Laurie H. Glimcher, MD receives the 2018 American Association of Immunologists Lifetime Achievement Award

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute President honored for scientific achievement and contributions to field of immunology

Laurie H. Glimcher, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute President and CEO, is the recipient of the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI).  The award recognizes her remarkable career of scientific achievement and contributions to the AAI and the field of immunology. This award is the highest honor bestowed by the AAI Council upon an AAI member.

Glimcher’s research has discovered key factors controlling immune responses in health, autoimmune and infectious disease. She has elucidated pathways that regulate CD4 T helper cell development and activation. Her laboratory identified c-maf as the transcription factor responsible for Th2-specific IL-4 expression and T-bet as the master regulator of IFN-y and the Th 1 phenotype. She has also contributed to the understanding of b-cell lineage commitment with the discovery of a transcription factor, X-box binding protein1 which controls plasma cell differentiation and the unfolded protein response.

Prior to joining Dana-Farber, Glimcher was the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean and Professor of Medicine of Weill Cornell Medicine and Provost for Medical Affairs of Cornell University. From 1991 to 2012 she served as the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School serving as Senior Physician and Rheumatologist at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital.