Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D is an eminent physician-scientist who focuses on the treatment and prevention of neonatal viral infections. She serves as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and Pediatrician-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital.  She is also the Nancy C. Paduano Professor in Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and Professor of Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at the Weill Cornell Graduate School.

As a physician-scientist focusing on the prevention and treatment of neonatal viral infections, Dr. Permar leads a research laboratory investigating immune protection against vertical transmission of neonatal viral pathogens, namely HIV and cytomegalovirus (CMV).  She has made important contributions to the development of vaccines for prevention of vertical HIV transmission, defining both innate and adaptive immune responses that are associated with protection against infant HIV acquisition.  Moreover, Dr. Permar is leading the development of HIV vaccine strategies in preclinical maternal/infant nonhuman primate models and translation of this work for clinical vaccine trials in infants. Dr. Permar has also defined determinants of congenital and perinatal CMV transmission, developing the first nonhuman primate model of congenital CMV infection and leading human cohort studies that have defined immune correlates of protection necessary to guide vaccine development. 

She has received several prestigious investigator awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society of Pediatric Research, and was inducted into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) and the American Association of Advancement of Science. In 2020, she received the Oswald Avery Award for Early Achievement from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research, and in 2022, Dr. Permar received the Excellence in Science Mid-Career Investigator Award from the Federation of Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).  Dr. Permar also serves on the board of the National CMV Foundation, advocating for more awareness and research funding to eliminate this common congenital infection. She is an institutional and national leader in physician-scientist training, serving as the Director of the nearly four decades-old National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Pediatric Scientist Development Program sponsored by the Association of Medical School Department Chairs of Pediatrics (AMSPDC).

In addition, Dr. Permar serves as the Vice Chair of the Operations Committee and Chair of a Health Equity Task Force in the Weill Cornell Medicine Physician Organization, aiming to bring these principles of health equity to all patients served by the institution.

Dr. Permar has a Ph.D. in Microbiology/Immunology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and completed her clinical training in pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital in Boston. She has received several prestigious investigator awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society of Pediatric Research, and was inducted into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) and the American Association of Advancement of Science.  In 2020, she received the Oswald Avery Award for Early Achievement from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.  Dr. Permar also serves on the board of the National CMV Foundation. She is an institutional and national leader in physician-scientist training, serving as the Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Pediatric Scientist Development Program.