Michael J. Bevan
University of Washington
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Primary Section: 43, Immunology and Inflammation Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2008)
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Research Interests
As a cellular immunologist I study the development of T lymphocytes in the thymus and the response of mature T cells to pathogens. The focus of study is the subset of T cells that bear the CD8 marker and that can kill infected cells expressing their target antigen, so-called cytotoxic T lymphocytes. I noted the phenomenon known as "cross-priming" whereby professional antigen presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, process antigen from foreign or infected cells for presentation to cytotoxic T cells. Also, that the T cell receptor repertoire is positively selected in the thymus by weak interactions with self molecules was first reported by me. More recently, my lab has investigated the requirements for the activation of CD8 T cells, their full effector function and their further differentiation to fuctional memory cells. All of these studies are performed with mice as the model organism.
