Kathleen Sakamoto, MD 
Jennifer Malin, MD, PhD 
Oliver Dorigo, MD, PhD 
Rick Fairhurst, NIH, MD, PhD
Chief, Malaria Pathogenesis and Human Immunity Unit,
Laboratory of Malaria and
Vector Research
Director, NIH MD/PhD Partnership Training Program
NIAID, National Institutes of Health
“As the first Infectious Diseases fellow in the UCLA STAR Program, I was strongly encouraged to customize my training to fit my interests and develop my career. To support my future study of malaria and other tropical infectious diseases as soon as possible, the Program’s faculty helped me design the most relevant and accelerated pathway I could envision – one that exposed me to tuberculosis, leprosy and neurocysticercosis patients, and even mosquito and tick abatement programs! By allowing me to train at multiple hospitals and specialty clinics in Southern California, to complete my internship, residency and clinical fellowship within 3 years, and transfer to the NIH to meet malaria in person, the UCLA STAR Program essentially launched my early career. Within 2 months of arriving at the NIH, I was on a plane to Mali to treat my first malaria patient as the principal investigator of a new clinical protocol. My recent successes in deciphering the mechanisms of human resistance to malaria in Africa, and parasite resistance to multiple antimalarial drugs in Southeast Asia, all stem from the Program’s initial challenge to me: find the best place in the world to do malaria research, then go there and become the best malariologist you can be.”
– Dr. Rick Fairhurst
