David Fajgenbaum, MD, MSc is an Associate Professor of Medicine in translational medicine and human genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine, Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory (CSTL), Associate Director of Patient Impact at the Penn Orphan Disease Center, and President and Co-founder of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN). He is the author of Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope Into Action and he is a patient battling idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD). An authority on cytokine storms and their treatment, Fajgenbaum launched the CORONA project in March 2020 to identify and track treatments for COVID-19.
He has published scientific papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, and Journal of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Fajgenbaum co-founded the CDCN in 2012 to accelerate research and treatments for Castleman disease through a ‘Collaborative Network Approach,’ a business-inspired approach to biomedical research, which has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. He is Co-director of the advisory committee for a FDA/NIH/C-Path public-private partnership called the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory, and lead investigator for a collaboration with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to advance rare disease drug repurposing.
Dr. Fajgenbaum earned his MD from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a 21st Century Gamble Scholar. He received his MBA from The Wharton School, where he was awarded the Joseph Wharton Award, Core Value Leadership Award, Kissick Scholarship, Wharton Business Plan Competition Social Impact Prize, Eilers Health Care Management Award, Mandel Fellowship, and Commencement Speaker.