Stanley Falkow. 24 January 1934—5 May 2018

Abstract

Our understanding of infectious disease and disease-causing organisms has been broadly shaped by two revolutions. The first was the advent of clinical microbiology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which saw the isolation, identification and classification of disease-causing organisms. In the middle of the twentieth century, the emerging field of molecular biology transformed our understanding of genes and their regulation. Starting in 1960, Stanley Falkow fused clinical microbiology with molecular biology, founding the new discipline of molecular microbial pathogenesis. Over the next half century, he led and shaped this new discipline, revolutionizing our understanding of how pathogenic bacteria cause disease and become resistant to antibiotics.