Feature Story

A Conversation with Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI — 2026 AAAAI Distinguished Scientist Award

By Rebecca Saff, MD, PhD, FAAAAI, Host of “Conversations from the World of Allergy” the official AAAAI podcast

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI, is one of the great scientists of our age. He is one of the most cited physician-scientists in the world with a career in public service spanning more than five decades.

In February, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) will honor Dr. Fauci – an honorary Fellow of the AAAAI – with the AAAAI Distinguished Scientist Award during the 2026 AAAAI Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

I recently had the honor of interviewing Dr. Fauci for the AAAAI to discuss his extraordinary career. We talked about his work during some of the world’s most devastating public health crises, the current challenges facing medical research, the role of the AAAAI and other medical associations, and his advice for those just entering the specialty.

Dr. Fauci has graciously allowed me to share the entirety of that conversation with all of you in a Q&A format. This special Impact feature invites you into the room for a conversation I will never forget.

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

On Balancing A Career in Patient Care, Research and Public Health

Dr. Saff: You have a long history of excellence in scientific research that you balance with your career in public health. Those can both individually be full-time careers. Did you ever feel the tension between that, and how do you feel that you chose to balance those two? Dr. Fauci: I tried very hard – and I would say in a rigid, but a very proactive way – to make sure I prioritized; and I allocated time where I could focus on one thing without being distracted by the other. When I was in the lab, or seeing patients, or running the Institute, I would focus like a laser beam on that. When I was out in front of the Congress or in front of a TV camera talking about policy, I was all in, full-time, concentrating on that. You discipline yourself so that when you are with a patient, you focus on that patient. You are not worried about what is going on in the lab or what you are going to speak about the next day. Similarly, when I am out in the rest of the world talking about public health and emerging infections and pandemics, I focus on that. Dr. Saff: I imagine it takes incredible discipline to be able to focus like that on two such disparate things. You've guided the medical and scientific community through some of the most significant public health challenges of our time – the HIV epidemic, the COVID epidemic. What has kept you motivated and inspired you throughout those stressful times?

Dr. Fauci: The enormity of the problem has kept me motivated and inspired. I decided some time ago that I had a deep responsibility to the public health of the nation. Since the United States is the major leader in global health efforts, that responsibility extends well beyond our borders.

When you are with an individual patient, everything you do is for the patient. When you are a public health person, metaphorically, your patient is the entire world because it is a global health issue. So, the thing that keeps me motivated is the responsibility I feel for doing the best I can when I am faced with a particular problem. That could be HIV AIDS, that could be the anthrax attack, that could be pandemic flu, that could be Zika, that could be Ebola. And then more recently, it has been COVID.

Dr. Saff: Did you ever feel a tension between the individual patient and then the patient of the world? Because sometimes those have different needs.

Dr. Fauci: Yes, there are different needs, but I do not think that poses a conflict. I would say that it helps you to appreciate the importance of the broader problem when you see the specific problems that an individual patient has. I am primarily a physician and have seen patients throughout my entire career – even during the almost 40 years that I was director of NIAID – I still made rounds a couple of times a week. Now that I am at Georgetown, I am making morning report with the residents or clinical rounds every day. So, I would not say that there is a conflict. I think it is synergistic, actually.

"When you are with an individual patient, everything you do is for the patient. When you are a public health person, metaphorically, your patient is the entire world because it is a global health issue. So, the thing that keeps me motivated is the responsibility I feel for doing the best I can when I am faced with a particular problem."

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

On the Role of AAAAI and Other Medical Organizations

Dr. Saff: You've been a long-time honorary fellow of the AAAAI. In February, you will accept the AAAAI Distinguished Scientist Award. What role do organizations like the AAAAI play in strengthening the scientific community and advocating for public health?

Dr. Fauci: It has always been important. In the current situation that we are facing now, where we are seeing some cracks in the armor of the government's support of the scientific enterprise and the public health enterprise, I think it is falling upon the societies that are essentially representing our community – the physician and bioscientific community – to play a role in setting guidelines, principles and directions of public health. Other organizations are stepping to the plate given the situation that is going on with the CDC, where the recommendations for vaccines are not based solely on scientific and public health considerations. Organizations like the Vaccine Integrity Project, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Disease Society are all stepping to the plate to reflect what the best science is. Organizations like ours should be doing the same thing.

Dr. Saff: You’ve also emphasized the importance of collaboration throughout your career, both as director of NIAID, as well as your time as advisor to seven different presidents with very different agendas. What advice would you give to researchers and clinicians working across disciplines in how they can really advance science and public health?

