Yale immunologist named HHMI investigator

John D. MacMicking, Ph.D., associate professor of microbial pathogenesis, is one of 26 scientists named in May as investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

MacMicking is a leading expert in the emerging field of cell-autonomous immunity—the ability of most nucleated cells, not just those of the immune system—to defend against infection via sophisticated antimicrobial strategies evolved to deal with a wide array of microbial pathogens. Many of these strategies are orchestrated through interferon (IFN) signaling pathways essential for host resistance to major infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria. In work begun at The Rockefeller University and continued at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), he and his lab members identified a new superfamily of enzymes termed IFN-inducible GTPases in both immune and non-immune cells that play a critical role in this unusual form of host defense.

An HHMI announcement about MacMicking’s selection noted that his “discoveries about how individual cells protect themselves against viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens is forcing scientists to reconsider what constitutes the boundaries and breadth of the traditional immune system.”

MacMicking earned his B.Sc. at the Australian National University in Canberra and his Ph.D. at the Sloan-Kettering Institute-Cornell University Medical College in New York City. He was a HHMI Life Science Research Foundation Fellow and adjunct assistant professor at The Rockefeller University before being recruited to YSM.

MacMicking has been recognized as a Searle Scholar, an Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation Fellow, a Cancer Research Institute Investigator, and a Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Investigator in the pathogenesis of infectious disease. In 2014 he was named both an American Asthma Foundation Scholar and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovator.

A non-profit medical research organization with an endowment of more than $16 billion, HHMI was founded by businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. The HHMI’s grants to scientists from 19 institutions across the United States for basic biomedical research are worth $153 million over the next five years. The new investigators—who include four current HHMI early career scientists—were selected for their individual scientific excellence from 894 eligible applicants, and are expected to begin their appointments this fall.