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Mark M. Davis

Academic Appointments

Contact Information

  • Academic Offices
    Administrative Contact
    Barbara Whyte Administrative Assistant Tel Work 650-725-4755

Professional Snapshot

Administrative Appointments

  • The Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor of Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine (2007 - present)
  • Director, Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, Stanford University School of Medicine (2004 - present)
  • Chair, Stanford University School of Medicine - Microbiology & Immunology (2002 - 2004)

Honors and Awards

  • Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize, Caltech (1981)
  • Passano Young Scientist Award, Passano Foundation (1985)
  • Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology, American Society of Microbiology (1986)
  • Howard Taylor Ricketts Award, University of Chicago (1988)
  • Gairdner Prize, Gairdner Foundation (1989)
View all 18honors and awards of Mark Davis

Education & Community

Professional Education

  • Ph. D., Caltech, Molecular Biology (1981)
  • B.A., The Johns Hopkins University, Molecular Biology (1974)

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

Scientific Focus

Research Interests

We are interested in the molecular basis of T and B lymphocyte recognition, as well as the control of differentiation and functional responses in these cells. In particular, we have studied the biochemical basis of T cell receptor binding to antigen/MHC complexes and find that the strength of the interactions is a very good predictor of what the resulting T cell response will be. We also find that T cell receptor-peptide/ MHC complexes have an inherent ability to form oligomers and that this could be part of the ‘trigger’ for T cell activation. One spin-off of these biochemical studies has been the development of tetrameric peptide/MHC reagents which have proven to be generally useful for staining and characterizing antigen-specific T cells in complex mixtures of lymphocytes (i.e. McMichael and Callaghan, J. Exp. Med., 187:1367-1371, 1998). Among other things, we have used these tetramers to follow tumor specific T cells in patients with Melanoma and other cancers. In one patient where we see a substantial number of CD8+ T cells specific for a tumor antigen, the cells have no cytolytic activity and thus seem to have been ‘anergized’ by the tumor. We are now working with a number of groups that have developed different vaccination strategies to determine which strategies are best able to produce a useful response.

Another important aspect of T cell recognition that is something of a ‘black box’ is the mystery of what actually happens on the surface of T cell while it is surveying an antigen presenting cell. To investigate this we have made a large series of green fluorescent protein tagged cell surface molecules, expressed them in B or T lymphocytes and followed their movements using multi-color video microscopy. Thus far we find that many key molecules (ICAM-1, CD48, class II, MHC) on the B cell cluster to the interface with a T cell within seconds after the first rise in internal calcium (in the T cell) and the corresponding movement of complimentary membrane...

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