The saga of Jan Vilcek, professor of microbiology at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, reads like what John le Carré might have written after seeing a Frank Capra film:

Brilliant medical researcher escapes Communist Czechoslovakia at the height of the cold war and flees to New York, where he discovers the biological basis for the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug Remicade, and uses most of his fortune to start a foundation highlighting the contributions of immigrants to his adopted country. (The co-founder is his wife, the art historian Marica Vilcek.) For his discoveries and his philanthropy, Dr. Vilcek, now 80, received a 2013 National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama.

We spoke for two hours at his N.Y.U. offices and later by telephone. An edited and condensed version of the conversations follows.

Did you always want to do medical research?

In high school, I thought about journalism. But that really wasn’t an option for someone who was not a believing Communist. The other things I might have considered — law or business — they didn’t exist under Communism. So more or less by exclusion, I did what my parents wanted — become a doctor. My mother was a doctor.

Now it happened that during medical school, I volunteered for a small microbiology research project. As I worked on it, I became fascinated by research. Within a few weeks, I knew this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.