Connecting the dots: using imaging and systems biology to better understand immune system function

Ronald N. Germain 

M.D.    Ph.D.

Chief, Laboratory of Systems Biology
Chief, Lymphocyte Biology Section, LSB

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

National Institutes of Health

Education: 

       1970 Sc.B., Brown University, Providence, RI

       1970 Sc.M., Brown University, Providence, RI

       1976 Ph.D., Harvard University, Boston, MA

       1976 M.D., Harvard University, Boston, MA

Ronald N. Germain received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976, the PhD for research with B. Benacerraf, recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Since that time, he has investigated basic T-cell immunobiology, first on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and, since 1982, as the Chief, Lymphocyte Biology Section in the Laboratory of Immunology and now as Chief of the new Laboratory of Systems Biology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Over the years, he and his colleagues have made key contributions to our understanding of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class II molecule structure–function relationships, the cell biology of antigen processing, and the molecular basis of T cell recognition. More recently, his laboratory has been focused on the relationship between immune tissue organization and dynamic control of adaptive immunity at both the initiation and effector stages. Experiments at the whole cell, tissue, and organism level are being used to build a more complete picture of the operation of the immune system, including those utilizing novel dynamic in situ microscopic live animal imaging methods that his laboratory helped pioneer a decade ago. Efforts are also underway to create computer models of immune system function based on these studies. Dr. Germain has published more than 300 scholarly research papers and reviews. Among numerous honors, he was elected as an Associate (foreign) member of EMBO (2008), an AAAS Fellow (2012), an honorary member of the Scandinavian Society of Immunology, awarded the Landsteiner Medal of the Austrian Society for Allerology and Immunology (2008), selected as a Distinguished Lecturer, American Association of Immunologists (2006), presented numerous named lectureships at major academic institutions in the US and abroad, and named an NIH Distinguished Investigator.  He serves as an associate or advisory editor of the J Exp Med, Immunity, Current Biology, Mol Systems Biol, Int Immunol, BMC Biology, Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, and Nature Scientific Reports, and has previously served as Deputy Editor of J Immunol and Editor, Immunity. He sits on several academic scientific advisory boards, helped co-found the NIH Immunology Interest Group and Systems Biology Interest Group, and acts as Associate Director for the trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology.

He has trained more than 35 postdoctoral fellows, several of whom hold senior academic and administrative positions at leading universities and medical schools around the world.

Time: Oct 23(Wednesday), 2013; 9:15

Venue: Room143, New Biology Building, THU

Host: Prof. Hai Qi

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