Thomas Merigan, M. D.

Thomas Merigan obtained his Bachelors Degree at the University of California in Berkeley and graduated from medical school at UC San Francisco in 1958. His internship and residency were on Harvard Medical Services at Boston City Hospital. Dr. Merigan continued his career at the National Institutes of Health studying protein chemistry and bacteriophage genetics.  He became an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in 1963, subsequently heading the Division of Infectious Disease and founding the Diagnostic Virology Laboratory at Stanford. After becoming the first faculty member to hold the Becker Chair in Medicine in 1980, he established an AIDS research unit. Eighteen years ago, Dr. Merigan became principal investigator of the NIAID AIDS Clinical Trials Unit, and founded the Center for AIDS Research at Stanford in 1988.   

 He has worked on various diseases including the common cold, hepatitis, herpes viruses, warts, rabies, lymphoma, various other cancers and multiple sclerosis. His initial discoveries with crude leukocyte derived interferon were extended to medical practice. He has edited over twenty books, published over 560 papers and holds twelve patents.  These contributions have made Dr. Merigan one of 200 most cited scientists in clinical medicine over the last 20 years.  He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1980.