PROGRAM RATIONALE
Of all disciplines in biomedical science, immunology is the most directly applicable to medicine. Many conceptual and technical advances in fundamental science, such as the discoveries that DNA is the gene substance, and that immunoglobulins are composed of heavy and light chains have resulted from clinical studies of diseases such as pneumococcal pneumonia and multiple myeloma. Immunologists have pioneered in the conquest of diptheria, rheumatic fever, and glomerulonephritis. Conceptual and technical advances in fundamental immunology, such as the identification of histocompatibility antigens or methods for producing monoclonal antibodies have been applied soon after their discovery to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many human diseases (e.g., cancer, arthritis, diabetes, autoimmune and infectious diseases), and to tissue and organ transplantation. The faculty participating in this program are leaders in basic, applied, and clinical immunology, and have an established record of educating students and fellows who themselves have gone on to successful careers in immunology and related disciplines in academia and industry.
The program’s faculty span the range of fundamental disciplines relevant to immunology: crystallographic analysis of molecules of the immune system (Wayne Hendrickson), biology of T and B cells (Kathryn Calame, Leonard Chess, Gerald Siu), signal transduction (Steven Greenberg, Seth Lederman, Jeremy Luban, Eugene Marcantonio, Paul Rothman, Christian Schindler), innate immunity and inflammation (Steven Greenberg, Howard Shuman, Samuel Silverstein, David Stern), neoplasms of cells of the immune system (Riccardo Dalla Favera, Steven Goff), and acquired immunity, autoimmunity and tolerance (Ned Braunstein, Leonard Chess, Robert Winchester). In addition to their participation in this Immunology Program, these faculty participate in six different New York State approved Ph.D. programs sponsored by the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Microbiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, and the Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular, and Biophysical Studies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.
Two thirds of the faculty hold primary or joint appointments in clinical departments and lead or participate in clinical research programs in rheumatology and autoimmune diseases (Braunstein, Chess, Winchester), asthma and pulmonary diseases (Greenberg, Rothman), diabetes and organ transplantation (Stern), degenerative diseases (e.g., atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and the spongiform encephalopathies)(Schindler, Silverstein, Stern), infectious diseases (Luban, Shuman, Silverstein, Winchester) and lymphoid neoplasias (Dalla Favera). Thus, one of the program’s great strengths is the opportunity to participate in studying human diseases of immunological origin. This breadth of training, and the opportunity to work with investigators whose work extends from bench to bedside and from bedside to bench, prepares the Program’s participants for an unusually wide spectrum of career opportunities in biomedicine.