Rafick - Pierre Sékaly

Dr. Sekaly is the Richard J. Fasenmyer Professor of Immunopathogenesis at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Director of the Center for Systems Immunology, and member of the Hematopoietic and Immune Cancer Biology Program at the Case Western Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Sekaly’s lab has been focused for the past 20 years on developing a better understanding of the human immune response to vaccines and to chronic viral infections, with a specific focus on cancer and HIV infection. Over the past 7 years, Dr. Sekaly and his team have implemented the use of system biology approaches to monitor the diversity of memory T cells and to identify the mechanisms underlying it. His group has also pioneered the application of systems biology approaches to the understanding of mechanisms of action of the licensed vaccines and adjuvants, and has shown for the first time the diversity of the mechanism that lead to the establishment and persistence of different memory T cell subsets. Dr. Sekaly’s work has led to more than 342 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and more than 23 patents. He has been a principal investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health and foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.