Jim Kaufman
Chair of Immunology，University of Edinburgh

Jim Kaufman has been working on various aspects of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) for almost 50 years, much of that time trying to understand the evolution of the MHC by studying animals other than humans and mice, particularly chickens. He worked at Harvard University as a PhD student, the Basel Institute for Immunology as his first independent position, the Institute for Animal Health as the head of the Division of Immunology, the University of Cambridge as the Professor of Comparative Immunogenetics, and now the University of Edinburgh as the Chair of Immunology. He and his group continue to work from genes, genetics and genomics to biochemistry and cell biology, cellular immunology, infection studies and now to population genetics, all to understand the structure, function and evolution of immunity. Recently, people in the group have been studying not only chickens but also passerine birds, Tasmanian devils, rabbits and bats, along with work on T cell receptors, on natural killer receptors and ligands, and on a low-tech high-throughput experimental approach to determining T cell epitopes.