IMMCG to host Inaugural Margaret-Gertraud Immunology Lectureship

The Immunology Center of Georgia at Augusta University will host the Inaugural Margaret-Gertraud Immunology Lectureship on Thursday, Feb. 19. The event will be held in the J. Harold Harrison MD, Education Commons on AU’s Health Sciences Campus and will feature world-renowned immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunology at the Yale University School of Medicine.

Iwasaki will present, “Science Behind Failure to Recover From Infections.” The lecture will be at 4 p.m. with a reception to follow at 5 p.m. Those who wish to attend are asked to RSVP by Jan. 20.

The lectureship was made possible through a gift from IMMCG co-directors Catherine “Lynn” Hedrick, PhD, and Klaus Ley, MD, during the 2024 Augusta Gives philanthropy campaign. The new lectureship, named in honor of their late mothers, Margaret and Gertraud, respectively, aims to advance immunology education and research. Additional support for the lectureship has come from generous sponsors.

“We are very excited to kick this lectureship off with a scientist of Dr. Iwasaki’s international distinction,” said Ley, Georgia Research Alliance Bradley Turner Eminent Scholar in Immunology and professor of physiology. “Her work has fundamentally advanced our understanding of how the immune system responds to viral infections and why, in some cases, recovery is incomplete. Equally important is her deep commitment to mentorship, demonstrated through her support of trainees and early-career faculty during the pandemic and through the rigorous training of young investigators in her laboratory as they prepare for independent scientific careers. This lecture will offer valuable insight for established researchers and clinicians, as well as the next generation of immunologists.”

About Akiko Iwasaki, PhD

Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunology and professor of dermatology; molecular, cellular and developmental biology; and epidemiology (microbial diseases) at the Yale University School of Medicine, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Global Health. Iwasaki is the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity and is at the forefront of several long COVID investigations including the Mount-Sinai Yale Long COVID study, Yale LISTEN study and Yale Paxlovid trial. She has been a leading scientific voice during the COVID-19 pandemic and is also well known for her social media advocacy on women and underrepresented minorities in the science and medicine fields.

Her research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at mucosal surfaces, which are a major site of entry for infectious agents. She has more than 350 publications to her name, has been listed as a co-author on 228 works and her work has been cited over 61,000 times.

In the Iwasaki Laboratory, her team focuses on understanding how viruses infect the host through the mucosal surfaces to cause diseases, how the immune system deals with viral infections within these local tissues, how acute infections lead to long-term diseases and how to use such insights to design vaccines and therapeutics against acute and chronic viral diseases, post-viral diseases, autoimmunity and cancer. Her team studies immune responses to a variety of viruses including herpes simplex viruses, Zika virus, influenza viruses, rhinoviruses and retroviruses – with the most recent focus being on SARS-CoV-2. Her work has led to the development of mucosal vaccines that can prevent infection, transmission and recurrent diseases.

Iwasaki received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Toronto and completed her postdoctoral training with the National Institutes of Health before joining Yale’s faculty in 2000.

She has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2014. Iwasaki has received many awards and honors including the Keio Medical Science Prize in 2025, Forbes 50 over 50 Innovation 2024, TIME 100 Most Influential People 2024, TIME 100 HEALTH Most Influential People Affecting Global Health 2024 and the Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research 2023.

She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021 and was appointed President of American Associations of Immunologists in 2023. She was named to the 2023 STATUS list of the ultimate list of leaders in life sciences.