Steven Quay, MD, PhD, is reportedly in final vetting for the job of director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a position formerly held by Anthony Fauci, MD, for decades. So, who is he?
Quay is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Atossa Therapeutics, a biotech company based in Seattle that's focused on breast cancer treatments. But he also made a name for himself during the COVID pandemic by promoting the lab-leak theory of COVID origins.
His most recent book, "The Code As Witness," argues that the SARS-CoV-2 genome offers proof of its lab-created origins. It was published on June 9 of this year.
Quay also appeared as a witness in at least two Senate hearings on gain-of-function research and COVID origins -- once in 2022 and again in 2024 -- and he consistently maintained that COVID originated as an accidental lab leak.
In the 2022 hearing, Sen. Rand Paul, MD (R-Ky.), introduced him as having founded six startups, being involved in seven FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, and holding 87 patents. Quay declared in his 2024 testimony that he has over 390 publications, "including 32 on the origin of COVID-19, that have been cited over 12,000 times, placing me in the top 1% of scientists worldwide."
