Anthony Fauci Biography

Anthony Fauci was born on December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York City, USA. Both his parents, Eugenia Lillian née Abys and Stephen A. Fauci were second generation immigrants from Italy. He has a younger a sister named Denise.

Raised in a Catholic tradition, he began his education at Our Lady of Guadalupe elementary school. Later, he moved to Regis High School, where he was imbibed with precision of thought and economy of expression, two important traits that would later dominate his personality.

In 1958, he graduated from Regis and entered College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, where he took premed courses along with mixed classics and philosophy.  Sometime now, he also worked as a construction crew, building a new library for Cornell Medical College in 1961.

In 1962, he graduated from Holy Cross with a bachelor’s degree and entered Cornell Medical College, graduating from there in 1966 with his Doctorate of Medicine. He did his internship and residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

In 1968, on completing his medical residency, Anthony Fauci began his career as a Clinical Associate at the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI) in Bethesda, Maryland. The laboratory was a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the twenty-seven institutes under the National Institutes of Health.

He remained with LCI possibly until mid-1970, working in infectious diseases, allergy and immunology under Sheldon Malcolm Wolff, trained and mentored by him. Thereafter, he moved for around a year to New York City to serve as Chief Resident at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center.

In July 1971, he returned to LCI as a Senior Investigator and rapidly assembling a strong team, he soon started working on immune regulation. His early studies included demonstrating the therapeutic effect of cyclophosphamide on Wegener’s granulomatosis and other vasculitides.

Concurrently, while working in his small laboratory, he continued to enhance his qualifications, passing his clinical board examinations in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and allergy/immunology, with top scores. Then in 1974, he became the Head of the Clinical Physiology Section.

In 1980, Anthony Fauci was appointed chief of the NIAID's Laboratory of Immunoregulation.  Very soon, he began to focus on polyarteritis nodosa and granulomatosis with polyangiitis, making outstanding contribution to this field. Also, an outstanding administrator, physician, and teacher of clinical medicine, he soon earned the respect of his colleagues.

In the summer of 1981, Anthony Fauci’s career took a new turn when cases of gay men with an unusual infection began to turn up. Quickly he realized that the new disease had a potential to explode into a worldwide calamity and shifted the focus of his laboratory on the new infection.

Soon, he began his studies on the pathology of what came to be known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS, a name he also helped to coin, focusing on trying to find a vaccine or the treatment for this novel infection. However, it was not an easy job, having numerous roadblocks.

Disgruntled at so many deaths, the LGBT community started an agitation against him for not doing enough and by 1988 it reached its peak. They started calling him murderer, equating him with Adolf Hitler, even burning his effigy. Calm and sympathetic, he soon began a dialogue, ultimately winning their confidence.

In 1984, he became the Director of NIAID, a position he continues to hold as of 2022. At that time, its funding was about $320 million. Under his direction it increased to $4.6 billion.

He continued working on other diseases also, especially on the treatment of polyarteritis nodosa and granulomatosis, developing therapies to counter them. In 1985, his works got special ranking by Stanford University Arthritis Center Survey.

Sometime in 1980s, he also became an advisor on domestic global health issues to President Ronald Regan. Continuing to serve in the same position for the next six US Presidents; he helped to establish the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003.

When the Swine flu pandemic erupted in 2009, he predicted that one in three Americans would be infected with the disease. Later, in 2014 he also made meaningful contribution in tackling the Ebola crisis. However, it was Covid-19, which posed the greatest challenge for him.

On January 29, 2020, President Donald Trump formed the White House Corona Virus Task Force with Fauci as the de facto public health spokesperson for the office of the president. By March, he predicted that infection mortality rate would be 1%, ten times higher than seasonal flu.

A strong advocate for ongoing social distancing and lockdown, he faced opposition both from within the establishment and without, with President Trump threatening to fire him after the election.

As President Biden took office in January 2021, he asked Fauci to serve as his Chief Medical Advisor and remain a part of the Covid-19 team, an offer he happily accepted. Concurrently, he continued to serve as the Director of NIAID, overseeing researches on various infectious diseases including Covid-19, HIV-AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, etc.

Anthony Fauci is best known for his seminal contribution to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body's defenses and also for his role in the development of treatments. His works have enabled HIV patients to live longer and lead a more active life.

Since 1979, Fauci has received many awards and honors. They include Maxwell Finland Award (1989), Ernst Jung Prize (1995), National Medal of Science (2005), Lasker Award (2007), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2008), Robert Koch Medal (2013), Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals (2020), Public Welfare Medal (2021), Dan David Prize (2021) etc.

In 1985, Anthony Fauci married Christine Grady, at that time a nurse at the NIH Clinical Center. Grady later built her own career, currently serving as the head of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. The couple has three children; Jennifer Ellen, Megan Elizabeth and Alison Christine.