Several worlds

This memoir gathers the recollections and personal reflections of Monto Ho, a physician born in China who built his medical career in the United States as an infectious disease specialist. It traces how his life unfolded, how his habits of scholarship took shape, and what drove his commitment to science and to the culture around him.

Ho spent roughly fifty years working at the forefront of his field. His research included interferon, and he later studied how viral infections take hold in patients whose immune defenses are weakened, with particular attention to cytomegalovirus and related herpesviruses in people who had received organ transplants. At the University of Pittsburgh he assembled an infectious diseases group grounded in rigorous science.

His later work took place in Taiwan, where he redirected his research toward problems pressing for that society. He identified the danger of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics and saw the need to improve how infectious disease physicians were trained. His efforts produced results he had not anticipated: prudent antibiotic use is now a major national health goal, and researchers there are actively studying the serious enterovirus 71 outbreaks that affect children.