He gained his medical degree from the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, in 1981, completed a residency in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California in 1984 and a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases and immunology in 1986 at UCLA School of Medicine. Later in his career he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in basic retrovirology in 2002, also at the UCLA School of Medicine.