Professor of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt University
Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Immunobiology
Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation

Title: "Metabolic Control of Inflammation and Immunotherapy"

Dr. Rathmell studies mechanisms by which extracellular cues influence lymphocyte death and differentiation in efforts to control inflammatory diseases and leukemia. Following undergraduate studies on Biology at the University of Northern Iowa, he earned a Ph.D in Immunology on B cell tolerance and death mechanisms at Stanford University. In postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania, he showed that lymphocyte metabolism was dynamically regulated by growth factors and controls apoptotic mechanisms. He began at Duke University in 2003 in the departments of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology and Immunology, as well as a member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. Dr. Rathmell's group showed that the metabolism of T cells is highly dynamic and that specific metabolic programs are essential for each functional T cell subsets. These fundamental metabolic distinctions may now allow modulation of selective populations of lymphocytes in inflammatory diseases and anti-tumor immunity. He joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 2015 as Professor of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology to direct the Vanderbilt Center for Immunobiology and co-lead the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center Host Tumor Interactions Program. He is Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation and co-leader of the Molecular Pathology and Immunology Ph.D training program.

Chair of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute
Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center

Title: "The Expanding Role of Macrophages in Medicine"

Dr. Merad is an internationally acclaimed physician-scientist and a leader in the fields of dendritic cell and macrophage biology with a focus on their contribution to human diseases. Dr. Merad identified the tissue resident macrophage lineage and revealed its distinct role in organ physiology and pathophysiology. She established the contribution of this macrophage lineage to cancer progression and inflammatory diseases and is now working on the development of novel macrophage-targeted therapies for these conditions. In addition to her work on macrophages, Dr. Merad is known for her work on dendritic cells, a group of cells that control adaptive immunity. She identified a new subset of dendritic cells, which is now considered a key target of antiviral and antitumor immunity.

Dr. Merad leads the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine (PrIISM) to bring immunology discoveries to the clinic. PrIISM integrates immunological research programs with synergistic expertise in biology, medicine, technology, physics, mathematics and computational biology to enhance our understanding of human immunology. She also founded the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Mount Sinai, one of the world’s most sophisticated research centers, which uses cutting-edge single-cell technology to understand the contribution of immune cells to major human diseases or treatment responses.

Dr. Merad has authored more than 200 primary papers and reviews in high profile journals. Her work has been cited several thousand times. She receives generous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her research on innate immunity and their contribution to human disease, and belongs to several NIH consortia. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. She is the President-elect of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). In 2020, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field of immunology.

Please visit Dr. Merad's Lab website: http://www.meradlab.org/

Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine
Director of the BIG Center

Title: "Decoding Brain’s Health Through Its Juices"

The Kipnis lab investigates how the nervous and immune systems talk to each other in health and disease. We have discovered lymphatic vessels in the tissues surrounding the brain, a finding that has challenged some of the previous dogmas in the field of neuroimmunology and increased our knowledge and understanding of how the immune system impacts neurological diseases. Our goal is to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying nervous and immune system interactions in neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental and mental disorders as well as in physiology (healthy aging).