Louis received his BS in biotechnology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1994. While there, he was involved in angiogenesis research using cell culture systems to identify constituents of bovine vitreous humor that had potential antiangiogenic activity. He accepted an invitation to attend graduate school at Harvard University in the PhD program in virology, where he worked in the laboratory of Tomas Kirchhausen, whose work focused primarily on clathrin-mediated endocytosis. He was able to carve out a niche for himself by employing tools used for endocytosis research to address questions in virology. The first part of his thesis research was an investigation, using a single-cell infection-based assay he developed in the lab, into how certain viruses used the clathrin endocytic pathway to gain entry into their target cells. He went on to study the role of the clathrin endocytic machinery in the molecular functioning of the HIV Nef protein. He and his collaborators were able to identify the key molecular interactions that allow Nef protein to subvert cellular endocytic processes that help HIV to grow and spread.

After completing his graduate work in 2000, Louis worked for a bioinformatics company. After moving to New York in 2003, he began working in medical education as an assistant medical director at Health Science Communications, working in neuroscience and infectious disease. Moving up the ranks at HSC, he became a full medical director after 3 years. He then moved on to the Scienomics Group as a senior medical director, where he began to work in ophthalmology. He was then promoted to vice president of scientific services, in which capacity he managed 6 medical directors and became involved in additional therapeutics areas. He moved to MedEdNow in 2007 as VP and Director of Scientific Services, where he is currently working in HIV, hepatitis, cystic fibrosis, and oncology.