Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Arup K. Chakraborty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citation:

"For the leading role in initiating the field of computational immunology, aimed at applying approaches from physical sciences and engineering to unravel the mechanistic underpinnings of the adaptive immune response to pathogens, and to harness this understanding to help design vaccines and therapy."

Background:

Arup K. Chakraborty is one of the 12 Institute Professors at MIT. He is also a Professor of Chemical Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry at MIT. He served as the founding Director of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and he is a founding member of the Ragon Institute of MIT, MGH, and Harvard. He recieved a B. Tech from IIT Kanpur (India) and PhD from the University of Delaware. For over two decades now, Chakraborty’s work has largely focused on bringing together approaches from statistical physics with immunology, and virology. His interests span T cell signaling, development of the T cell repertoire, and a mechanistic understanding of virus evolution, antibody responses, and vaccine design. Since 2016, Chakraborty has also been deeply interested in the role of phase separation in eukaryotic gene regulation. Chakraborty is one of only 25 individuals who are members of all three branches of the US National Academies – National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and National Academy of Engineering. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has received many other honors including the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the E. O. Lawrence Medal (DOE), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Colburn, Professional Progress, and Prausnitz Institute Lectureship from the AIChE. Chakraborty has received 6 teaching awards for his classroom teaching. He is a co-author of the recent book “Viruses, Pandemics, & Immunity”.