The team

Principal investigator

Javier E. Irazoqui, PhD

Professor, Department of Microbiology, UMass Chan Medical School

Javier Irazoqui leads the Laboratory of Comparative Immunology. He earned a Licentiate in Biotechnology at the National University of Rosario, Argentina, working with Diego de Mendoza, and a PhD in cell and molecular biology at Duke University with Daniel Lew. As a postdoctoral fellow with Frederick Ausubel at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, he turned to innate immunity and genetics, using C. elegans to study host defense.

He started his own lab in 2009 as Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, first in Pediatrics and then in the Center for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He joined UMass Chan as Associate Professor in 2016 and became Professor in 2024.

He is committed to mentoring and outreach. At Massachusetts General Hospital he created an NSF-sponsored summer research program for Boston high school science teachers and co-founded STEAM at Harvard. At UMass Chan he takes part in the Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD), the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), and the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP).

Honors

• Dr. Marcellette G. Williams Distinguished Scholar Award, UMass Chan Medical School, 2020 to 2025
• MGH Physician/Scientist Development Award for Scientific Excellence, Massachusetts General Hospital, 2013
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Charles A. King Memorial Trust, 2007 to 2008
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Foundation, 2003 to 2006
• Predoctoral Fellowship, US Department of Defense, 2001 to 2003
• Gold Medal for Academic Excellence, Argentine Chemical Society, 1997

Professional societies

• American Association of Immunologists (AAI)
• American Physiological Society (APS)
• American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
• Genetics Society of America (GSA)