Mark M. Davis facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mark M. Davis ForMemRS
Davis in 2016
Born	(1952-11-27) November 27, 1952 (age 71)
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University California Institute of Technology
Awards	Gairdner Foundation International Award William B. Coley Award Howard Taylor Ricketts Award King Faisal International Prize Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research
Scientific career
Fields	Immunology
Institutions	Stanford University
Thesis	Programmed DNA rearrangements during differentiation : immunoglobulin class switching (1981)
Doctoral advisor	Leroy E. Hood (advisor) Edward B. Lewis (co-advisor)

Mark Morris Davis ForMemRS (born November 27, 1952) is an American immunologist. He is the director of and Avery Family Professor of Immunology at the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection at Stanford University.

Education

Davis was educated at Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he was awarded a PhD in 1981 for research supervised by Leroy E. Hood.

Research

Davis is well known for identifying the first T-cell receptor genes, which are responsible for T lymphocytes ability to "see" foreign entities, solving a major mystery in immunology at that time. He and his research group have made many subsequent discoveries about this type of molecule, subsequently, specifically concerning its biochemical properties and other characteristics, including the demonstration that T cells are able to detect and respond to even a single molecule of their ligand-fragments of antigens bound to Major Histocompatibility Complex cell surface molecules. He also developed a novel way of labeling specific T lymphocytes according to the molecules that they recognize, and this procedure is now an important method in many clinical and basic studies of T cell activity, from new vaccines against cancer to identifying "rogue" T cells in autoimmunity. In recent years his has increasingly focused on understanding the human immune system, from developing broad systems biology approaches to inventing new methods to help unravel the complexities of T cell responses to cancer, autoimmunity and infectious diseases.

Awards and honors

Davis has won numerous awards including:

• Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research with Tak Wah Mak in 2021