David R. Martinez, PhD

David R. Martinez, Ph.D. studies immunity to viral pathogens of global health importance. David grew up in El Salvador until age 13. As a young child, David became interested in emerging viruses because of innate curiosity in viruses and vaccines as well as his exposure to public health campaigns to fight arthropod-borne viruses (e.g., Dengue virus) and other infectious diseases. David received his Ph.D. from Duke University and trained with leading vaccine immunologist, Dr. Sallie R. Permar, at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, David trained as a postdoctoral scholar with one of the world’s leading coronavirologists, Dr. Ralph Baric, at UNC Chapel Hill before and during the COVID-19 pandemic studying immunity to flaviviruses and coronaviruses. Dr. Martinez was part of the teams that contributed to the development of the FDA-approved and widely used Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine which was used under Emergency Use Authorization. Dr. Martinez also contributed to the pre-clinical development of COVID-19 human monoclonal antibody therapies from Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca which also received FDA Emergency Use Authorization. Dr. Martinez is a Hanna H. Gray Faculty Fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.