National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Farinaz Safavi is a physician-scientist specializing in neuroimmunology. She obtained her medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and completed her Ph.D. in Neural and Behavioral Science at the State University of New York, where her research focused on the pathogenesis of alpha viruses in demyelination and remyelination. Following her graduate studies, Dr. Safavi conducted research on the immunopathogenesis of neuroinflammatory diseases during her postdoctoral fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University. She then pursued her neurology residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed a clinical fellowship in neuroimmunology and neuroinfectious diseases at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

Currently serving as an assistant clinical investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Safavi's research focuses on understanding the neurological manifestations of Inborn Errors of Immunity and the underlying mechanisms of immune-related gene defects in neurons and glia. Her work involves the development of a platform to detect and characterize these disorders in patients with atypical and rare neuroinflammatory and neuroinfectious diseases. Using innovative techniques such as induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) immunophenotyping, she investigates the role of primary immunodeficiencies in neurological disorder.