Biography
Jeffrey L Platt, MD, is Professor of Surgery and Microbiology & Immunology, and head of the Transplantation Biology Program. He received his medical training at the University of Southern California, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the University of Minnesota. He has held professorships at Duke University and the Mayo Clinic. He has published more than 500 papers and five books. He has received Clinician Scientist and Established Investigator awards from the American Heart Association, a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health and election to the Association of American Physicians and Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Platt's research focuses on the biology of experimental surgery, particularly transplantation and related fields. The research poses such questions as how does the immune system become activated by microorganisms and by foreign cells and how does the activated immune system control the growth of microorganisms and injure transplants. As one important line of inquiry, Dr. Platt investigates the mechanisms through which a graft, or any tissue, acquires resistance to immune-mediated injury, a phenomenon Dr. Platt originally described and named "accommodation." Accommodation may be vital to the survival and function of organ transplants and to the eradication of infectious organisms without unwanted destruction of tissue. As another example, Dr. Platt investigates how diverse repertoires of B cells and T cells develop, how they are maintained, and how immunity can be reconstituted for treatment of immunodeficiency, chronic viral infection, and cancer. Also investigated are endogenous mechanisms of activation and control of toll like receptor function in health and disease, interaction of stem cells and engineered tissues with the immune system and the mechanisms and implications of cell fusion.