Don Francis

Don Francis
Don Francis
Born October 24, 1942 (1942-10-24) (age 69)
Bay Area
Fields Epidemiology
Institutions CDC
Genentech, Inc.
VaxGen
Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases

Donald Pinkston Francis is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and researched on HIV and AIDS. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of service. According to him,[citation needed] the White House (then under the administration of George H.W. Bush) wanted him fired, but in order to evade controversy he quietly "retired". He currently lives in San Francisco, California.

Contents

Early life

He was born October 24, 1942 in the Bay Area of California and grew up in Marin County. His main interest was skiing, and his mother, father and grandfather were physicians. Francis, however, was a poor student as a child, suffering from dyslexia. He has said that he gravitated towards science because he had such difficulty with subjects where fluid reading ability was needed.[citation needed]

Francis completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a member of the California chapter at Delta Upsilon, class of 1966. He received his M.D. from Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science in Virology from Harvard.[citation needed] He did his internship and residency in pediatrics at the University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles and his fellowship in infectious diseases at Harvard. Before beginning his work on AIDS, Francis was involved in epidemic control around the world. He was instrumental in eradicating smallpox from Sudan, India and Bangladesh.[citation needed] He was also on the front line of the cholera epidemic in Nigeria in the early 1970s, the smallpox epidemic in Yugoslavia in 1972 [1], and the Ebola epidemic in Sudan in 1976. Francis also did some of the early developmental work on the hepatitis B vaccine, both in the United States and in the People's Republic of China.[citation needed]

Later Work

Francis began his work on AIDS in 1981. He was one of the first scientists to suggest that AIDS was caused by an infectious agent. As director of CDC's AIDS Laboratory Activities, he worked closely with the Institut Pasteur which isolated HIV.

At the time of his retirement from the CDC, he was the centers' AIDS Advisor to the State of California and Special Consultant to Mayor Art Agnos in San Francisco.[citation needed] In the latter capacity he served as the Chair of the Mayor's HIV Task Force.

In 1993, Francis joined Genentech, Inc., of South San Francisco to try to develop a vaccine for HIV. In 1995, Francis and fellow retrovirologist Dr. Robert Nowinski spun off Genentech's HIV vaccine unit, after the company had disappointing results, and founded VaxGen, based in Brisbane, California, to continue working on vaccines. After the vaccine failed in clinical trials, he left VaxGen in 2004 to co-found Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases [2], where he serves as Executive Director and a principal investigator.[citation needed]

And The Band Played On

In 1993, HBO produced an Emmy-winning movie of the AIDS crisis called And The Band Played On, based on the 1987 book of the same name by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts. A central figure in the movie is Francis, played by (Matthew Modine). His dramatic antagonist is Dr. Robert Gallo (Alan Alda), the discoverer of HTLV (the human T-cell leukemia virus), and co-discoverer of HIV, who cuts off assistance when he hears that Francis has shared some experimental materials with French researchers.

Further reading


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Don Francis — Donald Pinkston (Don) Francis (* 24. Oktober 1942) ist ein amerikanischer Epidemiologe, der einen entscheidenden Anteil an der Entdeckung und Aufklärung der AIDS Erkrankung hatte. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Don Francis Leistung im Zusammenhang mit der… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Don Francis (Canadian politician) — Don Francis is a Canadian politician and political activist. A member of the New Democratic Party for many years, he later joined the Green Party and was the party s National Campaign Facilitator for the 1993 federal election. He was an educator… …   Wikipedia

  • Don "Sugarcane" Harris — Harris performing in Hamburg, 1971 Background information Birth name Don Francis Bowman Harris …   Wikipedia

  • Francis Ormond — (November 29 1829 May 5 1889) was a Scottish born, Australian grazier, member of the Parliament of Victoria and philanthropist. He s notable for his philanthropy in the areas of education and religion. He founded the Working Men s College of… …   Wikipedia

  • Don't Break the Heart That Loves You — is an American song written by Benny Davis and Ted Murry. The song would become a success for two artists in two different genres: Connie Francis in the pop field in 1962, and Margo Smith as a country version in 1978. Contents 1 Connie Francis… …   Wikipedia

  • Francis Ford Coppola — Coppola at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con International. Born April 7, 1939 (1939 04 07) (age 72) Detroit, Michigan …   Wikipedia

  • Don Draper — Personnage de fiction apparaissant dans Mad Men …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Don Budge — Full name John Donald Budge Country  United States …   Wikipedia

  • Francis Ford Coppola — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Para otros usos de este término, véase Coppola (desambiguación). Francis Ford Coppola …   Wikipedia Español

  • Don Friday — is the Head Men s Basketball Coach at Saint Francis University, being named to the post in April 2008. He previously served as head coach at Lycoming College (2003–2008), assistant coach at Bucknell University (1994–2003), and assistant coach at… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”