Dr. Joseph Bellanti

Dr. Bellanti is Director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center and Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology-Immunology at Georgetown university School of Medicine, Washington, DC.

Dr. Joseph A. Bellanti, a native of Buffalo New York, received his M.D. degree from the University of Buffalo in 1958. Following completion of an internship and residency at the Children's Hospital of Buffalo in 1961, he received post-doctoral training in developmental immunology at the University of Florida School of Medicine , Gainesville, Florida in 1961-62 and later continued his studies as a research virologist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, DC in 1962-65. In 1963, he joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology, where he rose to his current position of Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology – Immunology in 1970.

Soon after arriving at Georgetown, he realized that his goal of generating new knowledge in immunology and translating it to clinical use would require adopting a multidisciplinary approach to immunology that would involve a horizontal matrix including both basic and clinical investigators, allied health professionals, statisticians, and health educators and the public. Accordingly, in 1975 he established and became the Director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center and later Director of the Division of Allergy-Immunology, Department of Pediatrics and the Division of Virology and Immunology in the Department of Laboratory Medicine of Georgetown University Hospital, positions he currently holds as consultant. The location of ICISI in the nation's capital has enhanced its international perspective; students, physicians, and scientists from all over the world are invited to study there.