Sydney M. Finegold

Sydney "Sid" Martin Finegold (August 21, 1921, Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City – September 17, 2018, Los Angeles) was an American physician, medical school professor, and medical researcher, specializing in anaerobic bacteriology.

Biography Born in New York City to Russian, Jewish immigrant parents who worked as pharmacists, Sydney Finegold had a sister and an older brother. The family moved to Los Angeles in the early 1930s. Sydney Finegold graduated in 1943 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a bacteriology major and served from 1943 to 1945 in the US Marine Corps. After WWII ended, he matriculated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he graduated in 1949 with an M.D. In 1947 he married Mary Louise Saunders, a fellow medical student.

Dr. Finegold was in 1963 a founding member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), in 1981–1982 the IDSA's president, and in 1987 the recipient of the IDSA's Alexander Fleming Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1971 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1999 he received the Becton-Dickinson Award in Clinical Microbiology.

He was predeceased by his first wife. They had two sons and daughters. In 1994 he married Gloria Helene Weiss. Upon his death he was survived by his three children, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a longtime companion.

Eponyms Genus Finegoldia

Species Alistipes finegoldii