As the world continues the battle against the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci brings deep insight and remarkable life experience as an infectious diseases expert and public health official on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
The chief medical advisor to U.S. President Biden—and advisor to six presidents before him—Dr. Anthony Fauci has served as Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, overseeing an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases, including SARS-CoV-2.
Notably, Dr. Fauci was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world since its launch in 2003. He remains a leader in the global HIV research response. He has also led research efforts to combat tuberculosis, malaria, as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. Dr. Fauci is considered a pioneer in the field of human immunoregulation and is the longtime chief of the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Laboratory of Immunoregulation.
Born in New York in 1940, as a young man Dr. Fauci delivered prescriptions for the neighborhood pharmacy that his parents owned and operated. He earned a medical degree from Cornell University in 1966, and then began his 53-year career at the NIH in 1968, assuming his NIAID director position in 1984. Today he is one of the world’s most-cited biomedical scientists.
Dr. Fauci is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service, the National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal, the George M. Kober Medal of the Association of American Physicians, and the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, as well as many other professional societies.
Dr. Fauci's Beatty Lecture was presented exclusively online on Friday, October 1, 2021, as part of À¦°óSMÉçÇø’s virtual Homecoming festivities. Nahlah Ayed, host of the CBC Radio One program Ideas, emceed the event. A former parliamentary reporter and a veteran foreign correspondent, her work has garnered numerous awards including from the UK Foreign Press Association and the Canadian Association of Journalists. Ideas featured excerpts of the lecture in an episode that broadcast on October 21, 2021 listen .Ìý
Immediately following the Lecture, Dr. Fauci received an honorary doctorate – Doctor of Science, honoris causa – from À¦°óSMÉçÇø's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences during a virtual ceremony.
Image: NIAID
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