Sherif Zaki, founder and chief of the Infectious Disease Pathology Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, passed away suddenly on Sunday (November 21), according to an email sent to agency staff by National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Rima Khabbaz and shared with The Scientist. The prominent pathologist, well known in the community for his work identifying pathogens at the root of various outbreaks in the US and beyond, would have turned would have turned 66 tomorrow.
Tom Ksiazek, a former CDC colleague and current professor of microbiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Galveston National Laboratory, tells STAT how Zaki pioneered the use of immunohistochemistry to identify foreign proteins in samples sent to the CDC, to help determine the underlying pathogens for a particular outbreak and understand the disease they caused. According to Ksiazek, Zaki’s reputation for cracking hard cases meant that ...
