Mark M. Davis

Mark M. Davis is the Director of the Stanford Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection (ITI), the Avery Family Professor of Immunology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is well known for identifying many of the T-cell receptor genes, which govern specificity for T cells, and his work characterizing their binding properties and behavior on cell surfaces, including the demonstration that T cells can detect and respond to even a single antigenic peptide-MHC complex. He also developed a novel way of labeling specific T lymphocytes (“peptide-MHC tetramers”), which is widely used in both clinical and basic immunology studies. His current research interests focus on human immunology, specifically a “systems level” understanding of an immune response to vaccination, infection and autoimmunity, as well as methods to better understand human T cell responses. He received a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology with Leroy Hood. He was also a postdoctoral and staff fellow William Paul at the Laboratory of Immunology at the NIH before joining the Stanford faculty. He has received many honors and awards, including the Gairdner Award, the Paul Ehrlich Award and the King Faisal Prize, among others. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Royal Society of London.