Professor Mark M.Davis

Mark Davis obtained a B.A. in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, an M.D. in 1974, and a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1981. He worked on immunology research for more than 15 years, first as a post-doctoral researcher at the Immunology Laboratory of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, M.D., then as an instructor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York before joining the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he became a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1991. He also served for several years in the Advisory Committee of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Foundation. He is currently the Director of the Doctoral Program in Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Professor Davis’s research centers on the molecular basis of T cell and B cell recognition. In particular, he studied the biochemical basis of T cell receptor binding to antigen/MHC complexes. He and Professor Mak independently cloned the first gene for T-cell receptors, allowing these immune cells to recognize and inactivate foreign proteins and viruses. This groundbreaking work revolutionized the field of immunology. Davis and his group also described the augmentation of responses triggered in T cells as a result of antigen presentation by B cells, dendritic cells or macrophages.

Author of more than 180 papers, Professor Davis received numerous awards and distinctions including: the Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize from Caltech in 1981; the Passano Foundation Young Scientist Award in 1985; Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology in 1986; the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award in 1988; and the Gairdner Prize in 1989. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.