Annual Farness Lecture

Each year, the Valley Fever Center for Excellence hosts the Farness Lecture. Orin J Farness was a physician in Tucson and is credited with identifying the first culturally proven Arizona patient with coccidioidomycosis, published in 1938. Dr. Farness also conducted skin test surveys in Pima County, demonstrating that most persons had delayed type dermal hypersensitivity to coccidioidin. A lecture in his honor was endowed by his widow and from 1975 through 1991 it was administered by the Tucson Medical Center and the University of Arizona’s Respiratory Sciences Center. When the Valley Fever Center for Excellence was approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in 1996, the Farness Lecture Series was resumed.

Our 2025 Farness Lecture was presented by Amy Hsu, Ph.D.! A biologist in the Immunopathogenesis section of the Laboratory of Clinical Immunobiology and Microbiology at NIAID for NIH. She presented her lecture “Infection, Genetics, and Immunology. Lessons from Coccidioides" going over the basics of Valley fever contraction and dissemination, and potential links between population variants in endemic regions and Valley fever cases that become disseminated. To watch the recording of her exciting lecture see this link!