Anthony DeFranco PhD

Anthony DeFranco received a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979 for studies of bacteria chemotaxis. After postdoctoral studies in immunology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, he joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of UCSF in 1983, where he has been Professor since 1994. In addition to teaching immunology to medical, pharmacy, dental and PhD students, he conducts research on the signal transduction mechanisms of the B cell antigen receptor, and on the role of Toll-like receptors for in vivo immune responses in mouse models of infection and autoimmune disease. His studies are relevant to vaccine design and understanding the mechanisms of human autoimmune diseases, especially systemic lupus erythematosus.

From 1999-2009, Dr. DeFranco served as the Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He served a member of the Experimental Immunology Study Section of NIH from 1993-1997 and as its Chair from 1995-1997. Dr. DeFranco served on the Scientific Advisory Board of Abgenix, Inc., a company engaged in making monoclonal antibody therapeutics between 1998 and 2004, and in 2012 he served on the Immunology Scientific Advisory Board for UCB Pharmaceuticals, which develops drugs and biological therapies for immune-related disorders. Together with Dr. Richard Locksley of the Department of Medicine, UCSF, he is the author of an immunology textbook designed for graduate and medical students and which has been translated into French and Japanese: DeFranco, Locksley, and Robertson, Immunity: The Immune Response in Infectious and Inflammatory Disease, Sinauer Press 2007.


Appearances