Dr. Eric “Rick” Pamer is an infectious diseases expert and currently the Faculty Director of the Duchossois Family Institute at the University of Chicago where he is a professor in the Departments of Medicine, Microbiology, and Pathology. As a physician and scientist, Rick specializes in immune defense against infections associated with cancer treatment and whose research focuses on the microbiome’s impact on resistance to a wide range of microbial pathogens. The institute is dedicated to investigating and developing new knowledge about the human biological defense systems, including the microbiome, and their therapeutic and commercial potential for preventing disease and maintaining lifelong wellness. He came to Chicago from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he has served as head of the Division of Subspecialty Medicine since 2011 and director of the Lucille Castori Center for Microbes, Inflammation and Cancer since 2010. He joined Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2000 as chief of infectious diseases and has served as professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine since 2001. Prior to his tenure in New York, he worked at Yale University from 1992 to 2000 as an assistant and associate professor of infectious diseases and immunobiology.