The Calame Lecture in Immunology


This annual lecture series, instituted in 2009, honors Dr. Kathryn Calame, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University.

Dr. Kathryn Calame was a respected colleague and Professor of Microbiology in the department for over 20 years, and studied gene regulation in the immune system. Her research focused on transcriptional regulation of lymphocyte development, and led to the identification of a transcriptional repressor called Blimp-1 (B lymphocyte induced maturation protein) that plays an important role in development and function of both T and B cells.

Dr. Calame served as director of the Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular and Biophysical Studies at Columbia University, and was awarded a number of honors for her research, including being elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1993 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and being elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2007.

The 2009 Calame Lecture in Immunology, "Vaccination and Immune Memory" was delivered by Dr. Rafi Ahmed, Director of the Emory Vaccine Center on September 16, 2009.