Infectious disease expert Jeanne Marrazzo assumes Fauci role at NIH

WASHINGTON – University of Alabama infectious disease director Jeanne Marrazzo will be the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ director by this fall.

The announcement comes roughly eight months after longtime institute director Anthony Fauci stepped down. Marrazzo will assume her post at the $6.3 billion-dollar agency just as Congress begins hashing out the 2024 budget. Some Republicans have pushed for controls on NIAID-funded pathogen research to be included in that legislation.

Like Fauci, Marrazzo hails from an HIV research background. Her work focuses largely on sexually transmitted diseases in female reproductive systems. She has worked with the NIH through grants and advisory boards steadily for more than two decades, the institute said in a press release.

Marrazzo “brings a wealth of leadership experience from leading international clinical trials and translational research, managing a complex organizational budget that includes research funding and mentoring trainees in all stages of professional development,” acting NIH director Lawrence Tabak said in a statement.

President Biden’s nominee to replace Tabak as permanent director, current cancer chief Monica Bertagnolli, has stalled in the Senate as health committee chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demands more aggressive White House action on drug pricing. However the NIAID director, like the institute’s other 27 campuses, does not require Senate confirmation.

Marrazzo can still expect to be called in front of congressional panels, as committees on both sides of the hill interrogate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and NIAID-funded research including a controversial field of pathogen study known as gain-of-function research.