Fernando D. Martinez MD

Fernando D. Martinez, MD, is a Regents' Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the Director of the UA’s BIO5 Institute, the Arizona Respiratory Center, and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Dr. Martinez is internationally renowned for his work studying the childhood origins of adult airway disease and is focused on finding the links between genetic disposition and environmental triggers underlying the development of asthma and chronic airflow limitation.

Dr. Martinez has to lead the charge in asthma research as Principal Investigator for a number of national asthma networks as well as a longitudinal cohort unlike any other: the Tucson Children’s Respiratory Study (CRS). The CRS began in 1980 and has followed infants with asthma into adulthood. His 1995 paper on asthma and wheezing in the first years of life also completely changes the way that the disease is understood. Dr. Martinez’s many contributions have cemented him as major policy voice in this field and in 2012 he was invited to be a lifetime member of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.