 2002-2013 and is an active member of many professional organizations including the Infectious Disease Society of America, American Society of Microbiology, International Society for Human and Animal Mycology and Medical Mycology Society of the Americas. Dr. Wheat also served in the United States Air Force.
