Mark M. Davis, Ph.D.

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.

Mark 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.