Peter J. Fischinger's Obituary
Peter J. Fischinger, M.D., Ph.D., age 80, died on Friday, September 21, 2018 at the Mease Countryside Hospital in Safety Harbor, Florida, surrounded by family.
Peter was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia on September 29, 1937 to Alfred Fischinger and Metoda Rozman. He was the oldest of four children. As a young child, he was recognized as being very bright, and excelled in his studies. His primary education began in Slovenia, continued in Austria after the end of World War II, where for five years the family lived in a Displaced Persons camp, and later continued in the United States when in 1950, the Fischinger family relocated to Chicago.
Peter did his undergraduate work at Loyola University in Chicago. He attended the University of Illinois College of Medicine, obtaining his M.D. in 1963. He then pursued advanced research training under federal fellowships and obtained a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Illinois in 1966.
Peter married the love of his life, Marija Alexandra Kranjc on December 28, 1963, at Saint Stephen’s Church in Chicago. They were married for 53 years. Peter was preceded in death by his parents and his wife.
Professionally, Dr. Fischinger had a long association with the NIH, beginning in 1963 as a postdoctoral research fellow with the National Cancer Institute. For more than twenty years, Dr. Fischinger held various positions with NIH and was credited with a great many accomplishments. After several fellowships and a year as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Tubingen, Germany, he returned to the National Institutes of Health as the head of various sections and laboratories.
From 1980 to 1987, he was the Associate Director of NCI and the Director of the Frederick Cancer Research Facility, the largest government-owned, contractor-operated entity of the Department of Health and Human Services. After this, he spent more than one year as Director of the National AIDS Program Office with the Assistant Secretary for Health in Washington, DC. before becoming Deputy Director of the NCI at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Fischinger was appointed Vice President for Research at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) on January 1, 1989. As Vice President for Research, Dr. Fischinger coordinated the MUSC's development of research centers and policies; headed the University Research Council; was actively involved in management, building and funding, as well as assisted in the development of new intellectual and financial resources for the MUSC.
In December of 1992, Dr. Fischinger was named Professor and Chairman of the newly established basic science Department of Experimental Oncology. This was the academic focus for science within the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC). On the same day, the Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Fischinger as the first Director of the HCC. He was able to obtain a cancer center planning grant from NCI with the objective of developing a comprehensive cancer center at the MUSC.
He became the President of SAIC Frederick in 1995.
He was the author of more than 160 publications and had won a number of awards and recognition for his work. Dr. Fischinger's major scientific interests encompassed oncogenes, retroviruses, tumor biology, molecular medicine, as well as drug and vaccine development. He introduced the first supercomputer to biomedicine at the Frederick Cancer Research Facility.
He leaves two brothers, Andrew and his wife Elizabeth Sneller of Florida, Thomas and his wife Maria Dolores of Illinois, and a sister, Maria and her husband William Vauter of Pennsylvania.
Funeral services were private and held in accordance with Peter's wishes.
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