Dr. Fauci: Well, collaboration is almost a sine qua non in the 21st century. You know, I came to the NIH as a fellow in 1968, and I became a tenured scientist in 1972. Back then, you had a one-and-a-half module lab, a technician and one fellow. It does not work that way anymore. Science is so complicated that it has to be a collaborative effort. As the years, and now the decades have gone by, I do not think you can have effective science without doing it in a collaborative way, because you cannot be an expert on all of the technologies that can contribute to your field. It would be physically and intellectually impossible to do that.

"In the current situation that we are facing now, where we are seeing some cracks in the armor of the government's support of the scientific enterprise and the public health enterprise, I think it is falling upon the societies that are essentially representing our community – the physician and bioscientific community – to play a role in setting guidelines, principles and directions of public health."

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

On Combatting the Spread of Misinformation

Dr. Saff: It seems that our patients have had a much harder time believing in our training and expertise as medical professionals and scientists and trusting the information and advice we can give them because there is so much conflicting information out there. How can we best give guidance, and are there ways that we can rebuild trust in the future of patients?

Dr. Fauci: We have to put a better effort, quantitatively and qualitatively, into communicating our science, which is based on data, evidence and information that we get from our scientific pursuits. The lack of trust in science has been fueled by the misinformation and disinformation that occur through social media, and also by some mistakes that scientists have made in communication. We can always do better in our communication, but I would hope that our scientific community, when it sees so much misinformation and disinformation eroding the trust of science, gets out there in a more proactive way to spread our message, focusing on the scientific basis of our message, the clear data, the evidence, the carefully designed studies that have us come to a conclusion that is solidly based on science. But, it is equally important that we articulate our message in a way that the general public can understand – in a humble way, in an open-minded way, and we realize that there are forces of disinformation out there that are interfering with that.

Dr. Saff: Do you think we, as scientists and as physicians, need better training in how to communicate in this current environment? I feel like we're trained really well to speak in scientific terms and to write scientific papers, but it's a different communication strategy.

Dr. Fauci: Oh, very much so. I mean, some people are better communicators than others. Some people are very good, some people are reasonably good, and some people are terrible. And that is just the bell-shaped curve of life. There is nothing pejorative about that. But I think everyone can improve themselves.

"The lack of trust in science has been fueled by the misinformation and disinformation that occur through social media, and also by some mistakes that scientists have made in communication. We can always do better in our communication, but I would hope that our scientific community, when it sees so much misinformation and disinformation eroding the trust of science, gets out there in a more proactive way."

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

On The Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Saff: So how do you envision artificial intelligence and precision medicine shaping research and patient care?

Dr. Fauci: It’s going to be huge. Right now, literally a week does not go by that I am not amazed by something else that artificial intelligence can do. Everything from helping you to take care of a patient by providing you with a couple of sentences or paragraphs of information that would take you hours and hours to study. That is the good news. The cautious news is that AI is not yet in the state where it is perfect. It makes mistakes. You know, it hallucinates occasionally. But that is going to get better. Outside of the clinical sphere and in the research sphere, some of the things that AI can do, like being able to delineate the proper epitope that would be the most immunogenic for a particular vaccine, be that a cancer antigen or a microbial protein. What can be done with AI is breathtaking.

Dr. Saff: And could save years in the lab. Absolutely. How do you see gene therapy affecting medicine as we go forward?

Dr. Fauci: We're already seeing major advances in gene therapy, particularly with the weekly to monthly improvements in CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology and even beyond CRISPR. We now can modify genes and delete and insert genetic sequences that we wouldn't have imagined we could do years ago. And so, we are at that incipient phase where we are already doing things that we couldn't have imagined to be possible 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago. I believe what can be done in the next 10 to 20 years is going to be even more mind-boggling.

Dr. Saff: Yeah, the changes in medicine are pretty incredible. It's an amazing time to live through.

On Challenges Facing Medical Research

Dr. Saff: The landscape of biomedical research has rapidly evolved, including the funding and research. How do you see this affecting scientific research, and how can we continue to move medical research forward with these changes? Do you see ways that we can move to really help continue to push forward in science?

Dr. Fauci: Yes, we are going through an abnormal, in fact, aberrant period right now, where there appears to be, at the level of the NIH and the CDC, almost an assault on science and scientists. That is really an aberration that cannot sustain itself. So, I say to young people, do not be discouraged. This is a very unusual situation. It is not normal. We will have to essentially right the ship, hopefully sometime soon. Even with the attacks on science, fueled by misinformation and disinformation, the scientific enterprise is still very strong and very healthy. It has been assaulted, but it is still very strong. We just need to get it back to the way it was and even better than it was, because it was improving and expanding every year since I got involved in this field a long time ago. And I think that the unusual period we're in now should not discourage us. This will not last forever.

Dr. Saff: And as you look forward to these next generation physician scientists, what advice do you offer to those early in their career who are feeling discouraged but really want to make a lasting impact? I’m even seeing it as a training program director. People are less willing to go into research because they're concerned about the environment. Do you have words of wisdom or advice?

Dr. Fauci: Yes, my words of wisdom, Rebecca, are: Hold on. Hang in there. This is an abnormality that cannot sustain itself. Please do not either leave the field or not go into the field because you are afraid of what the future holds. You know, the field of biomedical science will not fall apart. It will be stressful. But it will right itself. I mean, if you and I have this conversation a few years from now, I think we will be back to normal. The political situation is having a major impact on the funding for research and that will inevitably change.

"We are going through an abnormal, in fact, aberrant period right now, where there appears to be, at the level of the NIH and the CDC, almost an assault on science and scientists. That is really an aberration that cannot sustain itself. So, I say to young people, do not be discouraged...please do not either leave the field or not go into the field because you are afraid of what the future holds. You know, the field of biomedical science will not fall apart. It will be stressful. But it will right itself."

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

On His Illustrious Career

Dr. Saff: Your career holds so many accomplishments. When you look back on this, what moments stand out to you as kind of the most defining scientifically and personally?

Dr. Fauci: Well, I have had the privilege over more than five decades of wearing multiple hats in the arc of my career. and I think there are maybe three or four things that I think back on with pride. Some of these, most of the general public does not know much about. In the very, very early years of my career, when I finished my chief residency and came back to the NIH, the first nine years or so, I was involved in research on autoinflammatory diseases and the vasculitities, and I made a couple of what turned out to be seminal observations in how you treat formerly fatal vasculitic syndromes. That was, from a pure research standpoint, something I am very proud of.

The next phase was during the very early years of HIV. I was one of the first researchers to work literally full-time on both the clinical and pathogenic aspects of HIV; and then in 1984 I became the director of NIAID. That was the next phase in my career when I put a lot of effort into playing a role in developing safe and effective antiretroviral therapies, which we know now has saved literally millions and millions of lives. So, I consider that clearly one of my most important accomplishments as Director of NIAID – leading the broader effort in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies in developing effective life-saving antiviral therapy.

The next phase was more of a policy phase where I had the privilege, together with President George W. Bush, to be one of the principal architects of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. I did not do that alone. I did that with the help from a lot of people. But it was the inspiration of President George W. Bush, who essentially commissioned me to go out and create that program, which has been responsible for saving more than 25 million lives. Now, that has to be something that I feel is one of the most important things I have done in my entire career.

Then finally, in the last five years, NIAID played a key role in developing a highly effective and safe COVID vaccine, again, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies.

So, I think if you go through more than 50 years, there is the fundamental contribution to basic and clinical science in the arena of autoimmunity and inflammation, the work on HIV/AIDS as a clinician and as a scientist, the development of the PEPFAR program, and then the work with COVID in developing a safe and effective COVID vaccine, that stand out.

Dr. Saff: You have certainly left an incredible legacy of science, basic science research, translational research, and then this public health policy that's changed millions or billions of lives. It's really incredible. Thank you so much for speaking with me today and thank you for all your work throughout the many decades shaping science. I know you've inspired me and so many of the people that I work with.

Dr. Fauci: Well, thank you.

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI

Anthony Fauci, MD, FAAAAI was born December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College and joined the National Institute of Health in 1968 as a clinical associate, quickly rising through the ranks to lead the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In 1984, he became Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD), a role he held for nearly four decades, overseeing a vast research portfolio and shaping national and global responses to HIV/AIDS, pandemic influenza, Ebola, Zika and COVID-19. Along the way, he continued to run an active lab, publish extensively and treat patients. He served as a key advisor to seven US presidents, ultimately becoming one of the most respected and influential figures in modern medicine. In 2023, he joined Georgetown University as a Distinguished University Professor. He is also an author and editor of numerous scientific publications and medical textbooks. Throughout his career, Dr. Fauci’s awards and honors have been numerous and include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded in 2008.