A World-Renowned Immunology Expert: Professor Dr. Derya Unutmaz

Today, in disease treatment, the importance of immunology (the science ofthe immune system ) is increasing. Treatments against many diseases are being developed involving T-cell manipulation. Let us meet Professor Dr. Derya Unutmaz, a Turkish scientist recognized worldwide in such an important field:

Derya Unutmaz received his medical degree from Marmara University Faculty of Medicine in Istanbul in 1991. He completed doctoral and postdoctoral studies in Novartis’s immunology department in Basel, Switzerland; the Novartis and Chiron Corporation Immunobiology Research Institute in Siena, Italy; and New York University’s Skirball Institute. In 1999, he became associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. In 2006, he was appointed associate professor of microbiology at New York University School of Medicine, later adding appointments in medicine and pathology. His research has received more than 21 thousand citations; he is a scientist with more than seven awards and various patents.

Since 2014, he has worked as Professor in Genomic Medicine at The Jackson Laboratory, an independent nonprofit biomedical research institution. It has a cancer center in Bar Harbor meeting United States National Cancer Institute standards, facilities in Sacramento, and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington. It has more than 1600 employees. Its mission is to find precise genomic solutions for diseases and empower the global biomedical community in its quest to improve human health.

Professor Derya Unutmaz’s Groundbreaking Immunology Research

For optimal immune responses against infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and disorders during aging, Professor Derya Unutmaz’s research addresses human T-cell differentiation, activation, and regulation as part of these research areas.

In particular, he has investigated how T-cell subgroups are disrupted during infection with the AIDS-causing HIV virus. He also studies the diversity and mechanisms of regulatory T-cell-mediated immune suppression and the effects or functions of human Th17 cell subsets.

Professor Derya Unutmaz has focused for years on HIV and its effects on the immune system. He also examines HIV infection’s role in the development of other diseases. His laboratory’s discoveries include the role of cytokines (proteins made by immune cells) in making CD4 + T cells more vulnerable to HIV infection, and how HIV specifically affects and disrupts human T-cell subsets, including natural killer T cells, regulatory T cells (Tregs), and IL-17-secreting (Th17) cells.

Professor Unutmaz received research support over 5 years totaling 3 million dollars from the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. With this support, he seeks better diagnostic and treatment methods for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome).