The Committee on Immunology offers a graduate program of study leading to the Ph.D. in Immunology, as well as an undergraduate specialization in Immunology, and courses for medical students. The program provides multidisciplinary training in all aspects of Immunology that includes a core immunology curriculum and several advanced graduate level courses in specialized areas. The training also integrates the basic biological sciences with the clinical sciences in an effort to develop new immunological approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of various immune diseases and cancer. Approximately thirty students are enrolled in the Ph.D. program, which has won training grant support from the NIH continuously for over thirty-five years.
Biochemist Donald F. Steiner, SM’56, MD’56, discovered proinsulin, the first “pro-hormone” and precursor to insulin. The 1965 finding led to the synthetic production of human insulin, markedly improving therapy for diabetes sufferers, and laid the groundwork for improved understanding of how other proteins in the body are made.
