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.