Alan Aderem, PhD

Institute for Systems Biology

Alan Aderem PhD has studied the interface between the innate and adaptive immune systems for more than twenty-five years. He obtained his PhD at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Dr. Zanvil Cohn. Dr. Aderem rose through the ranks at The Rockefeller University, becoming head of the laboratory of Signal Transduction in 1991. In 1996, he accepted a Professor of Immunology and Medicine position at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2000, Dr. Aderem co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) with Drs. Leroy Hood and Ruedi Aebersold. ISB is an interdisciplinary institute that focuses on global analysis of complex biological systems, including the immune system.

Dr. Aderem has served as the editor of several journals including the Journal of Experimental Medicine and Interdisciplinary Reviews: Systems Biology and Medicine. His awards and honors include a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a Pew Scholars award and awards from the Burroughs Welcome Fund and the American Heart Association. Dr. Aderem has organized a number of scientific meetings including Gordon and Keystone Conferences on immunology and systems biology, and he serves on the advisory committees of several foundations and companies.

Internationally, Dr. Aderem was appointed Chair of the Parliamentary Review Commission of the Medical Research Council of South Africa in 2001 and 1996, and is currently a science advisor to the South African government. His long-term interests include diseases afflicting citizens of developing countries, including AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; the Science Steering Committee of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise; the International Advisory Board of the Management Committee of the Centre for Integrative Systems Biology at Imperial College, London; and as an Advisory Board Member of the International Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University.