Anthony Fauci

Ben Carson and Anthony Fauci (right) being announced as a recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on June 19, 2008.

Anthony S. Fauci (born: December 24, 1940) is an immunologist who has made substantial contributions to research in the areas of AIDS and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Education and career

Anthony Stephen Fauci was born on December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Stephen A. Fauci, a pharmacist, and Eugenia A. Fauci, a homemaker. He graduated from the all-scholarship, Jesuit-run Regis High School in New York City. He went on to attend the College of the Holy Cross and later 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, Fauci 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, Fauci became Director of NIAID, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, illness from potential agents of bioterrorism, tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.

Dr. Fauci has been nominated by the National Institutes of Health to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers who will speak about his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010.

Medical Achievements

Fauci has made many contributions to basic and clinical research on the pathogenesis and treatment of immune-mediated diseases. He has been a leader in the field of human immunoregulation by making a number of basic scientific observations that serve as the basis for current understanding of the regulation of the human immune response. In addition, Fauci has been 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, Wegener's granulomatosis, 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 Wegener's granulomatosis 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 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, an Institute for Scientific Information study indicated that in the twenty year period from 1983 to 2002, Fauci was the 13th most-cited scientist among the 2.5 to 3 million authors in all disciplines throughout the world who published articles in scientific journals during that time frame. Fauci was the ninth most-cited scientist in the field of immunology in the period from January 1993 to June 30, 2003. Fauci has been a visiting professor at many medical centers throughout the country and has given many lectures across the globe. He has received 30 honorary doctorate degrees from universities in the United States and abroad.

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

• 2008 Presidential Medal of Freedom
• 1957 Regis High School's Most Photogenic Class of 1957

• 2007 Lasker Award (shared with Alain F. Carpentier and Ralph M. Steinman)
  • Dr. Steinman and Dr. Fauci each received $150,000 and Dr. Starr and Dr. Carpentier each received $75,000.

• 2002 Albany Medical Center Prize

Selected publications

• Fauci AS, Dale DC, Balow JE. Glucocorticosteroid therapy: mechanisms of action and clinical considerations. Ann Intern Med 1976 Mar;84(3):304-15. PMID 769625
• Fauci AS, Haynes B, Katz P. The spectrum of vasculitis: clinical, pathologic, immunologic and therapeutic considerations. Ann Intern Med 1978 Nov;89(5 Pt 1):660-76. PMID 31121
• Fauci AS, Haynes BF, Katz P, Wolff SM. Wegener's granulomatosis: prospective clinical and therapeutic experience with 85 patients for 21 years. Ann Intern Med 1983 Jan;98(1):76-85. PMID 6336643
• Fauci AS, Macher AM, Longo DL, Lane HC, Rook AH, Masur H, Gelmann EP. NIH conference. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: epidemiologic, clinical, immunologic, and therapeutic considerations. Ann Intern Med 1984 Jan;100(1):92-106. PMID 6318629
• Fauci AS. The human immunodeficiency virus: infectivity and mechanisms of pathogenesis. Science 1988 Feb 5;239(4840):617-22. PMID 3277274
• Pantaleo G, Graziosi C, Fauci AS. New concepts in the immunopathogenesis of human immunodeficiency virus infection. N Engl J Med 1993 Feb 4;328(5):327-35. PMID 8093551
• Chun TW, Fauci AS. Latent reservoirs of HIV: obstacles to the eradication of virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Sep 28;96(20):10958-61. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.20.10958 PMID 10500107
• Morens DM, Folkers GK, Fauci AS. The challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Nature 2004 Jul 8;430(6996):242-9. PMID 15241422
• Johnston MI, Fauci AS. An HIV vaccine--challenges and prospects. N Engl J Med 2008 Aug 28;359(9):888-90. PMID 18753644
• Fauci AS, Braunwald E, Kasper DL, Hauser SL, Longo DL, Jameson JL, Loscalzo J, eds. Harrison's principles of internal medicine, 17th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical, 2008. ISBN 9780071599917

External links

• NIH bio
• NIH Oral History of Fauci on the subject of AIDS Research