Dr. Babak Javid is an infectious diseases physician-scientist and Associate Professor in the Division of Experimental Medicine at UCSF. He went to medical school at the University of Cambridge and, after residency in general (internal) medicine, returned to Cambridge to study for a PhD in immunobiology as an MRC training fellow in the lab of Paul Lehner. There, he studied the cross-presentation of heat-shock protein/peptide complexes by human dendritic cells to human cytotoxic lymphocytes. Following a fellowship in infectious diseases, Dr. Javid became fascinated by the clinical and scientific aspects of tuberculosis. He went to Boston as an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow to work on mycobacterial genetics with Eric Rubin at Harvard. It was at Harvard that Dr. Javid first discovered that the protein synthesis apparatus of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is rather different from the "standard" E. coli model and, in particular, that mycobacteria have extremely high but specific translational error rates (mistranslation). He started his independent research career in 2011 at Tsinghua University in Beijing and joined the faculty at UCSF in July 2020. In addition to the lab's research focus, Dr. Javid has a keen interest in mentorship and bringing together diverse researchers to tackle the global challenge of tuberculosis. With regards to the latter role, he is Associate Director (Basic Research) of the UCSF Center for Tuberculosis and Co-PI of the Basic Science Core of the UC-TRAC (Tuberculosis Research Advancement Center) -- one of six national Centers of Excellence for TB Research. Outside of the lab, Dr. Javid enjoys learning to cook, engaging in Baha'i activities, watching movies (trashy Sci-Fi is always welcome!), and spending time with his family.