David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) and one of the youngest individuals to be appointed to the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. An NIH-funded physician-scientist, he has dedicated his life to discovering new treatments and cures for deadly disorders like idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD), which he was diagnosed with during medical school. After spending months hospitalized in critical condition, having his last rites read, and having four deadly relapses, he is now in his longest remission ever thanks to a treatment that he identified in the lab. He is in the top 1 percent youngest grant awardees of an NIH R01, one of the most competitive and sought-after grants in all of biomedical research. Fajgenbaum is also applying business-inspired solutions to drive forward iMCD research and working to turn this innovative model into a blueprint for accelerating rare disease research and drug repurposing.
