Nejat Düzgünes, PhD, is currently Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. He received his PhD at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978, after which he went to the University of California San Francisco, first as NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow and then as an assistant research biochemist and adjunct associate professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, where he worked on the targeted therapy of Mycobacterium avium and the fusion of enveloped viruses, including influenza virus, SIV, and HIV, with host cells. In 1990, he was appointed chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of the Pacific, and in 1995 he was appointed Professor. He and his team investigated the delivery of various antiviral agents, including protease inhibitors, to HIV-infected cells; gene therapy of HIV; as well as the liposmal delivery of antimycobacterial agents to M avium-infected cells. More recently, his laboratory has been working on Candida species, Porphyromonas gingivalis, broadly neutralizing anti-HIV antibodies, and the gene therapy of oral cancer. Dr Düzgünes has received several grants from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies and has been the recipient of several awards, including the United Methodist University Teacher/Scholar Award of the Year in 2015 from the University of Pacific.