conferences, airplanes, and giving presentations in general due to the fact that he would shake and sweat noticeably during them. Falkow described his struggle with his mental health as an "uneasy truce" with his "demons" later on in his career as he learned various coping mechanisms. Because of his anxiety during public speaking, he often employed humor in his teaching and presentations to help cope with the tension of a silent audience, which also lead to most of the audience members finding his talks memorable and enjoyable. Falkow kept his condition a secret from his colleagues during his early career, only privately revealing to Arthur Saz, the chair of microbiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, that he received and benefited from psychoanalysis treatment. Health insurance for mental health treatment was much better for military employees than academics at the time, and a major reason Falkow continued to work at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research for as long as he did early in his career, but Falkow agreed to a job at Georgetown University because of this disclosure, upon which the chair privately organized Falkow's healthcare benefits to cover his psychoanalysis treatments. In 2004 Falkow was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome and given a prognosis of two years. He died on May 5, 2018 at the age of 84 at his home in Portola Valley, California of myelodysplastic syndrome. His death was announced and lifetime achievements highlighted in obituaries in The New York Times, Washington Post, Nature, Science, in a press release from the Americain Society of Microbiology and in various international news sources. Contributions Molecular Microbiology Research Falkow has been referred to as the "father of molecular microbial pathogenesis", the study of how infectious microbes and host cells interact to cause disease at the molecular level. Falkow adopted the perspective of viewing infection as a process that is ultimately dependent on both the infecting agent and the host. He discovered that infectious microbes employ genes that are activated only inside host cells. His work carries clinical applications, such as a new vaccine for whooping cough. From enteric pathogens to sexually transmitted diseases to respiratory infections, his influence has left virtually no field untouched. Falkow and his first graduate student, Richard P. Silver, discovered that episomes (plasmids) are nicked into linear pieces of DNA and transported as linear DNA between two bacterial cells during conjugation. He then collaborated with