David A. Fidock is a Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and of Medical Sciences (in Medicine) at the Columbia University Medical Center. He is also the Program Director of the Columbia University Graduate Program in Microbiology, Immunology and Infection. He received his Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences with Honors from Adelaide University in Australia in 1986 and his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1994. Following postdoctoral research at UC Irvine with Dr. Anthony James and the NIH with Dr. Thomas Wellems, he started his independent group at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in 2000. He moved to Columbia University in 2007. His research program focuses on the genetic and molecular basis of antimalarial drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum, drug discovery, genetically attenuated vaccines, and parasite lipid metabolism. He has authored over 180 articles in malaria. In 2014 the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene awarded Dr. Fidock the Bailey K. Ashford Medal for distinguished work in tropical medicine, and in 2015 he was elected to their Council.  In 2016 he was named Global Australian of the Year in Life Sciences and in 2017 was given the endowed C.S. Hamish Young Professorship. He is on the Antimalarial Drug Resistance Advisory Group for the WHO, and is a member of the DELGEME advisory committee.

Laboratory mantra:  Nothing in life that is worth doing is easy.

For a description of his research program, click here or visit his laboratory website.