In acknowledgment of her outstanding achievements, Dr. Buckner will present her cutting-edge research in an award lecture, which will be preceded by the official award presentation on Sunday, May 5, 2024, at the AAI’s annual meeting, IMMUNOLOGY 2024, in Chicago.
“Jane has been a pioneer in expanding our knowledge of the human immune system in health and disease,” said Steven Ziegler, Ph.D., principal investigator and director of external collaboration at BRI. “Perhaps more importantly, she has been at the forefront of creating infrastructure to allow others, including me, to expand their research from model systems into humans. She led the way and we all followed.”
Dr. Buckner’s current research focuses on engineered regulatory T cells, a groundbreaking new approach that uses a person’s own cells to treat autoimmune diseases. Most autoimmune disease treatments slow down the entire immune system, leaving a person vulnerable to infections. This approach holds the promise of a highly-targeted treatment aimed at the root cause of disease — and could potentially open the door to cures. Her team is first examining this approach in type 1 diabetes and plans to apply it to other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. As a practicing rheumatologist, Dr. Buckner’s patients are the driving force behind her work and her motivation to find better treatments and cures. She became BRI’s president in 2016 and has since been steering the organization toward the bold and transformative vision of a healthy immune system for everyone.
Previous winners of this prestigious award include Nobel Prize laureate James P. Allison as well as Carl June, who pioneered the development of CAR-T cell therapy.
