Victor Nizet, M.D.

Victor Nizet, MD
Professor of Pediatrics & Pharmacy

Victor Nizet received his undergraduate education at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in Biology and completing a senior thesis in the field of evolutionary ecology with Prof. Robert Kaplan. He subsequently began his medical training at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California where he was first introduced to the science of bacterial pathogenesis as a research assistant in the laboratory of Prof. Gary Schoolnik. After graduation, Prof. Nizet completed a Residency and served as Chief Resident in Pediatrics at Harvard University's Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington's Children's Hospital in Seattle. During his fellowship training, Prof. Nizet studied in the bacterial pathogenesis research laboratories of Profs. Craig Rubens and Arnold Smith, working on the molecular pathogenesis of group B Streptococcus and Haemophilus influenzae, respectively.

In 1997, Prof. Nizet joined the faculty of the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Diego. His laboratory offers a variety of training opportunities for UCSD graduate and undergraduate students, clinical infectious diseases fellows and PhD or MD/PhD postdoctoral fellows.

In 2006, Prof. Nizet was named Chief of the new Division of Pharmacology & Drug Discovery at UCSD School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences This new Division will encompass faculty in basic, translational, and clinical research, including the investigators and staff of the UCSD Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit. The program seeks to establish a pathway for drug development from initial discovery of novel compounds and targets through to early stage clinical trials, with a major focus on development of new anti-infective strategies.

Prof. Nizet's work has been recognized by the Sidney Farber Award, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Young Investigator Award, the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation Scholar Award, the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, the American Lung Association Career Investigator Award, a Sandler Foundation Senior Investigator Award and the 2008 E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics. He has been elected to the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, Faculty of 1000 - Biology, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Curriculum vitae (.PDF)