After 54 years at the National Institutes of Health and 38 years as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci will be stepping down from public service at the end of the year.

“I have been driving onto that campus every single day, every single weekend for the last 54 years,” Fauci told ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an interview that aired Sunday. “So I don’t even want to think about what it’s going to be like when I drive off the campus for the last time … That idea just gives me chills just thinking about that.”

In an intimate interview at his home, Fauci sat down with ABC News to talk about his tenure in public service, the covid-19 pandemic during which he became perhaps the country’s most famous doctor and the controversies that have consumed the last two and a half years — and sometimes ensnared him. Fauci has lived in the same home since 1977. Pictures hang next to the banister stairwell, dozens of framed photos sit atop a bookshelf and the floor is scuffed from years of use, the carpet worn down too.

Watch on ABC News