Jeffrey V. Ravetch

Jeffrey V. Ravetch, M.D., Ph.D. is the Theresa and Eugene Lang Professor at the Rockefeller University and Head of the Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology. His research has focused on synthetic oligoribonucleotides, the genetics of viral replication and gene expression for the single stranded DNA bacteriophage f1, and gene characterization for human antibodies and DNA elements involve in switch recombination. From 1982 to 1996 Dr. Ravetch was a member of the faculty of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell Medical College. His laboratory has focused on the Fc domain of antibodies and the receptors it engages, determining the mechanisms by which this domain enables antibodies to mediate their diverse biological activities in vivo.

His work established the novel structural basis for Fc domain functional diversity and the pre-eminence of FcR pathways in host defense, inflammation and tolerance, describing novel inhibitory signaling pathways to account for the paradoxical roles of antibodies as promoting and suppressing inflammation. His work has been widely extended into clinical applications for the treatment of neoplastic, inflammatory and infectious diseases.

Dr. Ravetch has received numerous awards including the Burroughs-Wellcome Scholar Award, the Pew Scholar Award, the Boyer Award, the NIH Merit Award, the Lee C. Howley, Sr. Prize (2004), the AAI-Huang Foundation Meritorious Career Award (2005), the William B. Coley Award (2007), the Sanofi-Pasteur Award (2012), the Gairdner International Prize (2012), the Wolf Prize in Medicine (2015), the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine (2017) and the Robert Koch award (2018).

He has also presented numerous named lectures. Ravetch has contributed extensively to the scientific community by serving as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Cancer Research Institute, the Irvington Institute for Medical Research, the Damon Runyon Foundation, the medical advisory board of Gairdner Foundation, the Sanofi-Pasteur Award Jury and the L’Oreal Women in Science Jury. He has been active in biotechnology for the last two decades, and currently serves as a consultant or member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Asylia, Biohaven, Harpoon, IgGenix, Jasper, Palleon, Vir and Xencor.