Jay P. Sanford, MD, 68, a National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) Board of Directors member for more than 10 years and ex-officio member since 1989, died of cancer on October 23, 1996, in Dallas. Dr. Sanford served as Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSMC) in Dallas and was the former President of the Uniformed Services University for the Health Sciences (USUHS).

Dr. Sanford began his long career in infectious diseases shortly after receiving his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Michigan in 1948 and 1952, respectively. After a year at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Dr. Sanford completed a research fellowship at the Harvard Medical School in 1954.

That year, he became an Army Reserve lieutenant and spent two years with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as Chief of the Bacteriology Section in the Department of Experimental Surgery. After spending one year at Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Sanford joined the faculty at the UTSMC in 1957, where after 18 years, he progressed from Assistant Professor to Chief, Infectious Disease Section; Director, Diagnostic Laboratory; and Vice Chairman, Department of Medicine.

In 1975, Dr. Sanford played a critical role in establishing the USUHS in Bethesda, MD. He served USUHS as Professor of Medicine, Dean of the School of Medicine, and later as President. As a result of his distinguished career of more than 15 years with USUHS, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, an organization dedicated to military medical education which he helped found, established the Sanford Chair in Tropical Medicine. The honor, named for both him and his wife, Lorraine, was established for their contribution to the USUHS and to military medicine.

In 1990, Dr. Sanford returned to Dallas to continue his role as Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the UTSMC, a position from which he retired in 1996.