Immunology

The Department’s Program in Immunology has a long and illustrious history, dating back to the momentous discoveries of Michael Heidelberger. Heidelberger, who is often regarded as the "father" of modern immunology by demonstrating that antibodies are proteins, joined the NYU Department of Pathology in 1964 and continued to work here until his death in 1991. His colleagues in immunology ranged from Zoltan Ovary, who elucidated the role of IgE in anaphylaxis, to Baruj Benacerraf, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on immune response genes and transplantation. Today, researchers in our Immunology Program cover virtually every aspect of modern immunology, from the molecular to the organismal levels.

Immunology Laboratories are studying questions ranging from lymphocyte signal transduction to immunological synapse formation, V(D)J recombination, regulation of gene expression by nuclear positioning, innate immunity, dendritic cell biology, and regulatory T cells. Many labs are working on medically relevant problems such as mechanisms of HIV pathogenesis and vaccines, allergy, lymphoma, autoimmunity, and tumor vaccines.