Gerald T. Nepom MD, PhD

Dr. Nepom is Director of the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, and former Director and founder of the Benaroya Research Institute, in Seattle WA, USA. His primary research interests focus on characterization of the human CD4 T cell response in autoimmunity, with an emphasis on type 1 diabetes (T1D), as well as the translation of immunological intervention strategies into innovative clinical trials. His laboratory is credited with several advances in human autoimmunity, including initial descriptions of HLA class II disease associations, structure, and function, and the development of human class II tetramers for direct T cell detection and analysis. Dr. Nepom also serves as an advisor for many academic and nonprofit organizations involved in biomedical research and is past president of FOCIS, the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. He has published over 350 scientific papers and received recognition through several awards, including the University of Washington School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award and the David Rumbough Award for Scientific Excellence from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.