Immunology Track

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.

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.

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.

David Braun, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), the Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman Yale Scholar, and Principal Investigator in the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology (CMCO) at Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Braun is a medical oncologist who 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. Dr. Braun has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on kidney cancer and tumor immunology, focused on defining the genetic underpinnings of the disease, the local, regional, and systemic determinants on anti-tumor immunity, and the identification and targeting of tumor-specific antigens. He is the recipient of an NIH/NCI R37 MERIT Award, the Trailblazer Award and Christopher G. Wood Rising Start Award from the Kidney Cancer Association, the Cancer Discovery Early Career Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, and the ASPIRE Award from the American Association of Immunologists. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Caron was trained in biotechnology and systems biology. 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). In 2025, he was selected as a recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a prestigious award supporting early-stage investigators of exceptional creativity. 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.

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.

Lieping Chen, MD, PhD, is an immunologist and physician-scientist. His research focuses on basic T cell biology and the translation of laboratory discoveries into clinical therapies, with a primary emphasis on cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Chen’s laboratory is renowned for the 1999 discovery of the B7-H1 (PD-L1) molecule and the subsequent identification of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway as a critical mechanism of immune evasion in the tumor microenvironment. This breakthrough, hailed as the #1 Breakthrough of the Year by Science magazine in 2013, led to the development of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies, which are now global standards of care for a broad spectrum of advanced cancers. A prolific investigator with over 400 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Chen held faculty positions at the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, and scientist positions in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. before joining Yale University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

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.

