Catherine Blish
Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases)
Catherine Blish is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Faculty Lead of the Stanford Biosafety Level 3 Rapid Response Facility. As an undergraduate she studied biochemistry at the University of California, Davis, before completing her MD and PhD at the University of Washington. She completed residency in internal medicine and fellowship training in infectious diseases at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She joined the Stanford faculty in in 2011, where her research is dedicated to learning how to harness the immune system to prevent and cure diseases. Her lab studies human natural killer (NK) cells, a critical first line of defense against pathogens, working to define how human natural killer cells sense and respond to a diverse array of pathogens, including HIV, dengue virus, influenza, tuberculosis, and SARS-CoV-2. She divides her time between research, clinical practice in infectious diseases, teaching, and her role as an Associate Director of the Stanford MD-PhD program. She has received numerous awards for research and mentoring, including Stanford Immunology Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the McCormick Faculty Award, the Baxter Faculty Scholar, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award, the Tashia and John Morgridge Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and the NIDA Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research. She is an elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and an Investigator of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.