Valdivia Selected as 2007 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases

Durham, N.C. (May 2007) -- Raphael Valdivia, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the Duke University Medical Center was selected as a 2007 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases.

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is an independent private foundation dedicated to advancing the medical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities.

The Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases program provides opportunities for assistant professors to bring multidisciplinary approaches to the study of human infectious diseases. This award provides $400,000 over a period of five years ($80,000 per year).

The goal of the program is to provide opportunities for accomplished investigators still early in their careers to study the pathogenesis of infectious disease at its most fundamental level—the points where human and microbial systems connect. The program supports research that sheds light on overarching problems in this encounter: how colonization, infection, commensalisms, and other relationships play out at levels ranging from molecular interactions to systemic ones.