Fernando Martinez

Education: 

• MD University of Chile
• MD University of Rome

Fernando D. Martinez, MD, is a Regents' Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the Director of the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center. 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 predisposition and environmental triggers underlying the development of asthma and chronic airflow limitation. He has published over 250 original research papers, many in collaboration with investigators from around the world, authored 20 book chapters and co-edited two books. He is a frequent presenter at national and international meetings, and was invited to give the J. Amberson Lecture at the international meeting of the American Thoracic Society in 2008. This is the premier honor bestowed by this 15,000-member national society in recognition of the significant contributions of the invitee to advancing understanding of pulmonary diseases. Dr. Martinez has had a major role 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 changed the way that the disease is understood and has been cited almost 5,000 times. Dr. Martinez had a Google Scholar h-index of 130 and his many contributions have cemented him as major policy voice in his discipline.

Environmental research interests - natural history of childhood asthma, and the role of genetic, physiological, immunological and environmental factors as determinants of the risk for asthma in early life.