Skip to Main Content
Biological & Biomedical Sciences
Yale Home

INFORMATION FOR

    Immunology Track

    Immunology Track Leadership

    • Grace Chen, PhD

      Director of Graduate Admissions, Immunology Track

      Assistant Professor; Director of Graduate Admissions, Immunology

      Grace Chen received her undergraduate training in the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley. She attended Harvard University for her PhD where she worked in David Liu's laboratory to discover and characterize novel RNA modifications. Her postdoctoral research was at Stanford University in Howard Chang's group, where she investigated circular RNA immunity. Grace joined Yale University as a faculty in the Department of Immunobiology in 2019. Her research focuses on the functions and regulations of circular RNAs and RNA modifications in health and disease.
      Read More
    • Carrie L Lucas, PhD

      Director of Graduate Studies, Immunology Track

      Associate Professor of Immunobiology

      Dr. Carrie L. Lucas received her PhD from Harvard Medical School and her postdoctoral training from the National Institutes of Health, NIAID. Her laboratory discovers single-gene defects underlying severe immune disorders in humans and dissects new biology and mechanisms revealed by these gene mutations using patient cells and genetically engineered mouse models.
      Read More

    Registrar

    Faculty

    • Jeffrey Bender, MD

      Robert I. Levy Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) and Professor of Immunobiology; Associate Chief, Cardiovascular Medicine, Internal Medicine; Senior Vice Chief for Academic Development, Cardiovascular Medicine

      Read More
    • Marcus Bosenberg, MD, PhD

      Anthony N. Brady Professor of Dermatology, Pathology and Immunobiology; Director, Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer; Director, Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology; Co-Leader, Cancer Immunology, Yale Cancer Center

      Marcus Bosenberg MD, PhD, is a physician scientist who directs a leading melanoma research laboratory, is Co-Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program of Yale Cancer Center, Director of the Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology, Contact PI of the Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer,  Director of the Center for Precision Cancer Modeling, and is a practicing dermatopathologist at Yale Dermatopathology through Yale Medicine.In his research, Dr. Bosenberg studies factors that regulate anti-cancer immune responses. His laboratory has developed several widely utilized mouse models in order to study how melanoma forms and progresses, to test new cancer therapies, and how the immune system can be stimulated to fight cancer. He works to translate basic scientific findings into improvements in cancer diagnosis and therapy. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and is a member of the Yale Cancer Center Executive Committee.Dr. Bosenberg mentors undergraduate, graduate, medical, and MD-PhD students in his laboratory, teaches at Yale School of Medicine, and trains resident physicians, fellows, and postdoctoral fellows.
      Read More
    • David A. Braun, MD, PhD

      Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman Yale Scholar

      David Braun, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and a member of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology (CMCO) at Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Braun cares for patients with kidney cancers. He received his PhD in Computational Biology from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science at New York University and his medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed his residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he received the Dunn Medical Intern Award and served as Chief Medical Resident before completing fellowship training in adult oncology through the Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare program where he was appointed the Emil Frei Fellow and the John R. Svenson Fellow. Dr. Braun joined Yale from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he was an Instructor in Medicine with clinical and scientific interest in understanding and improving immune therapies for kidney cancer. He has a longstanding interest in integrating experimental and computational approaches to biomedical research and is currently studying mechanisms of response and resistance to immune therapy in kidney cancer, with the goal of developing novel therapies. He continues this work as part of the CMCO, which fosters and mentors physician-scientists as they advance their laboratory-based research programs to bridge fundamental cancer biology with clinical investigation for the translation of basic discoveries into better treatments or diagnosis.
      Read More
    • Etienne Caron, PhD

      Assistant Professor

      Dr. Caron is a Canadian scientist with a background in Biotechnology and Systems Immunology. He received his PhD from the University of Montreal in Canada under the guidance of Dr. Claude Perreault and completed his education at ETH-Zürich in Switzerland under the guidance of Dr. Ruedi Aebersold. Dr. Caron is known for his international leadership and expertise in immunopeptidomics for the global analysis of MHC-associated peptides using mass spectrometry technologies. His scientific program has the potential to revolutionize the research on vaccine design, cancer immunotherapy, infectious and autoimmune diseases, including treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Dr. Caron began his career as a Principal Investigator in 2018 at the University of Montreal, Canada. In 2023, Dr. Caron was recruited by the Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology (YCIO) and the Department of Immunobiology. He is also currently a member of the Yale Center for Infection and Immunity (CII), and the Yale Center for Systems and Engineering Immunology (CSEI). Dr. Caron initiated the Human Immunopeptidome Project and was Chair from 2015 to 2020. He was the first to identify tumor-specific mutated peptides, known as neoantigens, using mass spectrometry and to develop data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry for the analysis of immunopeptidomes. He also initiated the SysteMHC Atlas Project as the first public data repository toward a community-driven global mapping of the human immunopeptidome. Dr. Caron has co-founded the start-up Neomabs Biotechnologies Inc., with the goal of transforming the treatment of childhood leukemia through targeted immunotherapies. He has also provided distinctive services to the life sciences industry through numerous collaborations with companies such as Biognosys, Flagship Pioneering, and Bruker Daltonics.
      Read More
    • Grace Chen, PhD

