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Harden:  That's also when you started publishing. Your first paper in 1981 was in the prestigious Journal of Immunology, and it was followed fairly quickly by 13 more publications by 1985. These were highly technical studies, so would you tell me a bit about this work?

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The other aspect of my job that has been very important to me has been developing the institute’s leadership.  Cliff Lane and Dan Rotrosen were appointed before my tenure and J.J. McGowan [Dr. John J. McGowan]  picked Jill Harper [Dr. Jill R. Harper] as his successor.  The other six senior leadership positions have been filled while I was here and while Dr. Fauci made the final decision in every case, I feel that I made important and, in a few cases critical contributions.  Beyond the senior leadership, I have delighted in looking for leadership potential among the next generation.  I believe that I’ve nudged at least thirty promising younger staff members forward in their careers. I feel very confident that NIAID will be in good hands for many years to come.  As they say, at NIAID we have a really strong bench.  One thing that I am absolutely certain of is that the standards of commitment and integrity that Dr. Fauci has etched into the character of NIAID will remain for decades to come.

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Harden:  You mentioned that John LaMontagne held your position previously, and during a 2010 trip to Mali, you inaugurated a laboratory in Dr. LaMontagne’s memory.  You were also celebrating the 20th anniversary of NIAID'S partnership with the University of Bamako for research on Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Will you tell me about this NIAID-University of Bamako effort and the dedication of the laboratory?

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Harden:  Also, in 2010, you traveled to China to launch the Sino-US Tuberculosis Prevention and Treatment Project, which was focused especially on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Will you tell me about that initiative?

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Auchincloss:  There are several initiatives, but the one that's the most important to us was a program that we developed with a man named Gray Handley [F. Gray Handley]. He is the Associate Director for International Research here at NIAID. He reports directly to Dr. Fauci. He came to that position about six months after I started as the Deputy. And he's taught me a lot about the principles of doing research in an international setting. What are the best partnerships to form? What are the core principles we needed to follow to work in parts of the world that have diseases of interest to us? What are the countries that have the infrastructure and the core of investigators that would make sharing research with them productive. Did they have a core competency, and were they well enough off to fund at least as much of the research as we would be funding?

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I met George W. Bush [President George W. Bush] when Tony invited several us to accompany him to the White House to receive the National Medal for Science. I was not a fan of this president for many reasons, but he did ask Tony to organize the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which saved the lives of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa by providing them with access to drugs to treat their previously fatal HIV infection.

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I met Barack Obama [President Barack Obama] at the NIH when Tony invited him to come and thank the many NIH staff who had helped respond to the west African Ebola outbreak.  It gave me goose bumps just to shake his hand.

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