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 Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine and Professor of Immunobiology. His laboratory is devoted to understanding host responses to pathogen challenge and in autoimmunity. His lab was among the four that dissected the transcriptional regulation of T follicular helper cells, a finding listed among the most significant discoveries in T cell development by the journal Nature. He and his lab members have made sentinel discoveries defining targets of the immune response in lupus and the role of T cells in dissecting mechanisms of T cell-mediated tissue damage in autoimmunity. He was Chief of the Section of Rheumatology at Yale for 28 years, and now directs the Yale Colton Center for Autoimmunity. He has trained over 40 postdoctoral fellows, 26 PhD and MD/PhD students, and mentored 12 NIH K grant recipients. Dr. Craft has directed the Investigative Medicine MD to PhD program at Yale for over 20 years, training over 70 MD/PhD students. He is a two-time NIH MERIT Awardee, including one currently active, recipient of the Yale University Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences for 2026, the Yale Bohmfalk Basic Science Teaching Prize, an elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Master of the American College of Rheumatology.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Disease Interests: Dr. Girardi specializes in the diagnosis, longitudinal management, and translational investigation of cutaneous lymphomas and related lymphoproliferative disorders. His principal clinical focus is mycosis fungoides (MF) and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), including folliculotropic MF, MF associated with follicular mucinosis, hypopigmented MF, pagetoid reticulosis (Woringer–Kolopp disease), erythrodermic MF, tumor-stage MF, MF with large-cell transformation, and Sézary syndrome. He also has expertise in primary cutaneous CD30-positive lymphoproliferative disorders, including lymphomatoid papulosis and primary cutaneous anaplastic large-cell lymphoma; primary cutaneous CD4-positive small/medium T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder; primary cutaneous aggressive epidermotropic cytotoxic CD8-positive T-cell lymphoma; primary cutaneous gamma-delta T-cell lymphoma; subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma; and cutaneous NK/T-cell lymphoma.Dr. Girardi evaluates and treats primary cutaneous B-cell lymphomas, including primary cutaneous marginal-zone B-cell lymphoma and primary cutaneous follicle-center lymphoma, as well as cutaneous lymphoid hyperplasia/lymphocytoma cutis/pseudolymphoma and parapsoriasis, including small- and large-plaque variants. As Co-Director of the Yale Cutaneous Lymphoma Group and Medical Director of Yale New Haven Hospital’s Extracorporeal Photopheresis and Phototherapy Centers, he provides multidisciplinary care across the full continuum of CTCL, from early and diagnostically challenging disease to advanced, blood-involved, transformed, and treatment-refractory disease. His clinical work includes phototherapy, extracorporeal photopheresis, systemic and targeted therapies, clinical trials, molecular diagnostics, and individualized combination-treatment strategies. His contributions also include national and international consensus work on CTCL classification, staging, clinical-trial design, response criteria, and management. Laboratory Research: For more than 20 years, Dr. Girardi has led a highly collaborative NIH- and foundation-supported research program at Yale focused on cutaneous lymphoma, skin immunobiology, epithelial carcinogenesis, and translational therapeutic development. His laboratory has made foundational contributions to understanding how local immune populations regulate skin homeostasis, inflammation, cancer initiation, and tumor progression. The group was among the first to establish the antitumor capacity of gamma-delta T cells; delineate the coordinated but distinct roles of alpha-beta and gamma-delta T cells in cutaneous inflammation and carcinogenesis; and identify important tumor-promoting roles for Langerhans cells, interferon-producing/perforin-deficient CD8-positive T cells, and IL-22-producing, skin-resident innate lymphoid cells. The laboratory’s work has also defined mechanisms by which stress-induced NKG2D ligands reshape local immune compartments and influence tumor immunosurveillance.In cutaneous lymphoma, Dr. Girardi’s research spans disease genetics, immunobiology, molecular diagnostics, prognostic assessment, and therapeutic discovery. His group has contributed to defining the genomic landscape of CTCL, improving blood-based diagnostic assessment, developing FISH-based molecular tools for leukemic CTCL, identifying rational drug combinations, and advancing therapies targeting T-cell receptor V-beta families in T-cell malignancies. Current translational efforts include precision immunotherapy and antibody-drug-conjugate development directed at TCR-Vβ2-positive T-cell lymphomas and leukemias, as well as therapeutic nanoparticle platforms for cutaneous malignancies.Dr. Girardi is an inventor on seven issued biomedical patents, with five additional patent applications pending, related to cancer diagnosis, immunotherapy, dendritic-cell biology, skin-cancer prevention, drug delivery, and T-cell malignancy therapeutics. He is a co-founder of Yale spinout companies including Stradefy Biosciences and Artelis Biopharma, reflecting a sustained commitment to translating discoveries into clinical impact.His work has been published in Science (2), Journal of Experimental Medicine (3), Nature, Nature Immunology (4), Nature Genetics (2), Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (4), and Blood (4). His current Google Scholar record includes an h-index above 50, an i10-index above 120, and more than 13,000 citations. Selected Recent Awards and Recognition: Dr. Girardi received the 2025 Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Research Program Award and the 2025 American Cancer Society BrightEdge Entrepreneur Program Award. He was a two-time recipient of the Yale Blavatnik Award in Innovation, receiving the award in 2017 and again in 2023. Additional honors include the 2020 Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation Catalyst Award, the 2018 Journal of Immunology Pillar of Immunology recognition, the 2017 Zeligman Lectureship Award in Cutaneous Lymphoma from Johns Hopkins University, the 2017 Spatz Foundation Award for Cutaneous Lymphoma, and the 2022 Evans Endowed Professorship at Yale University. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.Academic and Professional Leadership: Dr. Girardi is the Evans Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair for Faculty Development & Scientific Innovation at Yale School of Medicine. He is the immediate past Residency Program Director for the Department of Dermatology, having held that role from 2000 through 2022, and is Co-Director of the NIH/NIAMS T32 Yale Investigative Dermatology Training Grant. He previously served as Co-Director of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center Immunology and Immunotherapy Program. His national and international leadership has included service on the Research Leadership Council and Board of Trustees of Advancing Innovation in Dermatology; former Editor-in-Chief of Dialogues in Dermatology; former Associate Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology; Director of the Society for Investigative Dermatology Annual Meeting; and leadership service with the United States Cutaneous Lymphoma Consortium and International Society of Cutaneous Lymphoma. Watch a video with Dr. Michael Girardi >> Dr. Girardi’s research programs include: Precision diagnosis and therapy for CTCL: Dr. Girardi leads a translational research program focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). Drawing on the clinical and biospecimen resources of the Yale Cutaneous Lymphoma Group, one of the largest specialized CTCL programs, his team integrates clinical phenotyping, genomic and transcriptomic sequencing, molecular cytogenetics, blood-based disease assessment, and functional drug screening to better define disease biology, improve diagnostic precision, identify prognostic markers, and accelerate therapeutic discovery. Current work includes development of FISH- and sequencing-based diagnostic strategies for CTCL, characterization of the genetic and immunologic features of malignant T-cell clones, and high-throughput screening of rational drug combinations. The laboratory is also developing targeted small molecules, precision immunotherapies, and antibody-drug conjugates for T-cell malignancies, including therapies directed against T-cell receptor V-beta subfamilies such as TCR-Vβ2. These efforts aim to create more selective, durable, and less toxic treatments for patients with advanced, blood-involved, relapsed, or treatment-refractory CTCL and related T-cell leukemias and lymphomas.Nanotechnology for cancer therapeutics: In collaboration with W. Mark Saltzman, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Douglas Brash, PhD, Professor of Genetics, Dr. Girardi is developing biodegradable, bioadhesive nanoparticle platforms for cancer prevention and treatment. Current approaches include nanoparticle-mediated delivery of chemotherapeutics and immune-stimulatory agents, including monophosphoryl lipid A-based formulations, to enhance antitumor activity within the skin while limiting systemic exposure. These approaches are being deployed into distinct programs for melanona, non-melanoma skin cancer, and perintoneal carcinomatosis (appendiceal, colorectal, gastric, ovarian, pancreatic). Local immunity and skin carcinogenesis: The Girardi Laboratory investigates how tissue-resident and recruited immune cells influence the initiation, evolution, and progression of cutaneous malignancies. Using genetically engineered mouse models, advanced immunobiology methods, single-cell and genomic approaches, and high-resolution confocal imaging, the group studies the roles of gamma-delta T cells, alpha-beta T cells, Langerhans cells, CD8-positive T cells, innate lymphoid cells, and stress-induced NKG2D-ligand pathways in epithelial transformation, tumor immune surveillance, mutagenesis, and inflammation-driven cancer development. These studies seek to define how local immune responses can either restrain or promote skin cancer and to identify immunologic targets for prevention and treatment.

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.

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania (1992)

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.

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.