William Trager Bio Page William Trager's seminal research in the laboratory culture of malarial parasites will surely lead to the development of a lifesaving vaccine to conquer malaria. Dr. Trager, a parasitologist, devoted his entire 50-year career to studying organisms that live in or off other beings.
Malaria is responsible for the deaths of up to three million persons each year.
Dr. Trager's work has demonstrated to the world what parasites require of their hosts, their benefits to a host, their growth within the host, and how that growth can be arrested. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1930 with a bachelor's degree in parasitology. He went on to earn a master's and doctorate from Harvard. Rutgers Professor Robert Herman recalls working as a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Trager's laboratory at Rockefeller University in the 1960s. Dr. Trager has been a mentor, adviser, and friend to numerous graduate students, colleagues, and visiting scientists from around the globe.