Dr. Joseph Bellati is a Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology and Immunology, and Director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center. Following the completion of his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo in 1961, he was accepted into a National Institutes of Health-supported postdoctoral fellowship in a developmental immunology training program at the University of Florida in 1961 under the direction of Richard T. Smith, MD, a pioneering pediatric immunologist and disciple of Robert A. Good, MD (1961-62) and later continued his postdoctoral studies as a research virologist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Washington, D.C.   Dr. Bellanti has focused a major investigative effort on antimicrobial research, evaluation of new vaccine strategies and developmental immunology. Together with other investigators, he has studied antibody and phagocytic cell function in the newborn human and in experimental model systems.   Dr. Bellanti’s academic career has been nurtured by his previous research that has focused on the immunopathogenesis of infectious diseases, and the allergic and autoimmune disorders. Dr. Bellanti draws upon his pioneering experience as an established clinical investigator in the field of translational research in immunology.