INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER

David Underhill got his Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Physiology from Washington University in St. Louis and did postdoctoral training in innate immunity and macrophage biology at The Rockefeller University and the University of Washington. Dr. Underhill moved to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2005 where he is currently Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Sciences, and the Janis and William Wetsman Family Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He was the founding director of the Cedars-Sinai Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Sciences and Translational Medicine. Dr. Underhill’s work focuses on understanding how the body recognizes bacterial and fungal microbes in order to mount immune responses that are either inflammatory and protective against infection or tolerant and permissive to commensal microbes. His group has a particular interest in mechanisms of phagocytosis and the role of the fungal microbiome in inflammatory disease.