      Director of Admissions, Immunology Track

      Assistant Professor; Director of Graduate Admissions, Immunology

      Grace Chen received her undergraduate training in the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley. She attended Harvard University for her PhD where she worked in David Liu's laboratory to discover and characterize novel RNA modifications. Her postdoctoral research was at Stanford University in Howard Chang's group, where she investigated circular RNA immunity. Grace joined Yale University as a faculty in the Department of Immunobiology in 2019. Her research focuses on the functions and regulations of circular RNAs and RNA modifications in health and disease.
      Read More
    • Lieping Chen, MD, PhD

      United Technologies Corporation Professor in Cancer Research and Professor of Immunobiology, of Dermatology and of Medicine (Medical Oncology)

      Dr. Lieping Chen is an immunologist interested in basic T cell biology, cancer immunology, and translational research to develop new treatments for human diseases including cancer. Prior to joining Yale, he was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Mayo Clinic, and a scientist in Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Dr. Chen has published over 400 peer-reviewed research articles. His work in the discovery of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway for cancer immunotherapy was cited as the #1 breakthrough of the year by Science magazine in 2013. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research.
      Read More
    • Sidi Chen, PhD

      Associate Professor of Genetics and of Neurosurgery

      Sidi Chen joined the Yale Faculty in 2015 in the Department of Genetics, Systems Biology Institute, and Yale Cancer Center. His research focuses on providing a global understanding of biological systems and development of novel breakthrough therapeutics. Chen developed and applied genome editing and high-throughput screening technologies, precision CRISPR-based in vivo models of cancer, global mapping of functional drivers of cancer oncogenesis and metastasis. He is leading a research group to seek global understandings of the molecular and cellular factors controlling disease progression and immunity. His group continuously invents versatile systems that enable rapid identification of novel targets and development of new modalities of cancer immunotherapy, cell therapy and gene therapy. His goal is to uncover novel insights in cancer and various other immunological diseases and develop next generation therapeutics.  Dr. Chen received a number of national and international awards including the Pershing Square Sohn Prize, DoD Era of Hope Scholar, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award,  Blavatnik Innovator Award, Yale Cancer Center Basic Science Research Prize, AACR NextGen Award for Transformative Cancer Research, Ludwig Foundation Award, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, Dale Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists, TMKF Innovative/Translation Cancer Research Award, BCA Exceptional Research Grant Award, MRA Young Investigator Award, V Scholar, Bohmfalk Scholar, Ludwig Family Foundation Award, St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award, CRI Clinic & Laboratory Integration Program (CLIP), MIT Technology Review Top 35 Innovators (Regional), and Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award.
      Read More
    • Joseph Craft, MD

      Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and Professor of Immunobiology; Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine, Internal Medicine: Rheumatology; Program Director, Investigative Medicine, Internal Medicine: Rheumatology

      Dr. Craft is an AOA graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He did medical and immunology training at Yale and is currently Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine and Professor of Immunobiology. He directs a laboratory devoted to understanding of host responses to pathogen challenge and to autoimmunity. His lab was among the 4 that simultaneously dissected the transcriptional regulation of T follicular helper cells, a finding listed among the most significant milestone discoveries in T cell development by the journal Nature and has made sentinel discoveries defining targets of the immune response in lupus and the role of T cells in driving pathogenic autoantibody and mechanisms of T cell mediate tissue damage in that disease. He has trained over 40 postdoctoral fellows and 26 PhD and MD/PhD graduate students including those currently in his lab. He is director of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale and has directed the Investigative Medicine MD to PhD program at Yale for over 20 years, training 70 MD/PhD students. Dr. Craft is a two-time NIH MERIT Awardee, 10-year NIH grants, recipient of the Yale Bohmfalk Basic Science Teaching Prize, an elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, past chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors at NIH/NIAMS, and a former Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.
      Read More
    • Vishwa Deep Dixit, DVM, PhD

      Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Pathology and Professor of Immunobiology; Director, Yale Center for Research on Aging (Y-Age), Pathology

