Dr. Gerald Pier is currently a Professor of Medicine (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics) at Harvard Medical School where he has been conducting independent research since 1978 at the Channing Laboratory in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the liberal arts program at Raymond College, part of the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, and from there entered the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. degree in microbiology in 1976. From Berkeley, he headed east after receiving a National Research Council post-doctoral fellowship to conduct research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research with Dr. Jerald Sadoff, where he began his career-long studies of virulence and immunity to Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After 2.5 years in Washington, DC, Dr. Pier joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In addition to being an elected member of the American Academy of Microbiology, Dr. Pier is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Association of Immunologists. He has trained over 60 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, some of whom are now professors in their own right and leaders in the field of microbiology, immunology, and infectious diseases.