The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) honored Dr. Richard Flavell and Dr. Lieping Chen.
Flavell, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and chair of the Department of Immunobiology, will be presented with the AAI Excellence in Mentoring Award at the association’s annual meeting in May. The award recognizes the importance of the mentor-trainee relationship for an individual’s professional development and career.
Flavell, who is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, joined the Yale faculty in 1988. He studies innate and adaptive immunity, T cell tolerance and activation in immunity and autoimmunity, apoptosis, and regulation of T cell differentiation.
Chen will receive the AAI-Steinman Award for Human Immunology Research which recognizes “an individual who has made significant contributions to the understanding of immune processes underlying human disease pathogenesis, prevention, or therapy.” He is the United Technologies Corporation Professor in Cancer Research and professor of immunobiology, of dermatology and of medicine (medical oncology). He is also co-director of the Cancer Immunology Program at Yale Cancer Center.
Chen’s discoveries have revolutionized cancer treatment and led to the development of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibody therapy against a broad spectrum of advanced human cancers. He studies lymphocyte costimulation and coinhibition and their application in treating human diseases.
The American Association of Immunologists is an organization of professionally trained scientists from around the world dedicated to advancing the knowledge of immunology and its related disciplines, fostering the interchange of ideas and information among investigators, and addressing the potential integration of immunologic principles into clinical practice. The AAI serves its members by providing a center for the dissemination of information relevant to the field and its practices, such as educational and professional opportunities, scientific meetings, membership-derived issues and opinions, and important social and political issues.