Rafael Cristian Casellas PhD

Dr. Rafael Casellas was born in Buenos Aires and lived in Geneva, Paris, and Helsinki before coming to the United States, where he received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1996. He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Immunology from Rockefeller University in 2002. There, he worked under Dr. Michel Nussenzweig studying the role of immunoglobulin gene expression and recombination in the establishment of B cell tolerance and peripheral activation. From 2002 to 2003, he did postdoctoral training with David Baltimore at the California Institute of Technology.

There, Dr. Casellas continued his molecular studies of B cell activation and developed new mouse gene targeting techniques. In December 2003, Dr. Casellas moved to the NIAMS where he is currently a senior investigator and head of the Laboratory of Genomics & Immunity. Dr. Casellas is also serving as an adjunct investigator at the Center for Cancer Research, NCI.