Salvatore Pizzo, MD, PhD
Salvatore Pizzo, MD, PhD, is the chair of the Department of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center and an internationally known scientist.
Pizzo has headed Duke’s pathology department since 1991, but he has been at DUMC for almost 40 years. The Philadelphia native arrived in North Carolina as a medical student in 1966 after obtaining an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He received both his medical and doctorate degrees from Duke and became a resident in the pathology department in 1973.
Pizzo joined the DUMC faculty as an instructor in 1975 and ascended to become a full professor 10 years later. He also supervised research at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, and in 1986, became director of DUMC’s medical scientist training program.
In 1998 Pizzo co-founded Synergy Vaccines Inc., a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the research and development of more effective and less expensive vaccines using technology developed in Pizzo’s lab.
The pathologist has received numerous awards both for his own investigations and his work teaching future scientists. He has received the American Medical Student Association’s Golden Apple Award for teaching excellence in basic science, and was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his research into the involvement of blood vessel cell receptors on tumor growth, among other honors.
He has mentored more than 50 pre- and post-doctoral students at Duke. In addition, he has served as a consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a dozen companies around the world. He holds professional memberships in 17 organizations including the American Association for Cancer Research, the College of American Pathology and the American Society of Molecular Biology and Biological Chemists. He also serves on the American Heart Association’s Council on Basic Science.
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