Chair's Message
Welcome to the Department of Immunology! We are a vibrant community of 63 scientists and 141 graduate students located in the Medical Sciences Building at the St. George campus, at both the Scarborough and Mississauga campuses, and in 8 hospital-based research institutes across the city. We are also home to more than 1650 undergraduate students studying Immunology at the University of Toronto. While we are large and diverse, we are also tightly knit, gathering frequently for visiting speaker and student seminars, science retreats, and many memorable social events.
Our department strives to make Immunology accessible and fun for trainees at all levels. We have 37 course offerings ranging from our first year undergraduate course Immunology in the News to our graduate-level Recent Advances in Clinical Immunology. We offer Specialist, Major and Minor programs at the Undergraduate level; Graduate degrees in Applied and Fundamental Immunology; and a Post-Doctoral training program that reaches across all 11 research sites. We are proud to have trained some of today’s most prominent Immunologists who are leading teams in Academia and Industry around the world. As a former trainee of the Department of Immunology, I am honoured to serve as its Chair.
The University of Toronto occupies the 3rd position on the 2023 Annual Tables for health sciences (Nature). Because of its excellence in research on the innate and adaptive immune response, autoimmunity, cancer immunology, infectious disease and beyond, the Department of Immunology is an important part of this collective success story. Working together with other outstanding Departments at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, we aim to improve the lives of Canadians through scientific discovery and education.
This is an exciting time to be an Immunologist! We have come through a devastating pandemic with new insights into how to train the immune system to fight pathogens, how to convey complex information to the public, and, most importantly, how to work together quickly and effectively. But we can’t stop now! Our outstanding clinician and basic scientists, educators, administrators, and trainees are committed to understanding the complexities of the immune system and translating this knowledge into therapies and cures.
If you want to learn more, please drop by my office on the 7th floor of the Medical Sciences Building – my lab is just around the corner. Over coffee we can contemplate how research and education in Immunology can make the world a better place.
See you soon!
Jen Gommerman, PhD
Professor & Chair
Department of Immunology, University of Toronto
Canada Research Chair in Tissue-Specific Immunity.