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Dr. Rajeev Venkayya is one among the elite individual of Indian origin to be appointed as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Biodefence.

He is appointed to such coveted post by President George Bush in May 2005 and he played a greater role for the development of policies to prevent, protect and tackle the bioterrorism.

Dr. Rajeev Venkayya received his M.D. degree in 1991 from the 6-year combined B.S./M.D. program at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He completed his residency at the University of Michigan in 1994, and remained there as a Chief Medical Resident from 1994-95. He is currently is based at San Francisco General Hospital, where he is the Co-Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Founder and Director of the High-Risk Asthma Clinic and the principal investigator for a five-year research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the immunologic mechanisms leading to asthma.

Dr. Rajeev began his fellowship in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where continued as a member of the faculty in 1999. Apart from servicing his current position he is also a member of the Lung Biology Center, where he investigates mechanisms of airway hyperresponsiveness using a murine model of asthma.

Dr. Rajeev Venkayya has through his extension research been able to publish research papers in varied journals. His area of interest is investigational analysis of asthama

Recent Publications

1. Venkayya R, Lam M, Willkom M, Grunig G, Corry DB, Erle DJ. “The Th2 Lymphocyte Products IL-4 and IL-13 Rapidly Induce Airway Hyperresponsiveness Through Direct Effects on Resident Airway Cells.” (Am J Resp Cell Mol Bio, in press).

2. Ford JG, Rennick D, Donaldson DD, Venkayya R, McArthur C, Hansell E, Kurup VA, Warnock M, Grunig G. IL-13 and IFNg - interactions in lung inflammation. Journal of Immunology 2001:167: 1769-1777

3. Grünig G, Warnock M, Wakil AE, Venkayya R, Brombacher F, Rennick DM, Sheppard D, Mohrs M, Donaldson DD, Locksley RM, Corry DB. "Requirement for IL-13 Independently of IL-4 in Experimental Asthma." Science 1998:282;2261-63.

4. Venkayya R, Corry DB, Wagner N, Mueller W, Erle DJ. 1998. The integrin b7 is necessary for development of airway hyperresponsiveness, but not airway inflammation, in a murine model of asthma.. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 157(3):A244 (Abstract).