William E. Paul Lecture

This annual lecture, begun in 2016 and part of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, honors the legacy of Dr. William E. Paul. Dr. Paul was a leader of the NIH immunology community, and his career was without parallel in the field of immunology.

Immunology From First Principles

Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.
Yale School of Medicine

William E. Paul Lecture

Ruslan Medzhitov was born in 1966 in Tashkent. He earned a Bachelor of Science at Tashkent State University before going on to pursue a PhD in biochemistry at Moscow State University. In 1992 he read an article by Charles Janeway about a hypothetical flip-flop triggered innate immunity. 

Thymic Mimetic Cells: Tolerogenic Masqueraders

Diane Mathis, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School

William E. Paul Lecture

Autoimmunity results from a breakdown in one or more central or peripheral mechanisms of lymphocyte tolerance induction or maintenance. In the case of T cells, central tolerance is imposed within the thymus, key orchestrators being medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs), which play critical roles in both negative selection of T effector cells and positive selection of T regulatory cells. A unique feature of mTECs is expression of thousands of loci encoding antigens typically associated with fully differentiated peripheral parenchymal cells (peripheral-tissue antigens or PTAs).

Gaining New Insights into 'Fundamental Immunology' Using Imaging and Computation

Ron Germain, M.D., Ph.D.
NIAID, NIH

William E. Paul Lecture

Dr. Germain will describe the critical role of imaging in developing a deep understanding of how the innate and adaptive immune systems operate in health and disease. He will provide examples of how dynamic intravital imaging has revealed basic information about cell migration and interactions within lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues and how this method discovered a previously unknown role of tissue resident macrophages in preventing persistent tissue damage by neutrophil ‘swarms’.

Cytokine Signaling: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

John O'Shea, M.D.
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, NIH

William E. Paul Lecture

Investigation of the basic mechanisms by which cytokines and interferons exert their effect led to the discovery of a new paradigm in cell signaling, namely the JAK-STAT pathway. These discoveries revealed a remarkably direct mode of regulating gene expressing but also provided insights into mechanisms of human disease and impetus to generate a new class of therapeutic agents. With new tools, it has also become clearer that cytokines and interferons have a profound epigenomic impact, and they themselves have complex genomic organization.

Human Antibody Responses to SARS-CoV-2

Michel C. Nussenzweig, M.D., Ph.D.
The Rockefeller University

William E. Paul Lecture

Dr. Nussenzweig will speak about the development of antibody responses focusing on neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoViD-2. Over a decade ago, the Nussenzweig laboratory developed methods for rapid antibody cloning from humans in order to understand humoral immune responses to pathogens beginning with HIV-1. These methods have been widely adapted by others facilitating antibody cloning for multiple human pathogens and their clinical development.

Evolution of Adaptive Immunity in Vertebrates

Max D. Cooper, M.D.
Emory University School of Medicine

William E. Paul Lecture

Phylogenetic studies indicate that T cells and B cells have been constant companions in vertebrates for more than 500 million years. For antigen recognition, however, lymphocytes in the jawless vertebrates (lampreys and hagfish) use variable lymphocyte receptors that are composed of leucine-rich repeat sequences instead of immunoglobulin V(D)J and C domains. Convergent evolution may account for these alternative solutions to achieve specific adaptive immunity.

Standing on the shoulders of mice: adventures in human immunology

Mark M. Davis, Ph.D.
Stanford University

William E. Paul Lecture

While inbred mice have been a very powerful model for analyzing the immune system, recent advances, both technological and conceptual, have begun to make direct studies of the human immune system possible. This is vitally important from a translational perspective, as mouse models of disease have not been as productive as hoped for in producing “actionable intelligence” with which to diagnose and treat patients.

The two faces of the IL-15- Janus Kinase-Stat system: implications for the immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases and cancer

Thomas A. Waldmann, M.D.
National Cancer Institute

William E. Paul Lecture

Dr. Walmann will present the annual William Paul lecture. Dr. Waldmann defined the IL-2 receptor alpha and beta subunits using the daclizumab antibody he discovered, an antibody that is approved by the FDA. He co-discovered IL-15 and performed the first in-human clinical trial with this agent in patients with malignancy. Furthermore, Waldmann defined molecular abnormalities of the common gamma cytokine, Jak/Stat signaling pathway in HTLV-1 associated adult T-cell lymphoma and translated this discovery with a trial of a Jak inhibitor in patients with this disorder.

Stressed out: a novel approach to cancer immunotherapy

Laurie Glimcher, M.D.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

William E. Paul Lecture

Dr. Glimcher is President and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Principal Investigator and Director of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the proposed Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously, she was the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean and Professor of Medicine of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, and Provost for Medical Affairs of Cornell University. Prior to her work at Cornell, Dr.

This page was last updated on Thursday, September 29, 2022