Announcing the 2019 Election Results

Christopher Hunter, B.Sc, Ph.D.
Department of Pathobiology
Mindy Halikman Heyer President’s Distinguished Chair
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, USA

As a Lifetime member of the ICIS it would be an honor to serve as president-elect of the International Cytokine & Interferon Society. The society has provided me with many opportunities to interact with other scientists and contribute to our community. For example, I partnered with Steve Smale to organize the International Cytokine Society meeting in 2007 in San Francisco, was a co-organizer with John O’Shea and Fiona Powrie of the Keystone Biology of Cytokines meeting in 2012 and co-organizer with Kate Fitzgerald and Anne O’Garra of the ICIS conference in Boston in 2018. I would bring my organizational skills and a broad appreciation of cytokine biology to the society and would hope to build additional bridges between the ICIS and our corporate partners. The last 25 years have seen remarkable progress in the use of cytokines as therapies as well as the development of drugs that have targeted cytokines or their signaling pathways which have transformed the management of chronic inflammatory conditions, immunology and cancer treatments. The foundations for many of these discoveries are based on basic and translational research performed by ICIS members in academia, regulatory research institutes and pharmaceutical laboratories. I strongly believe that our goals should be to:

1. Encourage the next generation of interferon and cytokine scientists who are key to the long-term success of the society.
2. Work to diversify our membership and expand the geographical reach and impact of the society worldwide and
3. Ensure that financial support for the annual meeting provides the opportunity for our members to present the most cutting edge discoveries in interferon and cytokine biology in order to facilitate collaboration and dissemination of this research.  

Christopher Hunter is recognized as an international leader in the role of cytokines in the induction of innate and adaptive immunity to infection, as well as their role in the resolution of inflammatory processes. His collaborative studies with the academic and biotechnology communities over the last 25 years on the IL-12 family members has helped to define their role in the induction of cell mediated immunity that have been broadly relevant to many types of inflammatory processes. For example, his discovery that IL-27 was a potent inhibitor of cell mediated immunity has formed the basis for work on its therapeutic potential in cancer and autoimmunity and continues to be a focus of the laboratory. 

Professor Hunter obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry (1989) at the University of Glasgow, Britain and a post-doctoral fellowship at Glasgow developed his interest in the role of cytokines in infectious disease of the CNS. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University (1992-1996) with Jack Remington, before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania (1996-present). There his research group continues to study the cytokines that influence innate and adaptive immunity to infectious diseases. He has provided extensive service as a journal editor or member of editorial boards as well as extensive peer review for the NIH. He also served as Chair of the Department of Pathobiology (2007-2018) and Director of the Center for Host-Microbial Interactions (21012-2018). He is currently the Mindy Halikman Heyer President’s Distinguished Chair (2015-present).

Hunter Lab Website