      Son of teachers, Deep grew up in Hisar (Northwest India). He studied Veterinary Medicine in India, did PhD Research in University of Hannover Germany and postdoc research in Morehouse School of Medicine and NIH. He currently holds Waldemar Von Zedtwitz endowed chair and is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology, Comparative Medicine and Immunobiology. Dixit is also the director of Yale Center for Research on Aging (Y-Age). Dixit lab studies Immunometabolism and aging. His team help establish NLRP3 inflammasome in causing ‘inflammaging’ and immunosenescence that leads to age-related chronic diseases including metabolic dysfunction. Dixit and his collaborators have identified that switch from glycolysis to ketogenesis deactivates the inflammasome and reduces immunopathology. The ongoing work in his laboratory on caloric restriction (CR) in humans (CALERIE-II trial), which extends lifespan in animal models has revealed that adaptation to negative energy balance in a host can be harnessed to identify immunometabolic CR-mimetics to improve health and potentially lifespan. Dixit lab has identified PLA2G7 and SPARC as the CR-inhibited proteins in humans that control inflammation and healthspan in mouse models.
      Read More
    • Emilia Favuzzi, PhD

      Assistant Professor of Neuroscience

      Emilia Favuzzi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University. She grew up in Italy and received a B.S. in Biology and a M.S. in Neurobiology from Sapienza University of Rome. She did her doctoral training at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante (Spain) and the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London. Her graduate research focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inhibitory circuit development and plasticity in the cerebral cortex. In her postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute, she focused on microglia-inhibitory synapse interactions during development and discovered that specialized microglia differentially engage with specific synapse types. Her past work opened a new avenue in understanding neuroimmune crosstalk by showing that neuroimmune interactions within the brain may be as specific as those between neurons. This novel conceptual framework is the foundation of the Favuzzi lab focused on the immune and glial mechanisms underlying brain wiring and function, with an emphasis on (1) interactions among neuronal and non-neuronal cells and (2) brain-body communication. Over the years, Emilia was awarded numerous prizes such as the Beddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology, the Krieg Cortical Kudos Scholar Award from the Cajal Club, the Next Generation Leader by the Allen Institute, and the Gruber International Research Award.
      Read More
    • Erol Fikrig, MD

      Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) and of Microbial Pathogenesis; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health; Section Chief, Infectious Diseases, Internal Medicine

      My laboratory investigates vector-borne diseases. Studies are directed toward understanding Lyme disease, flaviviral infections including dengue and West Nile viruses, and malaria. Efforts on Lyme disease include exploring immunity to Borrelia burgdorferi, selective B. burgdorferi gene expression in vivo, and the immunobiology of Lyme arthritis. Flaviviruses and Plasmodium are used as models  to understand the molecular interactions between pathogens, their arthropod vectors and their mammalian hosts. Finally, we are developing new  approaches to prevent ticks and mosquitoes from feeding on a vertebrate host, thereby interfering with pathogen transmission.
      Read More
    • Richard Flavell, PhD, FRS

      Sterling Professor of Immunobiology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

      Dr. Flavell is Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his B.Sc. (Honors) in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1970 in biochemistry from the University of Hull, England, and performed postdoctoral work in Amsterdam (1970-72) with Piet Borst and in Zurich (1972-73) with Charles Weissmann. Before accepting his current position in 1988, Dr. Flavell was first Assistant Professor (equivalent) at the University of Amsterdam (1974-79); then Head of the Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London (1979-82); and subsequently President and Chief Scientific Officer of Biogen Research Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1982-88). Dr. Flavell is a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Academy of Medicine. Richard Flavell uses transgenic and gene-targeted mice to study Innate and Adaptive immunity, T cell tolerance and activation in immunity and autoimmunity,apoptosis, and regulation of T cell differentiation.
      Read More
    • Ellen F Foxman, MD, PhD

      Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunobiology

      Dr. Ellen Foxman, M.D., PhD. is an Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine. Her laboratory studies antiviral defense in the human respiratory tract, focusing on innate immunity, an inborn system of protective mechanisms that guards against harmful viruses or bacteria, even when the body has never encountered the infection before. The overarching goal of this research is to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of illnesses caused by respiratory viruses. Background. Dr. Foxman trained in medicine and immunology at Stanford University. She became interested in respiratory viruses during her residency training in clinical pathology at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital, due to the advances in testing that were beginning to reveal a previously unappreciated very high prevalence of these viruses. She later joined Dr. Akiko Iwasaki’s group at Yale as a postdoctoral associate, where she demonstrated suppression of innate immune responses in the airway epithelium by cool ambient temperature. In 2016, she established her independent research group at Yale. Contributions of the Foxman Lab include defining biomarkers to track innate immune responses in the human respiratory tract and uncovering evidence for viral interference, in which general antiviral defenses triggered by common cold viruses protect against unrelated viruses such as influenza and COVID-19.  Dr. Foxman’s recognitions include the 2018 Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award, the 2021 ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award, and the 2021 Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award.
      Read More
    • Benjamin Goldman-Israelow, MD, PhD

      Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases)

      Dr. Benjamin Goldman-Israelow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the section of Infectious Diseases. He obtained his AB in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and his MD and PhD degrees from The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He joined Yale internal medicine in the ABIM Short Track Pathway, completing residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship training. During fellowship, Dr. Goldman-Israelow joined the laboratory of Dr. Akiko Iwasaki for his postdoctoral studies. There, he has studied SARS-CoV-2 infection, pathogenesis, and immunity in both patients and pre-clinical models. His work has led to the development of one of the first mouse models to study SARS-CoV-2, the identification of immunologic factors contributing to COVID-19 pathogenesis and protection, and the development of a novel mucosal vaccine strategy that protects against pathology and transmission.Dr. Goldman-Israelow is a practicing infectious diseases physician and also conducts biomedical research. His lab is focused on understanding the development of mucosal immune memory to emerging and endemic respiratory pathogens. Working through the lenses of natural infection and vaccination, the Israelow lab aims to better understand the correlates of protection and transmission of pandemic-associated pathogens, and leverage this research to develop the next generation of mucosal vaccines and therapeutics.
      Read More
    • Andrew Goodman, PhD

      C.N.H. Long Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Director of Microbial Sciences Institute; Chair, Microbial Pathogenesis

      Andrew L. Goodman, PhD, is the C. N. H. Long Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Director of the Yale Microbial Sciences Institute. Goodman received his undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, his PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University, and completed postdoctoral training at Washington University. His lab uses microbial genetics, gnotobiotics, and mass spectrometry to understand how gut microbes interact with their host during health and disease. The lab is also interested in how the microbiome impacts the efficacy and toxicity of medical drugs. The lab’s contributions have been recognized by the NIH Director New Innovator Award, the Pew Foundation, the Dupont Young Professors Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholars Program, the ASPET John J. Abel Award, and the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.
      Read More
    • Ann Haberman, PhD

      Associate Professor of Immunobiology; Director, In Vivo Imaging Facility, Yale School of Medicine; Scientific Director, Flow Cytometry Research Facility, YSM central core

      Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania (1992)
      Read More
    • David A. Hafler, MD, FANA

      William S. and Lois Stiles Edgerly Professor of Neurology and Professor of Immunobiology

      David A. Hafler, M.D. is the William S. and Lois Stiles Edgerly Professor and former Chairman Department of Neurology and Professor of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, and was the Neurologist-in-Chief of the Yale-New Haven Hospital. Hafler graduated magna cum laude in 1974 from Emory University with combined B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in biochemistry, and the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1978. He completed his internship in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins followed by a neurology residency at Cornell Medical Center-New York Hospital in New York. Hafler was trained in immunology with Henry Kunkel at the Rockefeller University and then at Harvard Medical School joining the Harvard faculty in 1984. He became the Breakstone Professorship of Neurology at Harvard 1999 and was a founding Associated Member of the Broad Institute at MIT. His discoveries in the pathogenesis and treatment of multiple sclerosis have led to fundamental understanding of the disease and the development of novel treatments. His seminal work includes identification of circulating human autoreactive T cells and the mechanisms that underlie their dysregulation with the discovery of human regulatory T cells. He co-led the discovery of genetic variants causing MS and demonstrated how these variants alter immune responses in relationship to environmental factors such as salt allowing activation of autoreactive T cells. Hafler was founder of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies and the International MS Genetic Consortium. He was a Jacob Javits Merit Award Recipient from the NIH and was awarded the Dystel Prize for MS research from the AAN, the University of Miami Annual Distinguished Alumni Award, the Raymond Adams Prize from the ANA and is the 2023 recipient of the 2023 AAI Steinman Award for Human Immunology Research. Hafler is an Honorary Member of the Scandinavian Society for Immunology a Fellow in the American Association of Immunologist and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been elected to the AOA Society, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, The Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine.
      Read More
    • Kevan Herold, MD

      C.N.H. Long Professor of Immunobiology and of Medicine (Endocrinology)

      My background and research are in translational immunology. I am interested in understanding the basis for autoimmune diseases and developing new therapies based on our understanding of disease mechanisms. My focus has largely been in the field of autoimmune Type 1 diabetes. The work encompasses basic laboratory work as well as clinical studies to understanding the regulation of autoreactive T cells to clinical trials that involve novel therapeutics. As part of these studies my lab has been very interested in analysis of beta cell function in Type 1 diabetes and identifying the cellular mechanisms that can protect them from immune killing. We have also been studying the development of autoimmune diabetes in patients with cancers who are treated with checkpoint inhibitors. Our clinical and basic studies are focused on understanding how beta cells are destroyed and react to inflammation. Finally, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been studying the immunologic basis for responses in children and adults who are hospitalized with COVID-19 to understand the mechanisms that can lead to disease protection.
      Read More