Bronx, NY, Nov 7, 2003 -- Dr. David Fidock, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is one of just eight scientists nationally to receive a 2003 Investigator in Pathogenesis Disease Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The grant, which includes $400,000 in funding over the next five years, supports and encourages aggressive, multidisciplinary approaches to investigating pathogenesis (disease development). The recipients of the award are scientists who are working on understanding the interaction between the human host and infectious agents that may be bacterial, viral, fungal, or parasitic in nature. Dr. Fidock’s research focuses on gaining understanding of treatment-resistant malaria. Last year, he reported his findings on the genetic basis of chloroquine resistance in malaria. (Chloroquine is a widely used drug therapy in the fight against malaria, an infectious disease afflicting 300 million to 500 million worldwide, each year.) Dr. Fidock joined the Einstein faculty in 2000. Previously, he was a visiting fellow in the malaria genetics section at the National Institutes of Health, as well as a senior research scientist in the laboratory of biomedical parasitology at the Pasteur Institute, in Paris. He also was a visiting fellow at the University of California, and a senior research assistant at Biotechnology Australia. A native of Australia, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Adelaide, as well as a doctorate in microbiology and a post-graduate diploma in medical entomology from the Pasteur Institute. His other honors include a New Faculty Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a New Initiatives in Malaria Research Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and a Speaker’s Fund Award from the New York Council and New York Academy of Medicine. The Ellison Medical Foundation also has named him a New Scholar in Global Infections Disease. He is a resident of New Rochelle, N.Y.