Fariba Donovan, MD, PhD, FACP, FIDSA

Associate Professor of Medicine

The University of Arizona

Dr. Fariba M. Donovan received her medical degree at The Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran and completed her internal Medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. She then completed her infectious disease fellowship at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. 

During her graduate studies in Japan after her medical school her research focused on C. albicans virulence factors. She later in postdoctoral fellowship focused on Coccidioides urease as a virulence factor and was able to mutate the gene in Coccidioides and constructed a less virulent strain.

She joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2017 and has been focusing on early pathogen-host interaction in coccidioidomycosis.  She is studying early coccidioidomycosis events to better understand altered or dysfunctional metabolic pathways as evidence of genetic alterations and a risk factor for severe coccidioidomycosis or disseminated coccidioidomycosis (DCM).

Her clinical research focuses on the earlier and improved diagnosis of Valley fever. Her clinical research goals include the development of more rapid, reliable, and cost-effective Valley fever point-of-care testing which will speed up and improve diagnostic accuracy and antimicrobial stewardship. She completed a prospective study evaluating a rapid LFA test for Valley fever diagnosis. Her earlier work has demonstrated the human and financial burden of delays in Valley fever diagnosis. Her work epitomizes the goal of taking basic research and applying it at the bedside for the benefit of the entire community. Additionally, she is developing plans to study the host innate immune response to Coccidioides with a focus on the early events in coccidioidomycosis.