Mark M. Davis

Mark is the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor of Immunology, Director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection, and Chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

His research focuses on how T cells and B cells recognize specific antigens and behave following such interactions. This includes the structural and biochemical underpinnings of T cell receptor binding and signal transduction and the dynamics of molecular movement at the T cell/antigen-presenting cell interface. He discovered the T cell receptor gene, developed peptide-MHC tetramers to study T cell populations capable of recognizing specific targets, and elucidated and quantified specific events at the immunologic synapse required for T cell function.

He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed articles and books and received numerous awards and honors for his work, including memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Medicine, and the Royal Society.