Immunogenetics - Editors' Profiles

Editor-in-Chief

Prof. Ronald E. Bontrop
Biomedical Primate Research Centre, Department of Immunobiology, Rijswijk, The Netherlands

Ronald Bontrop began his biochemistry studies at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1977, and joined Professor Jon van Rood's group at the Leiden University Hospital in 1983. The theme of his research was the biochemical and functional characterization of HLA class II molecules. He defended his Ph.D. thesis successfully in 1987, and in that same year he made the move to the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) in Rijswijk, the Netherlands.As a post-doctoral fellow, Ronald was engaged in characterizing the major histocompatibility complex of nonhuman primate species such as the chimpanzee, the rhesus macaque, and the common marmoset. In 1998, he was appointed General and Scientific Director of the BPRC.He also has an appointment as Professor of Comparative Immunogenetics at the University of Utrecht. His main research team is currently centered on the characterization and comparative genetics of complex recognition families encoded by the immune system, with particular attention being paid to the co-evolution of pathogens and immune recognition systems.In 1989, he initiated and organized the international symposium “The primate MHC: implications for evolution and disease”. This meeting was the first in a series that later became known as the MHC and Evolution Conferences. In addition, he is active in various international scientific societies, and was, for instance, a member and chairman of the scientific committee of the European Federation of Immunogenetics (EFI) from 2004 until 2015. He joined the Editorial Board of IMMUNOGENETCS in 1991, and became Editor-in-Chief in 1997.

Co-Editors

Prof. Andrew Brooks
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Australia

Andrew Brooks completed a Ph.D. in immunology at Flinders University in South Australia, focusing on antigen presentation by MHC class II molecules. He then moved to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, where he studied recognition of HLA class I molecules by natural killer cells.As a post-doctoral fellow, he focused his work on the natural killer inhibitory receptor CD94-NKG2, which led to the identification of HLA-E as its ligand. After returning to Australia, he set up a laboratory in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne in 1999, where he has continued to work on the immune recognition of HLA and HLA-like molecules. He became an Associate Professor in 2009, a Professor in 2013, and Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 2016, as well as Deputy Director of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. His research interests are varied, and include exploring the impact of genetic variation in killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR), T-cell receptors, and HLA class I on the activation of natural killer cells and T cells, and how this affects viral infection and transplantation. He also engages in more basic work, analysing innate immunity to viral infections and defining mechanisms of antigen presentation.

Prof. Martin F. Flajnik
University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA

Martin Flajnik earned his Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Rochester (NY) in 1983, and completed his postdoc at the Basel (Switzerland) Institute for Immunology under Louis Du Pasquier, a pioneer in the study of comparative immunology.Flajnik’s first faculty position was at the University of Miami School of Medicine (SOM) in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology (1988-1998), where he became an assistant professor in 1988 (since which time he has been funded by the NIH) and a full professor in 1996. He has toiled at the University of Maryland Baltimore (SOM) ever since. His research has always been focused on the evolution of adaptive immunity, and studies have included thymic education; MHC biochemistry and genetics; emergence and function of immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy and light chain isotypes; hypermutation of Ig and TCR genes; gamma/delta TCR structure and function; emergence of costimulatory molecules; the advent of lymphoid tissues and their function in selection; mucosal immunity; and single-variable domain antibodies, for which he is best known. He became a co-editor of IMMUNOGENETCS in 2001, replacing David Watkins.