Duane Wesemann, MD, PhD

Department of Medicine, Division of Genetics, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
President’s Scholar, 2022

Biography

Dr. Wesemann is an immunologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also an associate member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard and a member of the Food Allergy Science Initiative. He cares for patients with immune deficiency, immune dysregulation, and allergy and leads a laboratory studying fundamentals of adaptive immunity. His laboratory is deciphering fundamental biological principles underlying antibody developing, including the human antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. In addition to projects focused on fundamental aspects underlying adaptability of antibodies, his laboratory has mapped out how antibodies recognize the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants and has illuminated features underlying longer lived antibody and broader responses. Dr. Wesemann is leading a multidisciplinary of researchers on a Program Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health with the aim of uncovering the fundamental immunology necessary to guide the development of the broadest coronavirus vaccine possible. He is also a recipient of an NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award to innovate new vaccine development technologies. He is a member of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery and the Massachusetts Consortium for Pathogen Readiness. The Wesemann laboratory supports a vibrant academic environment for training and promoting an inclusive and supportive scientific environment to train the next generation of scientists.