Thomas C. Merigan

Thomas Charles Merigan is an American virologist and George E. and Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine, Emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Merigan's research focused on viral pathogenesis and later on HIV/AIDS. He is also credited with helping to develop the use of interferons as antiviral therapies.^[1] Merigan joined the Stanford faculty in 1963, was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1980, and assumed emeritus status in 2004.^[2]

Education

Merigan was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated in 1955, after which he attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco and received his M.D. in 1958. He did his internship and residency at Boston City Hospital and then moved to the National Institutes of Health, where he worked in Christian Anfinsen's laboratory.^[2]

Academic career

Merigan joined the faculty at Stanford in 1963. He became involved in administration and headed the Division of Infectious Disease there, founded the Diagnostic Virology Laboratory, and later founded the Center for AIDS Research. Due to his involvement in the study of HIV/AIDS, he also became involved in government initiatives; he was a principal investigator in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) AIDS Clinical Trials Unit and served as a member of NIAID's Board of Scientific Counselors from 1980 to 1982. He also testified before congressional committees on the subject of federal funding for AIDS and cancer research. In 1980 Merigan became the first George E. and Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine and was elected to the Institute of Medicine.^[2] In the early 1980s, Merigan was among the group of American virologists who helped organize and became the founding members of the American Society for Virology.^[3][4]

Merigan was also interested in entrepreneurship throughout his career and served on the scientific advisory boards of a number of biotechnology companies, beginning with Cetus Corporation in 1979.^[2]

In 2004, Merigan assumed emeritus status on the Stanford faculty, celebrated by a Festschrift in his honor, but remained active in research. He retired fully in 2007.^[2] The following year he and his wife endowed the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Chair at Stanford, currently held by David Relman.^[5]

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