Anthony S Fauci

Education and career

Anthony Stephen Fauci was born on December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Stephen A. Fauci and Eugenia A. Fauci, who owned a pharmacy in which his father worked as the pharmacist, his mother and sister worked the register, and Fauci delivered prescriptions. He is of Italian descent and grew up Catholic. He graduated from Regis High School in New York City and went on to attend the College of the Holy Cross and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1966. He then completed an internship and residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

In 1968, he came to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI) in NIAID. In 1974, he became Head of the Clinical Physiology Section, LCI, and in 1980 was appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, a position he still holds. In 1984, he became Director of NIAID, which has the responsibility for an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research on infectious and immune-mediated illnesses.

He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and in driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Medical achievements

Fauci has made a number of basic scientific observations that contribute to the current understanding of the regulation of the human immune response, and is recognized for delineating the mechanisms whereby immunosuppressive agents adapt to the human immune response. He has developed therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis. In a 1985 Stanford University Arthritis Center Survey of the American Rheumatism Association membership ranked the work of Fauci on the treatment of polyarteritis nodosa and granulomatosis with polyangiitis as one of the most important advances in patient management in rheumatology over the previous 20 years.

Fauci has made influential contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body's defenses leading to the progression to AIDS. He also has outlined the mechanisms of induction of HIV expression by endogenous cytokines. Fauci has played an important role in developing strategies for the therapy and immune reconstitution of patients with this disease, as well as for a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. His current research is concentrated on identifying the nature of the immunopathogenic mechanisms of HIV infection and the scope of the body's immune responses to HIV.

In 2003, the Institute for Scientific Information indicated that Fauci was the 13th most-cited scientist during the twenty-year period from 1983 to 2002. He was the ninth most-cited scientist in immunology in the period January 1993 to June 30, 2003.

Memberships

Fauci is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine (Council Member), the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, as well as other numerous professional societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Association of Immunologists. He serves on the editorial boards of many scientific journals; as an editor of Harrison's Principles of internal medicine; and as author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,000 scientific publications, including several textbooks.

Awards and honors

Fauci has been a visiting professor at many medical centers, and has received 30 honorary doctorate degrees from universities in the United States and abroad.

Ebola Congressional hearing

On October 16, 2014, in a United States Congressional hearing regarding the Ebola virus crisis, Dr. Fauci, who has been speaking on the issue, regarding "screening" for weeks, and as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), testified and warned that they were still some distance from producing sufficient quantities for widespread trials.

"While NIAID is an active participant in the global effort to address the public health emergency occurring in west Africa, it is important to recognize that we are still in the early stages of understanding how infection with the Ebola virus can be treated and prevented," Fauci said.

Dr. Fauci also remarked in the hearing: "As we continue to expedite research while enforcing high safety and efficacy standards, the implementation of the public health measures already known to contain prior Ebola virus outbreaks and the implementation of treatment strategies such as fluid and electrolyte replacement are essential to preventing additional infections, treating those already infected, protecting healthcare providers, and ultimately bringing this epidemic to an end."

Selected publications