Congratulations Chris Hunter and Warren Leonard!
Dr Christopher A Hunter and Dr Warren J Leonard were selected as Distinguished Fellows of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) in this year’s class. Dr Hunter and Dr Leonard are Past-Presidents of International Cytokine and Interferon Society (ICIS) and of the International Cytokine Society (ICS), respectively.
This honor is bestowed by AAI to recognize members for distinguished careers and outstanding scientific contributions as well as their service to AAI and the immunology community. It honors active, long-term members who, have demonstrated excellence in research accomplishment in the field of immunology; exceptional leadership to the immunology community in academia, foundations, nonprofits, industry, or government at a national or international level; and/or notable distinction as an educator.
Dr Christopher Hunter is a Distinguished Professor of Pathobiology, at Penn Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He studied Zoology, specializing in Parasitology, Bachelor Degree (B.Sc), and pursued his doctoral studies (PhD) at the University of Glasgow. He did his training as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Department of Neurology at University of Glasgow, and then as a research fellow in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease Research Institute, at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr Hunter’s research team has been working on various aspects of basic parasitology since 1994. For nearly 25 years, Dr. Hunter’s team has focused on understanding how the immune response to Toxoplasma gondii is regulated to allow the development of protective immunity as well as to limit T cell mediated pathology in multiple sites including the gut and brain. Thus, the Hunter Laboratory team has focused on the innate events that lead to the development of long-term protective immunity mediated by T and B cells. These studies led them to develop expertise in cytokine biology and, while the focus has been in understanding their role in infectious disease, these findings are frequently relevant to cytokine function in autoimmunity and inflammatory processes associated with human disease. For example, as part of studies to understand how IL-12 family members affect immunity to the T. gondii, they showed that IL-27 was important in limiting the T cell-mediated infection-induced inflammation. They defined the mechanisms used by IL-27 to influence the immune system and their work has been shown to be relevant to inflammatory processes in multiple experimental systems that includes other infections as well as models of autoimmune inflammation, asthma and cancer.
Dr. Warren J. Leonard is a NIH Distinguished Investigator in the Molecular Immunology Branch at NHLBI. He received his A.B. in mathematics, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University and his M.D. from Stanford University. After completing residency training in medicine at Barnes Hospital and a year of research in biochemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Leonard came to the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow in the Metabolism Branch, National Cancer Institute. He began directing his own laboratory in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and then joined the NHLBI.
Dr. Leonard’s laboratory focuses on the biology, signaling, and molecular regulation of a key family of cytokines, the common gamma chain family of cytokines, with studies ranging from basic molecular mechanisms to human disease. Early in his career, Dr. Leonard characterized the human receptor for the immune cytokine IL‑2 and cloned the IL-2 receptor alpha chain (IL-2Ralpha), the first cloning of a receptor for a type 1 cytokine. He then discovered the existence of the IL-2 receptor beta chain (IL-2Rbeta) and then had a major breakthrough in which he discovered that mutations in the gene (IL2RG) encoding the human IL-2 receptor gamma chain (IL-2Rgamma) result in X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (XSCID, also known as the “Bubble Boy Disease”) in humans, what led him to predict that IL-2Rgamma serves a broader purpose and demonstrated that it is a common gamma chain, shared by the receptor complexes for IL-4, IL-7, and IL-9. Subsequent studies added IL-15 and IL-21 as additional common gamma chain family cytokines. Moreover, his team has discovered multiple specific forms of immunodeficiency, including JAK3-deficient SCID and IL7R-deficient SCID. Finding that JAK3 mutations result in immunodeficiency led Dr. Leonard and colleagues to hypothesize that inhibitors of JAK3 would be immunosuppressive, with the development of tofacitinib by Pfizer (FDA-approved in 2012); a broad range of other JAK inhibitors are now in clinical use, demonstrating the broad utility of this class of therapeutics. Dr. Leonard’s lab also cloned the receptor for IL-21, a pleiotropic cytokine with broad actions, including in T and B cell biology, and has elucidated its roles as an anti-cancer agent as well as a cytokine that promotes autoimmune disease.
Congratulations to both of you and we hope you continue doing outstanding scientific contributions in immunology and, of course, in cytokines and interferons research field!
This story was contributed by Signals+ Editor Maialen Sebastian-delaCruz, Ph.D. Connect with her on LinkedIn.