Dr. Ronald Blanton is a physician-scientist who began his career in studies on the molecular biology of parasitic diseases. He returned to the classroom to obtain a master’s degree in genetic epidemiology. Throughout his career, his work has integrated basic laboratory science with field epidemiology to uncover useful epidemiologic relationships and identities. This includes 30 years of experience in Brazil. For schistosomiasis and the flaviviruses dengue and hepatitis C, he identified human genetic determinants of diseases by microsatellite and SNP markers.