Yale Immunologist Peter Cresswell Receives Named Professorship
A Howard Hughes Investigator is appointed Eugene Higgins Professor of Immunobiology at Yale.
Published April 14, 2009
Peter Cresswell was appointed the Eugene Higgins Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University. Cresswell’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of antigen processing, in which fragments of proteins from viruses, bacteria, and other disease-causing organisms bind to the major histocompatibility complex molecules on human cells during an infection. These molecules are recognized by T lymphocytes and are critical for making effective immune responses to infectious agents. His laboratory is also investigating the antiviral mechanisms of proteins inducible by Type 1 and Type 2 interferons. One such protein, viperin, mediates resistance to infection by influenza virus and human cytomegalovirus. Cresswell has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1991, when he joined the Yale faculty as a professor in the Department of Immunobiology. He is an HHMIinvestigator, a member of the National Academy of Sciences editorial board, and associate editor of Immunity.