Dr Anthony Fauci, who serves as Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, plans to retire by the end of the president’s current term in office.

On August 22, 2022, Fauci followed through with that promise. In a press conference, the 81-year-old announced that he would be stepping down as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as well as removing himself from the position of chief medical advisor to the Biden administration in December this year. He will also be stepping down as the chief of the NIAID laboratory of Immunoregulation. Fauci served as the director of NIAID for decades.

“I have said that for a long time,” Fauci told CNN on Monday of his plans to leave government before the end of Biden’s current term, which ends in January 2025. “By the time we get to the end of Biden’s first term, I will very likely (retire).”

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The 81-year-old became the face of the US government’s efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Born on December 24, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York City, Fauci has served the American public health sector in various capacities for more than fifty years and has acted as an advisor to every US president since Ronald Reagan.

He has made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiency diseases, both as a research scientist and as the head of the NIAID.

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From 1983 to 2002, Fauci was one of the world’s most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals.

In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the US, for his work on the AIDS relief program PEPFAR.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he served under President Donald Trump as one of the lead members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

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Fauci and Trump had frequently contradicted during this time. Many of Trump’s supporters claimed that Fauci was trying to politically undermine the president’s run for reelection.

After Biden took office, Fauci began serving as one of the lead members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team and as Biden’s chief medical advisor.

Fauci’s father was a Columbia University-educated pharmacist who owned his pharmacy. Fauci’s mother and sister worked the pharmacy’s register, and Fauci delivered prescriptions. 

In 1985, Fauci married Christine Grady, a nurse and bioethicist with the NIH. The two met while treating a patient. Grady is chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.

The two have three daughters together.